Creating a blog is a wonderful way to share your ideas and opinions with the world. But beyond being an outlet for creative expression, blog posts can also lead to substantial website traffic, social media shares and backlinks.
In order to reap the most benefits from your articles (and this type of website), they need to be well written at an optimized length. This leads us to the pressing question, "how long should a blog post be?"
At Wix, we've been in the business of blogging, for over a decade (and perfecting how to make websites for a lot longer) and learned a lot of great lessons along the way, including the ideal blog post length. In this article, we'll "spill the tea" with our insider tips on how long your posts should be, the benefits of long-form content and how to execute writing a rock-solid longer piece.
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How long should a blog post be?
The ideal blog post length is between 1,500 - 2,500 words, with a sweet spot right at 2,450. When you stay within this average, your articles are more likely to rank higher on search engines, get more social media shares and backlinks. We came to this conclusion after in-depth industry research and analyzing our very own results from the Wix Blog.
However, while these numbers are a good place to start, there is no “one size fits all” solution as different topics require different depths of content. To fine-tune your article length, think of the reasons why you chose to start a blog in the first place and the type of blog you want to share.
Here is the general correlation between blog post word count and the kind of content it’s commonly used for:
Less than 300 words: Blog posts with less than 300 words are rarely ever recommended. If or when they are used, it is mostly for generating discussion with the goal of getting comments. This length is not good for SEO or social media shares.
300 - 600 words: This average blog post length used to be considered “standard” in the past. Now, this window of words is too short for showing authority to rank on search engines as it won’t typically give you enough room to go deep on a topic.
600 - 800 words: This range is most common in professional journalism and in newspaper articles. Also, product description and encyclopedia entries often fall in this word count window. These articles can begin to get you some shares and backlinks.
1,300 - 1,700 words: Here you will often find “What is ...” blog posts. Once you enter this territory, you will see a lot more social media shares and more educational valuable content that gets backlinks. This word length is also commonly used by influencers that write promotional posts.
1,700 - 2,100 words: This is an ideal blog post length for “How to ...” articles. Additionally, here you will begin seeing good opportunities for lead conversion and organic traffic from search engines.
2,300 - 2,500 words: Welcome to the golden blog post length as determined by search engines. A common blog post format seen here is listicles, as they tend to give a complete picture at length. These articles are typically thorough and educational, and therefore have a much higher chance of ranking on search engines. When you write a post of this type, you will have the highest chance of getting valuable traffic to your website and convert visitors into leads. Here at Wix, our blogging team tries to stay in this sweet spot whenever possible. In fact, this article itself is 2,476 words.
4,000 words: Pillar pages and thorough guides are the most common types of articles written using 4,000 or more words. These posts are all-encompassing articles that cover a topic in extreme detail in order to build authority.
Determining the ideal blog post length
As we just discussed, you should decide how long a blog post should be one article at a time, after you've made your website. To help you make the best choice in each case, there are few questions to consider before you start typing:
What’s your blog topic and its expected comprehensiveness?
Depending on the blog topic idea you’re writing about, there are different depths of content expectations. A blog post about why you should go vegan might be different in average blog post length from a listicle of all the best hostels to stay around the world. The same goes for your general subject matter. Chances are a book blog will be wordier perhaps, than a travel or fashion blog.
Who is the audience you’re writing for?
A best practice in writing the right length article is knowing your audience, focusing on the reader, and understanding their intent. Put yourself in their shoes and imagine exactly how much information they're expecting and hoping to get, you'll be better able to choose the right average blog post length of your article.
It’s important to consider whether the audience is amateur or advanced topic experts already. Their level of knowledge will allow you to know if you need to give a lot of extra background information before jumping in, how deeply into a topic you need to go and how many words it will take to do so.
Which goal are you looking to achieve?
A blog post’s goals can vary from ranking on search, getting social shares to driving sales. Once you know exactly what it is you’re hoping to get out of the piece, you can refer back to the blog length chart to match your goals to the average word count.
How long are the competing blog posts that are currently ranking?
There is no need to reinvent the wheel. Type in the most relevant keyword related to your topic into a search engine and reference currently ranking blog posts to see how in-depth they are.
Next, do a quick word average blog post length count for each of the articles. This will help you know what length of an article search engines have deemed appropriate for answering the subject you’re covering.
The 3 benefits of long-form blog posts
By now, we’ve determined that the closer your article is to 2,450 words, the better for your blog post’s performance. But why is longer-form content preferred? Don’t people get tired of reading so many words and then bounce, lowering your relevancy? Not necessarily. There are 3 main benefits of longer blog posts you should consider:
01. Longer blog posts lead to more time on page
40% of people stay longer on the page with long-form content. Naturally, the longer an article is, the more time it will take a person to read it or at least skim through the sections and headings. This extra time spent on your post can help send positive signals to search engines that your article is relevant and high quality, and therefore worthy to rank in a good position.
Additionally, if you’re monetizing your blog from serving ads or adding affiliate links, you get more opportunities to display your promotions, and hence greater chances to make a profit.
02. More words equal more social shares and backlinks
It’s been proven that long-form content between 1,000 - 2000 words generates 77% more backlinks and 56% more social shares than content shorter than 1,000 words. This is great for boosting your authority as a writer, whether you're guest posting or writing for your own blog.
One possible explanation for this is that people are most likely to find value in a longer post, thus being more likely to share such helpful content with their network or link to it as a source.
03. Long-form content drastically improves SEO
Search engines' missions are to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible. They aim to show trustworthy, well-researched, reliable results to its billions of users. Therefore, writing a 300 word blog post is very unlikely to uncover a topic enough to rank. To improve your blog SEO performance, stick to longer-form content that can prove value and authority.
Remember, showing up for widely searched keywords can highly increase your traffic and result in more conversions and business opportunities for you. So even if writing those additional 700 words might feel like a hassle, it can pay off big time.
According to Ashwin Balakrishnan, B2B SaaS growth and content consultant at Optmyzr,
"High quality content remains the foundational essence of ranking in search. And it especially helps if you think of it as part of your marketing mix rather than as an SEO tactic. But what does helpful content look like? Based on my experience of what people like to click on and link to, you want to match what's already ranking (this is what we refer to as "meeting search intent") and then layer on some degree of uniqueness e.g. data, research, expert quotes, thought leadership, etc. When you combine the two, you give people what they're looking for but you present it in a way that only you can. This is how you create differentiation without going off topic."
The downsides of long-form blog posts
Long-form blog posts can be a great way to provide your readers with in-depth information on a topic. However, there are also some potential downsides to long-form blog posts, including:
01. Longer blog posts can be time-consuming
Long-form blog posts can be time-consuming—for both you and the reader. They require a lot of research, writing, and editing. This can be a significant investment of time, especially if you are not used to writing long-form content. This can also be daunting for some readers. If your post is too long, readers may lose interest and stop reading before they reach the end. This is especially true if your content is not well-organized or if it is not engaging.
With all that said, nowadays, you can experiment with using AI to write your blog posts.
02. Long-form content may not be as shareable
Short-form content, such as infographics or videos, is often easier to share on social media. This means that long-form blog posts may not get as much exposure as shorter pieces of content, and it might not have the same potential to go viral. It is more difficult to promote because it is harder to share on social media and to get people to read long-form content in its entirety. This doesn't mean that you should throw out your long-form strategy altogether, but it is a downside to consider before you get started.
03. It can be difficult to stay on topic
When you are writing long-form content, it can be easy to get sidetracked and to start discussing topics that are not relevant to your main point. This can make your content less cohesive and less effective. To avoid this, it is important to have a clear outline of your content before you start writing. This will help you to stay on track and to make sure that your content is well-organized. You should also be careful to avoid introducing new topics unless they are directly related to your main point.
How to write long-form blog posts
We’d hate to send you off lost without knowing how to produce long-form blog content. This is why we’ve come up with 10 easy-to-follow tips on how to write blog posts that are longer, more detailed and most importantly - rank. Trust us, we follow all these steps in each blog post we write.
01. Do all your research before you start
To prevent getting overwhelmed with writing a longer piece, it's best to do all your research beforehand. You should fully understand the topic, how competitors went about it, your goals and which audience the article is targeting.
As we mentioned before, read the top 10 blog posts that are currently ranking on search results. A bonus tip is to see what Google suggests in the “People also ask” section. These questions can give you more ideas of what you should be covering in your post.
02. Pick strategic keywords to use in your article
Each topic you choose to analyze or problem you wish to solve comes down to keywords and phrases. Keywords are what curious readers plug into search engines to arrive at articles, blog posts or even business websites.
Wondering how to do keyword research? With the help of blogging tools and keyword planners like Ahrefs, Google Keyword Planner or Semrush, you can strategically find high search volume keywords related to your post to include in your article.
It’s best practice to include the keyword in the blog post title, introduction, SEO description, and a few times throughout the article. Doing so will help search engines understand that your article closely correlates to the search phrase and will be more likely to rank your blog post.
03. Create a brief and detailed outline
Putting together a brief helps prepare your outline, which helps you lay out your article. In this preparation phase, write bullet points on what each section of your post will cover, which of your other blog posts you might want to link to, and where you’ll place keywords. All of this makes it much easier to write the piece.
04. Clearly label headings and sections
We all know that we’re suckers for skim reading when we’re short on time. By writing headings that clearly define each section and break down sub-ideas with H2 and H3 headings, readers can skip around the article to the areas most valuable and relevant for them. Try to keep the headings between 3-10 words as a rule of thumb.
Good headings will help you keep readers on your site longer since they will be able to navigate the blog post better and find exactly what they need, as opposed to being overwhelmed and leaving your page. A pro tip is to include a table of contents at the top of your post, such as the one you can find at the beginning of this section, to introduce your main points.
05. Use images to break up paragraphs
There are two main benefits of using images in your blog posts. First, studies showed that bloggers who added ten-plus images to their blog post reported stronger results. Secondly, images are a wonderful way to break up longer text and not overwhelm or bore the reader. As they say, “a picture is worth a thousand words” and can therefore help you bring your points across. Lastly, don’t forget to add alt text to your images for both accessibility and image SEO purposes.
06. Vary sentence structure
Reading written content is a lot like listening to harmonic music. There should be rhythm and flow, with a change in beats from time to time. If you think of your sentences as music, try to alternate shorter and longer sentences to engage the reader and produce better quality writing.
07. Include bullet points and numbered lists
The first thing we’ll say is:
Readers
Love
Bullet points
And lists
Longer articles need to be well organized, logical and easy to follow. Incorporating both bullet points and numbered lists into your post will be key to getting your points across clearly.
Like using headings to break down the overall blog post into shorter sections, include bullet points and numbered lists to expand on your ideas within sections. If you are outlining steps in a guide, listicles are especially helpful for explaining what to do in which order.
08. Write readable text in active voice
At the end of the day, the point of your writing is for people to get the information they need. In literature, there is a metric called readability score that ranges between 0 to 100, rating the years of education required to understand the content. The goal is to meet a reading score of 60 or higher on your blog posts so people with an average educational background and reading level can easily comprehend your writing.
Furthermore, when it comes to ranking on search engines, AI-powered bots crawl your site and blog posts to understand your content. When you write readable text in active voice (as opposed to passive voice), the bots can better digest and understand your ideas. If search engines can see how well-written your article is, they will be much more likely to rank it in a high position.
09. Keep paragraphs short and include transition words
Aim to keep your paragraphs to 100 words or less and only cover one idea per paragraph. People might get intimidated by long paragraphs and possibly skip them altogether.
Within these sections, include transition words when navigating between different points that are less related to one another. The goal is not to lose your readers and letting them know where your next thought is heading to.
Also, be aware that over 60% of searches are being done on a mobile device. On a smaller screen of a mobile device, paragraphs become more narrow and hence look longer. If you think a section is getting lengthy as you write it on your desktop, it will look even longer on a phone. So go ahead and don't be afraid to hit enter and break those ideas into multiple parts.
10. Add your original perspective
You should cover the topic’s main points, even if they’ve been penned already. However, you should also put your own spin on it. After all, people have come to your blog to learn from you. Share with the world your unique perspective and opinion on the subject. This originality is what people will appreciate and why they'll come back to read more.
How long should a blog post be FAQ
What is the ideal length of a blog post?
The ideal blog post length is between 1,500 - 2,500 words, with a sweet spot right at 2,450. This length allows you to provide your readers with enough information to be informative and helpful, while also keeping their attention.