The Optimal Blog Post Length

What is the ‘Optimal’ Blog Post Length?

When it comes to blog writing we’re often asked, what is the ‘optimal’ blog post length. According to Medium, the optimal blog post is 7 minutes, or 1,600 words in length. To come to this conclusion they measured the average total seconds spent on each post in comparison to the post length, while making adjustments for anomalies. The average total seconds rises for longer posts, peaks at 7 minutes, and then declines again. 

Image source: Medium

However, Medium also highlights that we shouldn’t force every post to be bang on 7 minutes. There is a great deal of variance, which can be influenced by many factors, such as the context, purpose and target audience for the blog content. 

You can use our calculator below to get a feel for the impact content length has on the read time.

Blog Post Shareability & SEO

The research from Medium doesn’t take into account shareability or SEO. Moz conducted a study into social shareability and content length and as can be seen below, long form content reigns supreme in this area. 

Image Source: Moz

However, that doesn’t inherently mean the blog post is being read in full or at all. According to The Verge,Tony Haile, CEO of Chartbeat, said “We’ve found effectively no correlation between social shares and people actually reading”. 

For SEO, HubSpot data suggests the ideal blog post length should be 2,100-2,400 words. They came to this conclusion based on the average length of their 50 most-read blog posts in 2019.

The ‘Optimal’ Blog Post Length For Your Industry

As mentioned prior, while these numbers are interesting, and good rules of thumb, they don’t take into account other variables like purpose, context and target audience.

With this in mind, we’re going to look into what industries are best suited for shorter form blog posts and which are best suited for longer form blog writing. This should help you in assessing what content type is best for your business, encouraging greater engagement, and shareability.

500-1000 Word Blog Post 

Longer posts do tend to perform better, however, there is still merit in regular shorter form content, especially in areas like fashion or gadgets, where the content is very visual and doesn’t require a lot of technical detail. 

While both industries appear to be on opposite sides of the spectrum, when it comes to blog content there are a lot of similarities. 

When producing content for either, there are likely to be lots of images filling out the post, whether you’re covering the next style trend, or a new gadget, the post is likely to be quite image heavy. This reduces the need for quite as much written content. Moreover, there is only so much you can say about either, without having extraneous information. it’s not like HR or finance, where there are a lot of technical elements to go into that require a higher level of detail. 

1000-2000 Word Blog Post

This type of word count is better suited for the following industries:

• Manufacturing
• Retail
• Real estate
• Home & Garden
• Technology
• Recruiting
• Food
• Travel
• Film

You can usually explain a product or service in any of these categories without a huge word count, making 1000-2000 words a good rule of thumb. Blog content in these industries is likely to be more visual centric, without too many technical details requiring longer word counts. 1000-2000 words will allow for topics to be well covered, without being excessive, alongside being optimal for SEO. If you’re using a lot of original research in your article and covering a unique topic area, you’ll likely want to head towards the top end of this word count.

2000-3000 Word Blog Post

This type of word count is perfect for the following industries:

• Fintech
• Finance
• Sales
• Marketing & Advertising
• Healthcare

These industries are a lot more detail orientated. Due to the complex nature associated with topics relating to these industries, substantial depth is required to adequately cover the subject matter.
In addition to this, you’re also having to compete at a much higher level for engagement and to rank in Google. Three of the factors contributing to this are;

• You’re competing against big companies with big budgets.
• You’re competing against major publications covering these topics like The New York Times, alongside countless research articles from top universities and other high ranking domains.
• With industries like marketing and advertising it’s especially hard, as virtually everyone is engaging in content marketing.

In order to get your content to stand out, you’re going to need to have top level blog posts that are filled with valuable & credible data.

3000+ Word Blog Post

A 3000+ word post blurs the lines between an article and guide. This is less about your industry and more about the type of information you’re trying to share. If you’re looking to create a long form guide, or cover a specific topic at great length, this is a great format. When it comes to blog writing, posting content at this length is certainly not a requirement, and we wouldn’t recommend making every post this sort of length. However, where it is used it can set you up as an authority, attract backlinks and shareability while adding to your existing content.

Conclusion

Don’t feel that you should be forced to keep content super concise, or conversely that you should make your content longer than needed, to cater for presumed shorter attention spans. If you put effort into your content, your audience will likely put the effort into reading it if it’s something they’re interested in.

New York Times Best Selling Author & marketing expert, Neil Patel reinforces this view, stating “It only matters if the content is good. Word count is not a standalone ranking factor. Word count only has merit if the content quality is high!”. Therefore whether your goals are SEO or engagement based, high quality content is critical.

That being said, for the best part the consensus is unanimous across the board. Longer form content is generally best whether it’s for SEO or engagement. We always advise opting for 1000 words or more per post, to get the most from your blog writing.

One final note, whatever the length of content, if it’s for a customer facing blog, we suggest making it about more than just you. Don’t just make every post a sales pitch, or an update on what your company is doing, focus on your customers and what they’ll be interested in reading. Create articles that will help them, inform them or even entertain them; create value. Long gone are the days of blogs being centred around selling yourself. Hubspot does an exceptional job at this, if you visit their blog, you’ll find mountains of useful content, and resources, none of which is about selling their products. It’s this kind of content that engages audiences and yields results.

If like many you’re lacking the time to write content or just need a little help topping up what your marketing team is already doing, you may well find our blog writing service useful. You can find more information on our services and pricing here.