Blog Post Length Case Study: Optimal Length for SEO & Engagement
Blog Post length case study: Blog Post Length Elements: When it comes to blog post length, many bloggers wonder whether size really matters. The more accurate response is that what works for a specific post on a given blog depends on the audience, the post topic, and the blog category. 3 Bears approach to blog post length In terms of size, blog post length tends to follow a three bears distribution: short, medium and long. 1. Short. (About 350 to 500 words.) Many bloggers prefer to post less content more frequently. The challenge is that this is a sweet spot for content generating firms that excel at search optimization. As a result, I recommend bloggers place themselves in a higher word count category to reduce competition. Don’t do this if you need to use filler content and extra words. 2. Medium. (550 to 1,000 words.) This is attributable to the pressures on readers’ attention span and efficiency. 3. Long. (Over 1,000 words.) In my experience, longer posts are among my most successful ones.
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Blog Post Length Case Study: Optimal Length for SEO & Engagement
- 1. Blog Post length case study: Blog Post Length Elements: When it comes to blog post length, many bloggers wonder whether size really matters. The more accurate response is that what works for a specific post on a given blog depends on the audience, the post topic, and the blog category. 3 Bears approach to blog post length In terms of size, blog post length tends to follow a three bears distribution: short, medium and long. 1. Short. (About 350 to 500 words.) Many bloggers prefer to post less content more frequently. The challenge is that this is a sweet spot for content generating firms that excel at search optimization. As a result, I recommend bloggers place themselves in a higher word count category to reduce competition. Don’t do this if you need to use filler content and extra words. 2. Medium. (550 to 1,000 words.) This is attributable to the pressures on readers’ attention span and efficiency. 3. Long. (Over 1,000 words.) In my experience, longer posts are among my most successful ones.
- 3. The data:
- 4. Content really is king: The serpIQ analyzed the top 10 search results for over 20,000 keywords and noticed a pattern. The average content length for a web page that ranks in the top 10 results for any keyword on Google has at least 2000 words. And the higher up you go on the search listings page, the more content each web page contains. Based on the graph above you can see that the first result typically has 2416 words and the 10th results has 2032 words. This shows that Google prefers content rich sites.
- 5. But the interesting part is, Google doesn’t prefer more content because they feel it is more valuable, they actually prefer content rich sites How Much Content do Ranking Pages Have?
- 6. Content Length by Domain Age Content rich sites get more links
- 7. The social web prefers content rich pages:
- 8. If a post is greater than 1500 words on average it receives 68.1% more tweets and 22.6% more Facebook likes than a post that is under 1500 words. You are becoming a better searcher Based on data released by Hitwise you are starting to use longer search queries when you search. 8 word search queries are up 34,000%. 1-word searches = 20.29%Â (previously was 19.02%) 2-word searches = 23.65%Â (previously was 32.58%) 3-word searches = 21.92%Â (previously was 25.61%) 4-word searches = 14.89%Â (previously was 12.83%) 5-word searches = 8.68%Â (previously was 5.64%) 6-word searches = 4.65%Â (previously was 2.32%) 7-word searches = 2.49%Â (previously was 0.98%) 8-word searches = 3.43%Â (no one did 8-word searches in 2004!) The general trend is that the percentage of people who are searching for 2 or 3 word phrases is decreasing and the percentage of people who are searching for 4, 5, or even 8 word phrases is increasing.
- 14. Final Conclusions: 1. Blog will be posting by Monday and Thursday morning before 6 Am. 2. For most SERPs it looks like at least 1500 words is a good target. 3. Need to Use long tail keywords.