The ideal length for a blog

The length for a blog post can determine how many people decide to read your content, bookmark your site and hit the share button. Unfortunately, there has been confusion about finding the happy medium between keeping content short and sweet, or beefing it up to provide even more information to your readers. Several factors also influence how likely visitors to your site are to read your content. These include changes to Google algorithm updates and the fact that more and more people are accessing the internet via mobile devices. However, research has proven that longer blog posts (between 1250 and 2500) words tends to rank highly on SERPs and get read and shared more widely. If you are still unsure about the correct length for your blog posts, considering the following factors should help you decide on a course of action:

1. How will your target audience access your content?

People who read content on mobile devices are looking for quick information and do not have time to browse through multiple pages in order to find what they want. Conversely, people on a laptop or desktop have the luxury of larger screen sizes and can therefore take their time reading through your content. Determining how the majority of your readers access the internet is therefore one of the most crucial factors in determining blog length.

2. Remember that SERPs rank longer blog posts higher

Research continues to show that search engines rank sites with longer content higher than those with short ones. The average blog length for a site ranking on the first page has been found to be 2450 words, while many pages ranking in the top 10 results had at least 2000 words. Keep this in mind when deciding on the blog post length and picking the right keywords to boost your ranking.

3. Long posts are shared more

People who take the time to read longer blog posts are looking for quality information and are thus more likely to share your content if it meets their needs.

4. Longer posts have greater conversion rates

Longer blog posts have been proven to have up to 70% higher conversion rates than short ones. In addition, they tend to attract higher quality leads as compared to short blog posts.

The length of your blog posts can determine the number of visitors you attract to your site, affect your SERP ranking and even affect your visitor conversion rates. By following a few strategies, you can decide on the ideal length for your blog, and start reaping benefits in terms of higher rankings, number of visitors to your site and many others.