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Preferred Length of a Blog Post

by SiegerVinnare
11 replies
What is the preferred length for a blog post for SEO purposes? I know many people say for an article that 500 words is a good amount but what if it is just a blog post and not a full fledged article? Are short blog posts still fine? Would they negatively affect SEO? What if it was a short blog post and you had an affiliate link in it?

Sometimes I find I add unnecessary sentences to my blog posts just to make them a bit longer to try and make google happy but it feels unnatural to me and I know google is really pushing the natural side of things these days. I don't do this for all posts but just some that to me seem too short, like 150-200 words. A lot of the time you don't need many words to say something meaningful or of relevance, I hope google's algorithm is aware of this.
#blog #length #post #preferred
  • Profile picture of the author chihuahua
    Same for me here I typically write 200 words, but I think just write what you are comfortable with and do not need to add extra. Best to be natural.
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  • Profile picture of the author Trevor M
    Originally Posted by SiegerVinnare View Post

    What is the preferred length for a blog post for SEO purposes? I know many people say for an article that 500 words is a good amount but what if it is just a blog post and not a full fledged article? Are short blog posts still fine? Would they negatively affect SEO? What if it was a short blog post and you had an affiliate link in it?

    Sometimes I find I add unnecessary sentences to my blog posts just to make them a bit longer to try and make google happy but it feels unnatural to me and I know google is really pushing the natural side of things these days. I don't do this for all posts but just some that to me seem too short, like 150-200 words. A lot of the time you don't need many words to say something meaningful or of relevance, I hope google's algorithm is aware of this.
    Seth Godin's posts are sometimes only a few sentences... and he seems to be doing pretty well
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  • Profile picture of the author SiegerVinnare
    Thanks for the replies. Being natural definitely seems the way to go these days thanks for the reassurance chihuahua.

    You make a very good point Trevor, I guess Seth Godin is doing okay :p
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  • Profile picture of the author Manoj V
    Blog posts should be a minimum of 500 words since Google favors pages with detailed content on them.
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  • Profile picture of the author TamilYoung
    Sieger, If that is for SEO purposes, specifically targetted for 1 or 2 keywords, I would suggest the post be minimum 500 words. True that Google is becoming smarter and smarter and gaining ability to differentiate value content and some junk thrown with a couple of keywords targetted to fool Google.

    If you are running short of words, try putting a small mindmap in a paper or whiteboard (takes 5-10 minutes), and brainstorm what additional value you can give to the topic. Think if we can talk about the negatives/opposite opinions. Think what critisizm or question your article can provoke and try adding a para to answer those. Simply use your creativity to find some areas to speak about and it will not be much difficult to add good value to the readers, and also pleasing Google for ranking.
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  • Profile picture of the author Nixgan
    SiegerVinnare,
    500 words in a blog? Isn't that like an overkill? You could actually cut the content into two halves and publish it for two days ! That will save a little brainstorming to think up blogs to write.

    Blogging is real cool and stuff but you might wanna do article marketing too. After all, the material you use for blogging can as well be made into an article ! Just post them on Ezine articles and soon you will be getting a whole lot of traffic ! If you don't wanna write them yourself, you can always get freelancers.com to write for you !

    P.S. : Post your article before using it on the blog because Ezine is real sensitive and if it senses another virtually similar article or blog online, they will reject your article ! They only want originals !

    Hope I helped, good luck to you !
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  • Profile picture of the author zanebury
    It is preferable to be within 500 words. Though, of course, if you are writing for the reader and not for Google, it can be any number of words.
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  • Profile picture of the author rado0
    As you want it for SEO, your posts should be at least 500+ words. It can go up to 1000 words. It is considered that longer posts are more favored by Google. Moreover, by including so many words within the page, you have good chances to rank well for many keywords which you don't even target. Did you know that over 60% of the Google searches come from unique searches that nobody can learn about from tools such as Samurai and Wordtracker?

    Anyways, try not to think only about SEO when you are writing a post. Whom are you writing this post for? The readers! You want traffic! Make sure your posts are complete and don't leave the reader hanging.
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  • Profile picture of the author kochtgr
    Originally Posted by SiegerVinnare View Post

    What is the preferred length for a blog post for SEO purposes? I know many people say for an article that 500 words is a good amount but what if it is just a blog post and not a full fledged article? Are short blog posts still fine? Would they negatively affect SEO? What if it was a short blog post and you had an affiliate link in it?

    Sometimes I find I add unnecessary sentences to my blog posts just to make them a bit longer to try and make google happy but it feels unnatural to me and I know google is really pushing the natural side of things these days. I don't do this for all posts but just some that to me seem too short, like 150-200 words. A lot of the time you don't need many words to say something meaningful or of relevance, I hope google's algorithm is aware of this.
    There is no ideal lengh eventhough 200words articles are just too short not just for search engines but for readers too.

    On my blog I publish only 600+ words articles and from my experience articles with more than 1000 words rank much easier on google. You just need to have in mind that you should always add value to the readers and not just write for the shake of writing...
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  • Profile picture of the author John Romaine
    Another pointless question.

    Write for humans, not machines.
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    BS free SEO services, training and advice - SEO Point

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  • Profile picture of the author YasirYar
    Slowly but surely, the length of posts is becoming increasingly irrelevant, and the focus is shifting towards quality. You can get more benefit from writing a useful 200 word blog post, than a spammy 500 word blog post.

    Having said that, a great 500 word blog post would still be preferred to a 200 word blog post in terms of search engine traffic, but that does not mean that it will attract more readers. If you are posting boring, stretched out blogs, you will have no recurring traffic.

    I would strongly recommend that you write a length that brings out the best in the content you are writing. This varies depending on the type of post it is and the niche, amongst other factors.
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