How long should a quality blog post be?
-
How long should a "quality" blog post be? General advice seems to be that a 300 word post just won't cut it, but advice on the optimum length is vague. I appreciate that all posts are different but is there a rule of thumb, is 1000 words good and 1500 too long...or should they are all aim to be 2000 words?
Also with regards to pictures in blogs, can they just be taken from the web or are there sites that I should be using to source the pictures?
Thanks
-
If you look at my blog I have really struggled with really good (low / no cost) blog images. I came across this guys site today - it's totally devoted to great blog images and has a lot of great content on it - http://www.betterblogimages.com/the-1-blogger-friendly-website-for-finding-citing-free-images/
Another good article on the subject - http://www.incomediary.com/how-to-use-photos-in-your-blog-to-make-it-more-interesting
And my favorite on the subject I have come across in awhile - http://www.incomediary.com/how-to-make-your-blog-posts-stunningly-beautiful-images
Good luck!
Matthew
-
It depends on the site and the topic. At YouMoz, we've seen posts from under 500 words to over 10,000 words, though usually not much shorter than 1000 words -- usually in the 1000 to 3000 word range.
There is more to quality than quantity. Think less of how many words, and think instead of how much meaning and information are you conveying with those words. I can blab on for 2000 and not say much, or I can have a powerful post in 500 words.
Here's a post I recently wrote about what makes a good YouMoz post. This is not what every site is looking for in a post, but it can give you a lot of ideas (with actual examples) of what one readership has found to be good quality.
-
Hey,
There is a general consensus that 300 words or 500 characters is enough but I tend to think that is borderline useless advice here. How long should a blog post be? My answer would be long enough to fulfil the promise of the title and short enough to not be boring and overstay it's welcome.
Some great blog posts may be 100 words, some fantastic posts may be 10,000 words. It really depends on what you are talking about and how long it needs to be to accurately do what it says on the tin.
There is a tendency in search to try and do SEO by numbers. We want 300 words. Well, 300 words does not denote quality. Quality denotes quality. If your main criteria when writing blogs or hiring writers is to hit 300 words then you have already failed. If your main criteria is to provide high quality answers that don't already exist or to do things way better than they are already being done then you are on the right track.
That's a somewhat philosophical answer but a better one than any general advice you may get re word or character count. If you want a more specific answer tailored to your situation then look at the blog posts that do well in the niche you are targeting. How long are they? Could some of them benefit from more detail? Could some of them be trimmed a bit to provide a more succinct answer?
The only caveat to this advice would be to avoid going too long and if you have something that is thousands of words long consider making it part of a series and having several posts that make a greater whole. Think of them as chapters of a book or report and that these parts can then more accurately fulfil the promise made by the whole. A great strategy can be to write up a series like this and then to create an overview or summary that links out to the more detailed sub posts and you then target the high level and more detailed keywords within your topic.
Hope that helps!
Marcus -
I would agree that 300 is too low and you're right that there doesn't seem to be a consensus out there.
I generally read that 350/400 is the recommended minimum - so I normally advise 400 to be safe.
I'm unsure about maximum but 1,500/2,000 sounds excessive to me. You would need to be writing a very interesting and helpful blog to keep readers attention for that long.
Hope that helps.
Stu
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Starting blog need feedback needed
Hi I am planing to start two blog about the same product. One blog will be about reviews and other product related information which will be from well known authors or organizations etc. On second blog, i will be adding detail information about the same product and specification of that. I am just wondering if you guys have any suggestion for me.
Content Development | | Mustansar0 -
Any help on best practices to move blog domain?
Hi, I am going to move my blog hosted on wordpress.com to a folder under mysite.com. (e.g. mysite.com/blog/). I start to think after the blog has gone live there will be duplicated content issue because I am going to import my posts in last 2 years onto the new location. I what way can I avoid that happen? Can I set something up (e.g. 301 redirect) in my current wordpress.com account? Any advice. Please help! Thanks
Content Development | | LauraHT0 -
Can I share share my content with other sites either as a individual post or RSS or will I be encourage duplicate content on the web and upset Google
Hi, I have a new site http://www.homeforbusiness.co.uk. I want to encourage traffic to the site by sharing some of my content with other related websites which have a higher PR ranking and traffic for a link to my site. Is this going to upset Google re-duplicate content and devalue my site and stop any organic rankings in the future? Equally some high PR sites which have a good synergy with mine such as http://thewomensbusinessclubs.com/ allow me to add my RSS feed with their blog network. Is this a good thing to do or not for the same reasons as above? Or can I only do the above my creating fresh content? Thanks, Elizabeth Conley
Content Development | | econley0 -
Blog Influencer's tool
Hi Mozzers, Can you help me with something please. I need a tool (preferably free or low cost) to find a list of influencers (blog or some types of publication) in a particular marketplace. Step 2 would be to see if we can then syndicate content but I need to find them first. Obviously there Google blog finder and general searches, I've used other tools in the past but a long time ago - what are people using now and what's the best? Thanks B
Content Development | | Bush_JSM0 -
What is your favorite SEOmoz blog post of all time? And why?
I'll go with this post by Rand: White Hat SEO: It F@$#ing Works
Content Development | | ThomasHgenhaven1 -
How to make use of blog networks?
I read on a forum recently that someone was using blog networks as his primary tool for SEO. I'm not sure what he meant beyond this, however... Can anyone provide tips on how I might use one, and which are some of the best? Thank you very much in advance.
Content Development | | ZakGottlieb710 -
SEO issues around post syndication via RSS
There are a number of clients that I have that want to syndicate either posts or video content to other websites via RSS feeds. Each of these are built on a WordPress platform, fyi. Two that this applies to are: http://explosiveoptions.net and http://mrtopstep.com Many of the sites that would pick this content up would be higher Domain and Page Ranks than the original sites. Those that have video content put it up on multiple sites, including YouTube. What can I do in the configuration of the RSS feeds to ensure the credit is maintained to the original website, and are there any other considerations I should be concerned about? Perhaps things that I would ask the other site to do in their incorporation of it to their site? Thanks for your help.
Content Development | | skipshean0 -
What is the best way to bring a blog into my SEO strategy
We have a blog set up with Blogger and generate some great content on it. What is the best way to optimise the blog from an SEO standpoint? In particular the domain name, it is currently .blogspot.com address, is there a better way to work with that? Obviously the blog is branded with our company logo and name etc but is about the book industry. I'm basically concerned about linking people to our blog and not the website and so not getting much benefit?
Content Development | | Benj250