Here’s What You Need To Know About The Word Count In Blogging

With buzz increasing around blogging, everyone seems to be talking about the ideal word count. Naturally, many people talk about this hot topic. However, professional bloggers, SEO specialists, and digital marketers have a difference of opinion. This has given rise to confusion and misunderstandings.

Still, many bloggers do not know the best word count for a blog post. They write blogs of different lengths and expect a boost from the search engine in return. If you search on the internet, you are likely to see different opinions from different people. In this article, we are going to shed some light on things that do matter in terms of word count. It means you will not be confused here.

Just some solid information that you need to make your blogs shine, follow these tips, and you will not have to get worried about the word count.

Focus On Quality And Word Count:

Be clear on one thing content is king. I know this is not something you are hearing for the first time, but that’s an ever-green rule. If your content has the potential to amaze, who cares about the word count.

Make sure you do not sacrifice the quality of content while taking care of the word count. They keep track of the total number of words using a word counter tool.

Many writers make such a mistake; they follow the trail of those who advise writing long-form posts.

But mark my words! If you write a ten-thousand-word article and the quality is poor, then you do not deserve to be ranked well in Google.

Having said that, we cannot completely ignore the word count, In fact, it gives you an edge over others, but again quality has to be top-notch. If you can balance both things together, you can definitely pull up your blog in the top search rankings.

What Studies Show?

Different platforms have performed research to figure out the best word count for blogs. Not all of them have the same findings to share. One reason could be that these studies have been conducted at different times by different people.

Not so long ago, the ideal word count used to be between 500 and 800. People writing between that length saw their blogs ranking well.

Astonishingly, a few people writing too short blogs received an unexpected number of shares and likes on social media. The reason was nothing but killer content they produced using their spectacular intellect.

Research conducted by Moz found that blogs ranging between 3K to 10K received the maximum number of shares. Likewise, the SerpIQ study found that blogs containing 2,450 words and above performed really well.

Backlinko, one of the reputed platforms focusing on backlinks, released a report back in 2016. According to that, most of the blogs ranking on the first page of Google contained an average of 1,890 words.

As you can see above, all of these researchers have different opinions regarding the total number of words that a blog should contain. However, one thing that has become obvious after checking out these researches is that long-form posts are better than short-form.

Why Posts With More Word Count Are Well-Received:

It has been established that posts with increased word count are well-received both by search engines and users. You must be eager to know the reasons behind this tendency. Let’s take a look and find out why everything goes in favor of long-form posts.

First off, a long post gives an impression of high quality. When a user sees a post that is long, he perceives it to be based on top-quality content. That is one reason why long blogs get more traction than short ones.

Another reason that goes in favor of long posts is that they are great for scanning. Users can scroll down and read stuff that they find interesting or akin to their interests. A short blog does not provide enough content that readers can go through and look for the relevant information. Did you know that most visitors read just 20% of an article? Well, that’s true according to a study conducted by the Nielsen Norman Group.

What Should Be The Minimum Word Count?

The more you can write, the better you can expect. However, you don’t have to stretch the content if you can’t think of the ideas. If you do so, this will create a bad impression on your post. You have to be honest with the subject. Keep writing until you feel the topic has been justified.

In some instances, topics do not need an increased word count. They can easily be covered within a couple of hundred words. According to Yoast, the minimum word count for a blog post should be 300 words.

Therefore, if you have a topic that doesn’t require a long post, then you should write at least 300 words to make it look like a reasonable post.

It Depends On The Topic:

How many words you write also depends upon the topic you choose. You should not focus on increasing the length of your blog when it can be summarized in a few hundred words. If an article can be well-covered, let’s say in 500 words, you should not have to go the extra mile.

Select a topic and then have a plan. Have a think about the number of words that you will need to describe the subject. Having an outline ready will help you make an accurate estimate of the number of words. Don’t worry about the things that come to your mind later when you are finished writing an article. You can always add these even when you are finished.

Conclusion:

Writing a quality blog post containing over a thousand words can be an excellent way to pave your blog’s way to success. If you continue doing the same, you will not have to wait for so long to see your posts ranking well in search engines. Nevertheless, never show back to quality while writing on anything. If readers don’t see anything worthwhile in your post, they will not be showing any interest. Eventually, your blog will struggle to rank well in Google.

About the Author:

Casper William is a very Passionate Writer and he has worked for a couple of platforms to make them pop up on the first page of Google, and contributed to different platforms such as exeideas.com, word-counter.io, edumanias.com.

Find Me On LinkedIn