In the SEO industry, content is often produced as blog posts to improve web or eCommerce website rankings. However, that content marketing strategy often fails to achieve its purpose, as the average blog post length is not competitive enough and existing long-form blog posts are better, so they get top rankings in search engines.
You don’t want that! It is vital to find out the ideal blog post length for SEO to use your resources best and successfully achieve SEO for your eCommerce website.
In this beginner’s guide, we’ll dispel the million-dollar question, “how long should a blog post be in eCommerce?”.
Today I will explain how many words should a blog post be for SEO and whether longer or shorter blog posts are better for search engine optimization. Plus, I tell you what Google says about perfect blog post length, with SEO tips and best practices to help you succeed online. Read on!
The perks of long-form blog posts:
1. Longer blog posts are longer time spent on the page
Your main goal is to make your blog readers stay longer on your website. Why? Keeping the average blog post length is an important KPI (key performance indicator) indicator because it tells you the time in seconds and minutes that a visitor stays on each of the URLs of your website.
Long-form content is one of the factors that Google uses to give you a position in the SERP (search engine results page) for organic positioning. Also, the longer this indicator reflects you, the more time you have relevant blog content for your visitors, a factor that Google values greatly! In other words, the visitor is at ease and has found what he is looking for, and we give him reasons not to leave after a few seconds.
According to Ahrefs, if you create quality and longer blog posts, you will be able to retain even more the reader interested in the blog content and improve the website’s ranking. However, this rule has exceptions because there are niches where excessively long blog posts are not recommended. The algorithms also consider the average time users visit such posts in that niche. Keep reading to find out more tips like this one.
2. Further sharing on social networks
Creating a blog post strategy is essential and occupies a large part of your overall content marketing plan. After all, your blog posts are the primary driver of organic traffic to your website and reflect how you can differentiate your brand from the competition by positioning yourself as a leading innovator.
Likewise, these blog posts are shared more on social media and are more likely to rank higher in search results. However, blog strategy is much more complicated than defining a few topics and choosing keywords. A complete plan includes many other digital marketing components, such as SEO best practices, design elements, and social media.
Moreover, social media and blog post strategies must be aligned. Otherwise, you’ll miss distribution opportunities, new audiences, good SERP rankings, and more.
3. Higher ranking in search engine results
For Google, the most relevant thing is the content! But of course, content that is of quality, helpful, and generates value for the user, and don’t forget that they are the reason for all this!
As in a static eCommerce, the content generation is limited; developing a good blog post page, and a correct strategy for generating relevant content is essential. I suggest you ask yourself: What could be interesting for my audience, what are they looking for, and then create helpful content that answers their questions.
It will help your blog page to be indexed very well in search engines. For example, Google registers very well the contents of this tool, but these indexations and positioning are usually short and medium-term if they are not worked regularly. That is why it is necessary to generate new content frequently and keep your audience updated!
4. Ideal blog post length for each category of blog posts
For SEO, proper average word counts for achieving an ideal blog post length should be between 1900-2400 words. In any case, when you are wondering how many words to write, you need to know a blog post should be as long as necessary to cover the topic at hand thoroughly. Therefore, it can be anywhere from 300 to over 3000 words.
So, for this reason, some blog posts can be as short as 500 words and still rank #1 on Google. I know this because it has happened to me often with some articles I have written. Of course, it takes more than that most of the time, but there are cases where you find an uncompetitive topic, and you can rank high in the SERPs with just a few words. So, if you are wondering how long should a blog post be in 2023, you must know that it is an open question because it depends on many variables.
4.1. Pillar pages
A pillar page should be based on one of your website’s core topics, something for which you are trying to rank highly in search engines. Your main goal is to provide real value to your target audience, so they come to you for expert advice and information.
These pages concentrate on several topics in a category, and being more general, they are longer, so the blog length should be 2000+ words.
4.2. Listicles
Listicles, also known as lists, are blog posts structured around lists. They usually develop each item in the list with additional information to make them more helpful to readers.
Likewise, the ideal blog post length for SEO should be more than 2500 – 3000 words, as they address different points.
4.3. “How-to” blog posts
These type of blog posts work well; people read and search daily for how-to’s on how to do something new. How-to blog posts are not as long as the two categories I mentioned above, but they usually have lengths of more than 1000 words.
4.4. “What is” blog posts
These blog posts focus on the definition or clarification of a term. They are blog posts easy and simple to prepare, valid for the user, and with a lot of travel. Therefore, they can be shorter posts with less than 1000 words.
Pro Tip
Keep in mind that algorithms are increasingly focused on user intent, so word length estimates for each type of blog article vary depending on the niche and topic in question.
How to calculate your blog post length?
More or less? Long-form blog posts tend to satisfy better user queries, which is what Google wants. Also, from a searchability standpoint, longer blog articles have an advantage for several reasons.
Pages with little content are less likely to answer user queries correctly. It means your page is less likely to rank well on search pages. So, how long should a blog post be?
Pro Tip
A long-form blog post can either demonstrate your expertise and authority on a topic or come across as a jumble of useless ramblings to increase the blog post word count. You should focus on the quality of the content rather than the number of words!
Minimal blog post length
If you write blog posts with less than 300 words can be considered “thin content” because it does not add value or respond to the user’s intention, at least in most cases. Therefore, a blog post must have a minimum of 300 words to rank in a search engine; however, longer posts rank better because they give a better idea to search engines such as Google about what the text of the publication is about.
As an additional tip, I can tell you that the essential thing to rank is not only that your blog post is within the average word count, but to answer the user’s intention. Sometimes, writing longer blog posts, for example, with 2000 words, you don’t answer the search intention, but you can reach the target word count with a blog post with 500 words. An article like “The best panoramic images from the sky” is a clear example.
In this case, the images will be more important than the words themselves, so maybe the ideal length would be between 300-500 words. After all, what interests the user is to see the images, not to read the content.
How do you compose a good blog post length?
Focus on creating valuable, information and long-form content that is useful to the user, and use keywords appropriately and in context. Here is the guide how to do and how to find right keywords.
When written well, longer articles address topics in greater depth, which creates opportunities to use keywords, add synonyms, use rich headlines and incorporate images that help produce high-quality content.
Not only does this help your search engine rankings, but it makes your blog and, by extension, your entire website much more exciting and appealing to your potential customers.
Legibility
Readability is the ease with which a text can be read and understood. Therefore, it depends on whether a text is made up of short, well-written sentences. It also depends on whether structures have been used that help the reader to move through the content. In addition, the appropriate use of keywords in the right place, their density concerning the content, and whether the sentences retain the logical order, among other issues, are evaluated.
Originality and Utility
The blog post must be unique because if it is entirely copied from another article already on the web, it will generate a penalty by Google. Avoid plagiarism! Search engines value articles that contain originality and quality. So you should plan your content and focus on its analysis to improve it with each new delivery. If you need ideas for a blog post, don’t worry, I have an article with ideas and also a guide on where to look for ideas for you to write blog posts.
Authority and clarity
Authority is an index of the trustworthiness of your content. We all want to be the boss and be at the top of Google. We look at the first position with admiration because we marvel at the possibility of being a reference and source of information regarding the actions of the sector in which we work. To achieve this, you must create straightforward and long-form content that reflects your mastery of a topic.
Approach to promotion
It’s no use spending days writing a long, brilliant blog post if no one sees it. So, promoting a blog post is just as important as writing it.
Suppose you can find a balance between how long should a blog post be, valuable articles, and also knowing how to promote them effectively, Bingo! Then, you’ll be able to build a successful blog post that lasts a long time.
Conclusion
In short, try not to get too paranoid about your average post length and ensure your blog writing are not too short. The chances of the content of fewer than 300 words covering a topic in depth are almost nil.
Conversely, you don’t have to write only 5,000-word articles either. It’s better to have 100 1,000-word articles than 20 5,000-word articles.
This way, you have a better chance of ranking and generating website traffic. You have nothing to fear as long as your articles average between 1000 and 3000 words.
The first page of Google is waiting for you! Don’t stop writing.
Did you like this article? Did you have any questions?
Let me know in the comments!
Frequently Asked Questions
Generally, short posts are usually at the minimum recommended by Google, 300 words. However, you will find that many marketing gurus do not write these types of short blog posts.
You will see that the trend is to write a longer blog posts of higher quality. The ideal length for a blog post depends on several factors, the most important of which is the user’s search intent.
The ideal blog post length is significant because it indicates to the reader the author’s mastery of the main topic of the lengthy blog post; however, in addition to the average word count, you should not overlook variables such as the distribution channels of the article, the type of information (specific data, broad information, entertainment, etc.) and the ultimate purpose of the publication: to be shared, engage, get subscriptions, sell or come first in search engines.
Keyword research is the secret to success in any blog post. Without it, your content may never achieve the expected results. Therefore, you must have SEO tools that give you metrics on the keyword research, such as average length of a blog post, average traffic, SEO difficulty, keyword synonyms, estimated article length, and much more. Here is the list of the best keyword tools, you can choose the best one for you according to your needs.
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