How long should a quality blog post be?

[Studio33]

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

[Mrupp44]

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

[KeriMorgret]

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.

http://moz.com/blog/inside-youmoz-how-to-guest-blog-for-moz

[Marcus_Miller]

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

[Stuart26]

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