Simple question: How many words optimal for blog posts
-
Hello,
We're adding a blog to one of our sites.
How many words should be in a blog post for it to be optimal for the search engines? If it varies from industry to industry, please give a couple of examples.
We were going to do 500 words but that seems a bit long.
Thanks!
-
Does the same thing apply to regular articles?
Yes. Word count should be based on one primary question, how many words would it take to properly discuss the topic. If the topic is "What is the definition of...." then the word count can be quite small such as 100 words. If the topic is "Cardiomyopathy Risk Assessment" or any technical topic the word count can easily exceed 1000.
The judgement you exercise is when to pull back or expand upon various tangent topics. For a dictionary page, you could include a lot more then the definition such as synonyms, antonyms, thesaurus matches, origin of the word, examples in sentences, etc. For the Cardiomyopathy topic, you can greatly reduce the word count by offering additional pages on various tangent topics. One page can focus causes, another cures, another definition, etc.
-
Hey everyone,
This makes perfect sense. We'll focus on the quality of the blog post and not necessarily on making it long for the long tail.
Does the same thing apply to regular articles?
I'll close this soon. Thanks!
-
As many as it takes to write a good piece on the given subject.
Pages do not need a lot of text to rank, Matt Cutts has stated. but having said that, the more text the more chance of long tails
-
I don't disagree with any of the other answers, but I have to say the target should always be 250 words. Any less than that, and basically you don't have enough to say to warrant a post.
What I've found is that if I'm struggling to get up to 250, it means I need to think about it more and then when I come back to it I blow past 250 easily.
-
Write the content for the audience...there should be no minimums for superb content!
-
I totally agree, I have been asked this question a few times before and my answer is the metric for writing isn't length but are you the website owner answering the question the searcher is asking.
-
Setting a word count goal, quota or limit is a great way to mess up a great blog post.
The topic, your audience and your expertise should determine the length of the post.
-
I'm afraid there is no answer to that question. Here is why.
Each blog article you offer will cover a specific topic. More specifically, the article will focus one or more keyword phrases. The question search engines will decide is which web page is most likely to satisfy a user's query for that phrase.
If your article topic is "Houseism defined" then 100 words is probably enough. You could expand the article to 1000+ words by offering examples, explaining the history of the term, share instances where a House-ism was used in media outside of the television show House, etc.
The more content you share, the more thorough your topic coverage is of the keyword BUT the more opportunities arise to go off topic or dilute your message.
How many words should be in a blog post for it to be optimal for the search engines?
Enough to fully cover the specific keyword phrase target of the page. Always examine the top 5 SERPs for the target phrase. Search results are a competition. Some low quality articles rank as #1 and other high quality articles can't break the top 3 due entirely to competition.
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
-
Google News Question
Hi, If you want to submit articles to Google News (& tag them with G News meta tags), even if high quality original content (that's genuinely objective) will all your efforts still be in vain if you include a CTA (call to action) to the websites primary service at the end of the article ? Cheers Dan
Content Development | | Dan-Lawrence0 -
I allow authority sites to republish my blog articles, which then outrank me
Hey everyone. This is my first question here, I apologize if it has been covered before. I have a health and nutrition blog [authority nutrition] that has been up since December 1st, 2012. I've managed to write quite a few viral articles which have given me a bunch of natural links and a domain authority of 49, which I think is pretty great for such a new site. Haven't done any link building and everything is 100% white hat. Getting good rankings and good traffic already, so I can't complain. My only (1st world) problem is that sometimes major authority sites (DA of 70-95) republish my content. I always say yes if they ask me first, but some of them just republish without even asking. My articles are always indexed on my blog before they get republished, but it doesn't seem to make a difference. These sites always clearly link to the original URL, but they often tend to outrank me for the keywords I was targeting in the articles. They tend to rank in the top 5, but my original article is nowhere to be found. I plan on continuing to allow these sites to republish as I get powerful links and good traffic from them, but it's a bit frustrating that I don't seem to get the credit as the original source. I've already set up Google Authorship, but it doesn't seem to help. Is there anything I can do to make sure Google recognizes my article as the original and chooses to rank my site instead of the authority site that simply republished my article?
Content Development | | kriistjanm1 -
Blogs, blogspot, tumblr etc
We currently have our own wordpress blog on our site using wordpress, is it worth while having others such as blogspot, tumblr etc for seo purposes? Or would I be wasting my time and efforts?
Content Development | | Shuffled0 -
Duplicate page issue all from my website blog. How to i fix?
Crawl diagnosis indicates duplicate page content all from the blog on my website. What can i do to fix this?
Content Development | | skinbiz0 -
Is it important to stick to a schedule when posting blogs?
I was watching the Mozinar titled: "From Nothing to Expert: How to Blog like You Mean It" and Tanner mentions that he does not stick to a schedule when posting blogs. There will be days or even a week go by where he does not post anything because he has not found a topic worth writing about. I was under the impression that it was important to post blogs at the same time everyday, or on the same day every week. Does sticking to a regimented schedule not have benefits anymore? Are there any negative or positive effects of sticking to a schedule?
Content Development | | djlittman0 -
Wordpress blog, transferring .com to .org
For many years now we've had a wordpress.com blog, and accumulated a lot of links from it as a result. We now have a wordpress.org blog and are keen to move all the old posts on to the new .org site. How can this be done without losing the links from the old .com blog? Thanks in advance.
Content Development | | copywritingbuzz0 -
Blog and Website = 2 different URL's - Is it WORTH to merge content on to one site
Good day Mozzers! A friend of mine recently asked for my help in regards to online marketing. While getting familiar with his online presence, I realized that he has a blog hosted under a completely different URL Main Site = http://pardons.org/ (page rank 4)
Content Development | | vip4service
Blog = http://pardons.wordpress.com/ (page rank 3) What I am battling with is whether or not he should take all of the blog content he has, and merge it on to his main site. It has over 280+ blog posts spanning over a few years, so there is A LOT of content that could benefit his main site. However is it worth it, or should he continue to run everything as 2 different sites? Also, of you suggest moving the content over, what would be the best way to do it in your opinion? He currently has links on his blog TO his main site, so there is a little bit of link juice there, but with a average of 300 views a day, he only get about 10 clicks to his main site from the blog. Thanks a ton for your help!0 -
Blog question
If i attempt to split the blog and main site, how can Google recognize they are both owned by the same person.
Content Development | | seoug_20050