How long should a blog post be?
What do readers prefer? How long do blog posts have to be to rank on Google?
We answer all of these questions and more in this post, starting with data-driven answers on typical blog post lengths bloggers use.
What is the ideal blog post length?
The simple answer is that the ideal blog post length varies between 1,500 and 2,500 words in most cases.
Let’s discuss a few studies that back this figure. The first comes from Semrush’s content marketing report for 2023.
The company analyzed 30,000 websites and discovered that the average word count for blog posts published by high-performing sites is 1,152.
Note: Unfortunately, the link to Semrush’s 2023 content marketing report is no longer live. They have deleted it for some reason. Even though the data has aged a bit, it’s still valid.
The average word count for posts published by medium-performing sites is 902 while low-performing websites publish articles that are 668 words long on average.
In a QuickSprout study of Crazy Egg’s blog, posts that were over 1,500 words in length received 68.1% more tweets on Twitter (now X) and 22.6% more Facebook likes than posts that were fewer than 1,500 words.
Specifically, longer blog posts that were over 1,500 words received 293.5 tweets and 72.7 Facebook likes on average.
Articles that were less than 1,500 words received 174.6 tweets and 59.3 Facebook likes on average.
Finally, according to OrbitMedia’s 2024 study and survey of the blogging industry, the average blog post length is 1,394 words in 2024.
This is a 2.31% decrease from 2023’s average length of 1,427 words per post and a 72.52% increase from 2014’s average word count of 808 words.
A survey OrbitMedia conducted for this study, which included responses from over 1,000 bloggers, revealed that 63% of bloggers publish articles that are 500 to 1,500 words long on a regular basis.
37% of bloggers write articles that are between 2,000 and 3,000 words while only 3% of bloggers publish articles that are over 3,000 words long on a regular basis.
However, 31% of bloggers who do publish longer posts that are over 3,000 words on average on a regular basis say they see “strong results” from their efforts.
This is compared to only 12% who write posts between 500 and 1,000 words and 10% who publish articles that are fewer than 500 words.
Remember that blog post length is not a ranking factor
As you decide how long each one of your blog posts should be, remember that blog post length is not a ranking factor.
Here are the word counts for the top three articles that rank on Google’s search engine results page (SERP) for the keyword “what is a motherboard”:
- TechTarget – 635 words
- Spiceworks – 3,301 words
- Lenovo -1,012 words
Clearly, Google did not consider word count when it was ranking blog posts for this keyword.
Domain authority likely had a much larger influence on this ranking since each of these sites has a domain authority that’s higher than 85, according to Ahrefs’ scale of this metric (DR).
Search engine optimization (SEO) experts advise smaller and medium-sized sites to write longer posts because it often takes more words to demonstrate authority on a particular topic.
However, it’s much more important to ensure your post provides value and matches search intent.
Short-form and long-form blog posts alike are capable of doing this.
When you write an outline for a post that targets a particular keyword, ask yourself what information the user is expecting to find when they enter that keyword into Google.
In your mind, when they enter “what is a motherboard” into Google, do they want a simple definition or a 3,000-word explanation that explains everything about this crucial piece of hardware?
This is why it’s so important to know your audience.
A tech blog that targets laymen and tech novices should write a shorter article while a blog that targets tech experts should really dive deep into this topic.
Instead of worrying about word count, you’d be much better off ensuring your website loads fast and is easy to navigate, that you acquire more high-quality backlinks, that you do not over optimize your posts, and that you publish a lot of articles that relate to your blog post.
What does google say about blog post length?
Google’s John Mueller tackled this subject on LinkedIn in October of 2024.
LinkedIn user Faseeh Ur Rehman asked:
“Hi John, is there an ideal content length that performs better on Google search results? Should we focus on creating longer, in-depth articles, or can short-form content rank just as well if it’s concise and valuable?”
To which Mueller replied:
“There is no universally ideal content length. Focus on bringing unique value to the web overall, which doesn’t mean just adding more words.”
User SEOBot_ followed up by asking:
“John Mueller, the industry is literally dead if you sense how the search is behaving. Also, do you have any example of content on the website that follows this and is able to get the Google love. “Focus on bringing unique value to the web overall, which doesn’t mean just adding more words.” This is a very vague and unrealistic ask if the GSC can start pinpointing this content/section as not making any sense or not adding any value. We really eager to learn and know how the content is actually generating value to the web. If all the value is being generated by top publishers/brands then what exactly the small publishers/niche site owners suppose to write to survive?”
To which Mueller responded:
“If you’re looking for a mechanical recipe for how to make something useful, that will be futile – that’s just not how it works, neither online nor offline. When you think about the real-world businesses near you that are doing well, do you primarily think about which numbers they focus on, or do you think about the products / services that they provide?”
He concluded with a final comment that read:
“If you count the words in best seller books, average the count, and then write the same number of words in your own book, will it become a best seller? If you make a phone that has the same dimensions as a popular smartphone, will you sell as many as they do? I love spreadsheets, but numbers aren’t everything. I’ll drop out of this thread now, it’s going in circles. If you want a number, go here: bit.ly/bestkwd.”
In other words, Google does not recommend you to simply use the same number of words your competitors are using. They advise you to focus on providing unique value to the web instead.
Unfortunately, Google often contradicts themselves. And so, we persist.
How to find a keyword’s optimal blog post length
Fortunately, there are plenty of ways to reveal how long an article should be if you do need a number.
It’s time consuming, but follow these steps to reveal an optimal blog post length for your keyword:
- Open Google in a browser you’re not logged into.*
- Copy and paste the text for the first article into a word count tool, such as WordCounter.
- Record the number, then do the same for the next nine articles. Ignore videos, forum posts and shop pages.
- Add up each of the numbers, then divide by the number of figures you collected, which should be 10. The result is your optimal blog post length for that keyword.
*Google takes your own search history into account when it showcases search results to you. For example, if you browse Reddit a lot, you’ll see more results for Reddit posts when you search on Google. Therefore, it’s better to use Google in a browser where you’re not logged into your Google account in order to see the true ranking list for a particular keyword.
On-page optimization tools
The method listed above is free, but it’s also time consuming. A much quicker way to reveal a keyword’s ideal blog post length is to use an on-page optimization tool.
We mostly recommend Frase due to its affordability and ease of use, both of which are great for beginners. Sign up for a free trial here.
However, Scalenut, Surfer SEO, and NeuronWriter do a similar thing.
When you input a keyword into one of these tools, it’ll reveal suggestions for the following aspects of your blog post:
- Word count
- Number of images
- Related keywords
- How often you should use your target keyword
- How often you should use each related keyword
Each of these suggestions is based on the top listings for your keyword.
Word count suggestions are based on an average word count from your competitors. You can view word counts of each one individually with most of these tools.
It’s a simple way to reveal a word count range you should target in order for your post to remain competitive.
Use your own knowledge of your target audience
Again, you know your target audience better than SEO tools do.
If your audience would appreciate a shorter explanation, write a shorter blog post.
If your audience expects in-depth analyses of topics, focus on writing long-form content.
It’s great to have specific metrics to target, but if you actually know your niche and your target audience through and through, your posts will likely be exactly as long as they need to be if you write naturally.
Create topic clusters on your website
Here’s one thing that’s predictable about SEO:
Competitive keywords typically need more words in order to cover their topics properly while less-competitive keywords typically require less.
This is why creating topic clusters is so useful. They allow you to cover everything about a particular topic with long blog posts while covering individual topics that relate to that original topic with shorter blog posts.
Related posts are something search engines want to see on your site.
Creating topic clusters is also a great way to publish a mixture of long and short-form content on your site.
Final thoughts
Most studies will tell you that the ideal length of a blog post is between 1,500 and 3,000 words.
And generally, you’ll find that the more in-depth your content is, the better it will perform. You’ll get more shares, earn more links, etc.
But the most important thing is to cover the topic in as much detail as you need in order to achieve your goals.
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