Now for the moment we’ve all been waiting for! Our Omaha search engine optimization and content creation team here at Big Red SEO promised to give you the definitive answer on the ideal length for your blog posts, and by Jove we’re going to make good on it!
In case you missed it, our last post in this series covered important yet often forgotten aspects of blog writing that affect the length of your posts, and today we’ll give you some solid advice for writing articles that attract attention from readers and search engines alike, leading to a successful SEO marketing strategy that can send your business website to the top of the search engine results pages (SERPs)! We’ll also reveal what we’ve found to be the Perfect Blog Post Length, so get reading to find out!
Search Engine Optimization and Long-Form Content
If you’ve been paying attention to our article series so far, you can probably guess where Big Red SEO comes down in the ongoing debate over whether long- or short-form content is better for SEO. Our Omaha search engine optimization team has been dropping hints in favor of longer articles for a number of good reasons (including Google’s preference for long-form content), but above all we’ve said that substance, style, and the overall purpose of your writing should dictate the length of your articles, not the other way around.
We know that hard data can be more convincing than anything, and that’s why we’re prepared to show you evidence that longer articles perform better on almost every level that can be measured.
Higher Word Counts Have More Search Traffic
According to SerpIQ, which conducted a study that compared search results ranking to content length on a number of search engine results pages, longer content consistently ranked higher on Google than shorter content. In fact, the average length of content for each of Google’s top ten search result positions was over 2000 words.
Now before you go into shock over that number you should know that it includes all of a page’s data, not just the words of your article. Googlebot, Google’s web crawler, indexes your business website by looking at every single scrap of information on its pages (this means your content, page title, section headings or H tags, metadata, etc.), which can be a lot of information.
The more information you have on your pages, both in terms of the content users see and metadata, the more that gets indexed. And the more that gets indexed, the better your pages can perform in the search engine rankings when users search for your services. In short, more information equals better search engine optimization.
Higher Word Counts Increase Potential Keywords
If you’re writing a short blog post, the number of keywords and variations on those keywords you can use is limited. There’s only so many times you can mention the same words in a 200 word article without sounding spammy, which is really bad for search engine optimization.
However, your options in terms of keyword variation expand greatly when you’re writing a 1000 word article. And when you increase the variety of keywords you’re using in your articles, the more likely it is that they’ll come up in search engine results pages. Remember, Google doesn’t just find results that exactly match the query it’s given—Google is smart enough to read a query semantically and deliver results that it knows are related, even if the words aren’t exactly the same.
Higher Word Counts Equal More Social Shares
Based on research done by a popular online journal, longer blog articles tend to get shared more often than shorter ones. According to its data, articles from 0-399 words got 207 tweets, 66 Facebook shares, and 30 LinkedIn shares; while articles of 1500 words or more got 312 tweets, 110 Facebook shares, and 57 LinkedIn shares. For the mathematically disinclined among us, that’s an average 70% increase in social shares across the board for longer content!
While this is a statistically significant find, what’s really interesting is trying to figure out why longer content gets shared more often. Our Omaha search engine optimization team at Big Red SEO thinks that it may have to do with the fact that longer content is viewed as having more authority—longer articles require more work to put together, more research, more thought, and because of that they also tend to be more helpful to their audiences. Remember that next time you’re writing for your blog; instead of popping out short and simple posts of limited value, you’re probably better off taking the time to write some killer longer articles.
Contact Big Red SEO Today at (402) 522-6468!
We here at Big Red SEO hope that this article series has helped you understand why longer articles are better overall for your search engine optimization strategy. Here are some handy dandy links just in case you missed the first two parts:
The Search for the Perfect Blog Post Length, Part 1
The Search for the Perfect Blog Post Length, Part 2
We’ve found that the sweet spot to aim for is about 1000 to 1500 words to get the maximum benefit overall between Google rankings, keyword variation, and social share-ability. Remember though that this is just an average—the most effective length for your blog content might be shorter (or longer even!) depending on your industry.
If you have any questions about search engine optimization or other Omaha business SEO services we have to offer at Big Red SEO, give us a call today at (402) 522-6468! We can take your business out of hiding.