Blogs have been a popular form of writing and sharing content on the internet for a very long time now. Writing a blog post can seem a bit daunting when you’re first starting out.
How do you engage your readers? What is the ideal length of a blog post? What format should you use?
There are lots of questions and things you need to consider when you go to write your own blog. But don’t worry, we’re going to tell you all you need to know about what the best length is for your blog post. Read on to find out all you need to know.
The Length Of Your Blog Post Matters
Some people might tell you that the length of your blog post doesn’t matter, but that’s simply not true.
The length of your blog post can quite literally make or break your engagement and success with that particular post, so you need to know about the different types of blogs you can write and the correct length for each.
Everyone wants to be featured as close to the top of the front page of Google as possible, and this is because most people don’t bother to go past that first page.
If you cater your blog to the appropriate formula for each blog type, it will dramatically improve your SEO placement. It will be more in line with Google’s algorithm and give your blog a better chance of being seen by the right people.
If you have a bad SEO placement, you’re less likely to get traffic to your blog and that means you’ll have a smaller audience too.
Types Of Blog Posts
There are a few different types of blog posts you should utilize when you’re writing your blog post. We’re going to go over some of them here, what they are and how you should use them.
Listicles And “Best Of”
Listicles are a form of blog you’ll come across a lot. They also come in the form of “Best of” blogs.
The main purpose of these types of blogs is to show the readers a list of things (be it items or movies or whatever!) and they tell you a bit about each item featured.
They can be numbered in order or just in a random sequence with no numbers at all. Blog posts with titles like “10 Best Animes Of The Year” or “15 Italian Dishes You Need To Try” are forms of listicles and “best of” blogs.
These blog types are one of the more popular blog formats you can use because they are divided up by numbers and subheadings and keep readers engaged for longer.
How To Guides
How To Guides are pretty much exactly that: a guide on how to do something.
This blog type is usually written in long form and is great for both the traffic and SEO optimization of your blog and they are very popular among your readers.
The term “long-form” in this instance refers to a blog post that is between 700 – 2,000 words long. We’ll be going into the ideal word count a bit later.
Interviews
Interviews are a great form of blog post to use on your blog when you’re trying to gain a bit of traction and increase your audience.
Getting a guest speaker on to your blog, especially if they are well known within certain communities can really increase the traffic on your blog, which in turn will improve the quality of your Search Engine Optimization.
Vs Blogs
Vs Blogs are blog types that involve two items or things and spend the whole blog comparing the two.
These blog types are great for increasing your audience, especially when you’re talking about things like “iPhone Vs. Android: Which Is Better?”.
The Vs Blog titles draw potential readers in and when the subheadings are formatted properly, it can help to keep them engaged in the post for longer.
The Ideal Blog Post Length
There isn’t a fixed word count for your blog post that is the most ideal, instead, it depends purely on the type of blog you’re writing and what sort of result you want from the blog post.
Blog posts in general are usually between 400 and 2,500 words on average, but getting from the smaller word count to the larger word count depends purely on what you’re writing about.
If you’re just writing an introductory post about your blog, you definitely don’t need to write 2,500 words about it. However, if you’re writing an in-depth “How To” blog, the 2,500-word option will be more realistic for that blog type.
Work out what the goal of your blog is and cater the word count to that goal. Do research on the type of blog post you’re writing, and have a read and a look at other blogs that follow the same format.
It all depends on how good you want your Search Engine Optimization to be really. If you’re really focused on good SEO, then you’ll need to watch your blog post length.
It’s also important to take your time when you’re writing your blog posts. Don’t start out with a 2,500-word “How To” article, go for a shorter one and ease yourself up to the higher word counts.
And most importantly, make sure you’re having fun when you’re writing your blog posts!
Hi, my name is Justin Shaw, I started my career with a Masters in Computer Science but found writing to be my forte'.
I'm now the Principal Tech writer for GshiftLabs.com as well as a few other well known publications. I help make the complex world of Tech-Jargon easy to understand.
