How Long Should Your Blog Posts Be?
12-minute read
While length is not the only factor that affects search engine optimization (SEO), there is a significant amount of research that suggests you should still keep word count top of mind.
As I write this I know exactly what you are thinking, with the rise of Tiktok and Youtube Shorts, everyone’s attention span is getting shorter and shorter.
So how can you retain your reader’s attention and provide value through your blog posts?
Often brands believe that the return on investment on blog posts is not high enough and that it is very difficult to see immediate tangible results. But the reality is that blog posts allow you to have a searchable voice within your field that is not possible through any other means.
Most people use a search engine to find the answers they are looking for and by investing in blog posts and long-form content, you are providing those answers for them.
Long-form content, especially detailed deep dives perform best because they are able to answer a variety of questions, and therefore will perform better from an SEO standpoint.
Why you should invest in long-form content?
01 Content is King
Blog posts are evergreen and will continue to provide value way after being posted. In fact, you are more likely to see a return on investment months after posting.
Your blogging goal should be to focus on a few topics and become Google’s favourite destination to answer all the questions people would have about those topics.
02 Repurpose Your Blog Posts
We are very serious about our statement that ‘Content is king’ and at Saffron Ink, we strongly believe that blog posts can become the foundation of creating a strong brand voice.
By working on a blog post you are able to generate every single piece of content you need for all other social media channels: Instagram, LinkedIn, Tiktok, Facebook, Twitter and more. While yes design is a factor in these other channels, you have already done the heavy lifting of creating valuable content.
Instead of having your social media manager think of new fresh content for every post, which can be extremely difficult, you can use all the research that was done for the topic covered in the blog post to create a large variety of content for all other channels.
And the beauty of covering the same topic on all your social media channels is that you can use your call-to-actions strategically and drive cross-platform traffic.
Check out this post to learn more about how you can repurpose your blog content for social media.
03 Create Authority
Brand authority is built on trust and knowledge. The more you are able to put yourself in your audience’s shoes and voice their pain points and provide solutions, the more you will be trusted.
Not only are you able to create authority for your brand through blog posts by increasing your SEO ranking around the topics you want to be known for, but blog posts are also one of the only methods where you can attract a lead and capture their email by offering valuable and downloadable content.
You create a valuable exchange of information. This can be a how-to guide, a deep-dive on a trending topic, or an e-book, essentially your goal is to provide something of value where your audience will be compelled to provide you with their email for it.
How to write a blog your audience will actually read
#1 Make It Scannable 👀
Let’s address our short attention spans. This time however I don’t want to blame social media. Short attention spans are not the reason people don’t read your blog post, they don’t read it because it is written like a novel.
This goes back to understanding your audience. Once you write a blog post, you know that the next step is usually to share it with your following, and generally, this happens immediately after. What is often forgotten is that blog posts flourish and shine much after they are posted.
Generally who you are writing the article for are individuals that are searching for an answer to their question, and hopefully your article answers it.
But if the answer is buried in the middle of the paragraph halfway through the post, then they will never find it nor do they have the interest to invest time reading what seems like a novel to them.
Make sure you are
Using a variation of headers, titles, and subtitles
Creating small paragraphs and bullet points
Turning your text bold for emphasis
Strategically changing the colour of your text
#2 Create Lists ✅
Making lists is everyone’s favourite, this is why top 10 lists exist within any industry. It is already written and organized in a way that our brain likes to digest information.
As covered in this New York Times article, we are also attracted to titles that indicate a list will be provided.
Psychologist Walter Kintsch points out, lists allow us to digest information in the moment and due to their structure, they also become a way where we can easily recall the information we learned.
#3 Add Visuals 🌠
Images and videos help break up all the text in a blog post and allow readers to choose their own method of digesting your content.
The ideal blog post length
The most important thing to remember is that there is no magic number, like most topics, it’s a bit more complicated.
Here are some things we know for sure:
It’s going to be incredibly difficult to rank highly with short blog posts about competitive topics
You need to do the difficult task of catering to your readers as well as search engine
Always provide value for your audience
Per Backlinko’s research we know that the top ten results on Google’s first page had long-form content that averaged at 1,447 words.
In 2019, Hubspot analyzed their own blog posts and the top 50 posts that generated the most leads had an average of 2,569 words.
After much research, we can conclude that the ideal blog post length is somewhere between 1,500-2,500 words.
You should keep in mind that while your blog posts will most likely do better if they cover more keywords, answer more questions, and provide more value, you should not aim to add 🚫 filler content 🚫. Most readers can immediately tell if you did that and click out of your page.
One of our favourite posts that discusses this topic at length is this article by Hubspot. They offer different guidelines and templates for all types of blog posts such as pillar pages, listicles, how-tos and what-is.
Summary of Sernoff’s findings
Another trusted source has analyzed their own blog posts and concluded almost the same results as Hubspot. Wix’s Lena Sernoff covers the dos and don’t by word count, and advises us to stay away from any blog post that is less than 300 words.
Sernoff gets more specific and makes a remark that blog posts with a 2,450-word count are actually the sweet spot.
The key to a successful blog
We covered quite a few topics in this post but I want to leave you with something that I find is not talked about enough.
Blog posts require a lot of effort, the content can be amazing, and yes it is still evergreen content but you need to continue updating your posts even after you have posted them.
This is not a requirement for every post but it can be applied to this very article you are reading.
The title of this blog post ‘How Long Should Your Blog Post Be?"‘ is a question that will be searched for many years and the reader in 2025 might not really want to consume this content. So what can I do?
Option #1
Update the blog post with new data, it is important to leave some wiggle room in the article to not make this task incredibly difficult. Indicate at the beginning of the post that it has been in fact updated with data from that year.
Option #2
Write a new blog post with the year in its title
Update the old blog post to add the year it was written in
Link the old blog post in the new one and vice versa.
At Saffron Ink, we believe in authenticity, and it is really important to not forget the individuals on the other side of the screen.
At the end of the day what makes a great blog is one that is written for readers and search engines, and that is an art of its own.