Blogging is important, yes. Content is king, yes. But when you’ve decided on your content and worked out what should appear on your blog each week – exactly how long should each post be?
Well, according to the latest thinking and to head straight into using a cliche, the sky is the limit when it comes to blog post length -anything long-form over 1200 words can work well. The cliche also allows me to use the above picture of sky because as you will read later it’s crucial to use an image in your longer blogs.
Attention spans are short and people often assume that pithy, bullet-point blog posts are best. However, there is increasing evidence that longer posts build trust and thought leadership.
The Drum suggests that the top ranking content for 2015 was ‘north of 1200 words’ and that even 2000 words can often work best. This long-form blogging is ideal if you have strong information, possibly complex or technical, that you want to impart. It engages interest and readers will often set aside time over coffee, lunch or during a break to work through it. Indeed, this works well if you are giving some seriously useful information that will help the reader.
A longer post also allows you to hold your visitor on your site for longer and gives plenty of scope for extra click through and call to action links.
It may also help with SEO as more words gives you more chance to be found. Indeed, many of the top SEO rankings will be longer form. Do a search for a subject and check for yourself whether this holds true in your industry.
Longer posts give you more space to add photos, videos and interactive graphics which are all well-proven as the preferred content form. Ideally, try to include at least five images and/or video in a post over 1200 words.
If you decide that long is best for you there are some things you need to think about…
# Make sure the content is well-written
# Make is useful – really useful
#Make it interesting to avoid visitors clicking off
#Include graphics, images and video if you can