The key to success in the current digital era is exposure. Through the mere exposure effect, your business stands a much greater chance of gaining new customers and leads if your branded content, which can be your website, landing pages, etc. sits on the top of the search engine result page (SERP). This is essentially the primary role of SEO: Making sure your branded content consistently stays on top of the SERP.
Blog posts are traditionally a great way to improve your SEO, as the content within blog posts is often long and enriched with keywords that help put your brand on top of the SERP. How important are blogs for SEO? Without blogs, your brand will have a very tough time showing up at all on the SERP, costing you plenty of business opportunities.
However, the exact optimal content length for blog posts is a matter of heated debate. This article will provide you with an overview of how long should blogs be for SEO
Factors Influencing Blog Length
Different blogs would have different length requirements. To understand the optimal content length for blogs, there are three key factors to take into consideration.
Industry and Niche Considerations
Each industry and niche will have a different level of entry knowledge, and thus different optimal content length. Some industries will feature blogs that deal with common life knowledge such as cooking, buying groceries, or even taking out the trash. Others will deal with much more advanced knowledge such as physics, car parts manufacturing, or legal matters, which will need a lot of texts to get ideas across.
Competitor Analysis and Benchmarking
Even within your own niche, there will be blog length variations. This is because you have to keep up with what your competitors, who also understand how blogs help SEO, are pushing out in terms of blog content, and fill in the gap that they have yet to fill. For example, if your competitors are choosing the focus solely on medium-length blog posts, take the opportunity to produce long-form blogs instead to differentiate your brand from theirs and fill in their gap.
Target Audience Preferences and Behaviours
Finally, always focus on your target audience’s preferences and behaviours. They are the keys to the question “how often you should blog for SEO”. Your target audience could be office workers who are always working from 9 to 5, so they won’t have a lot of time to read long-form content. Alternatively, they could be students doing research for their studies, so they will appreciate all the extra information they can get. Visualize the perfect persona of your audience, and you should be able to sync into their flow.
SEO Impacts of Different Blog Lengths
No single blog length is the universal sweet spot. Different blog lengths come with different benefits and downsides, thus serving different purposes.
Short-Form Content (Under 500 words)
Short-form content is usually aimed at providing the exact answer to a query without as little fluff as possible.
Pros:
- Easy to digest
- Is not demanding to writers
- Provides direct answers
Cons:
- Might not perform well
- Is not very engaging
Short-form content is not considered the best content for SEO, but it does its job particularly well when you want to share a brand announcement or provide direct answers to customers. Short-form content can also be a great way to share your opinion on a certain subject matter.
Medium-Form Content (500-1000 words)
Medium-form content is a little bit longer than short-form content, so it brings a lot more value to readers compared to short-form content.
Pros:
- A good balance between readability and depth
- Good SEO performance
Cons:
- Does not provide a lot of space for in-depth discussions
Like short-form content, medium-form content focuses on the search intent and the queries that your target audience input through search engines such as Google. Medium-form content does offer a lot more space compared to short-form content, so writers can provide a bit more context as well as recommendations.
Long-Form Content (1000+ words)
The golden standard in SEO strategy, long-form content offers the most benefits for SEO compared to the other two forms.
Pros:
- Performs well in all SEO strategies
- Great at maintaining readers’ attention and engagement
Cons:
- Difficult to produce
Long-form content is the content format preferred by Google. Long-form content engages readers for a long period of time, and it provides plenty of new knowledge to readers, both of which are beneficial to Google as well as your business. Thus, the optimal SEO strategies will involve using long-form content to engage the target audience and provide them with useful industry knowledge.
Future Trends and Considerations
SEO is never static. Google, and other search engines to a certain degree, regularly make changes to their algorithms, which will throw SEO strategies off the rail. Thus, you will have to keep an eye out for these future trends and considerations.
Evolving Search Engine Algorithms and Their Impacts on Content Lengths
Just earlier in 2024, Google’s core update made several short-form content spams redundant and counteractive. This is the prime reason why there is no universal content length that you can always rely on. You will have to keep track of any updates on the algorithms and adapt whenever necessary.
Changing User Preferences and Consumption Habits
People grow and change, and so will your target audience. Just over 10 years ago, TikTok was not in existence, and yet it is now the go-to platform for adolescents. There will be different disruptive platforms as such in the future, and you will gain an edge over your competitors if you can leverage them earlier.
Importance of ongoing monitoring and adaptation to maximize SEO effectiveness
SEO strategies have to be consistently monitored and adapted to make sure that your effort is not wasted. This can be a lot of work for small businesses, and that is why we at BiziBusiness offer comprehensive SEO services to help you focus on making decisions that matter. With a team of dedicated professionals and the latest tools to detect disruptive trends, we will bring your SEO strategy to the next level and get you on top of the SERP.
Conclusion
How does a blog help SEO? With long-form blog content, business owners like you can share industry knowledge that not only engages readers but also improves your position on the SERP. Short-form content and medium-form content have their place in your SEO strategy, but long-form content should be the golden standard to strive for.
Discover the power of effective digital marketing! Dive deeper into the world of SEO, social media strategies, content creation, and more with BiziBusiness. Join us and transform your online presence with expert insights and hands-on guidance.
Read more: How to Optimize Content for SEO
FURTHER READING
How email marketing optimization can help your SEO strategies
While SEO improves your website ranking on SERPs, email traffic is the best source for boosting your SEO. But how do you combine SEO and email marketing?