It’s no secret that having a blog (and keeping it updated) can be beneficial to your overall branding and SEO strategy. However, did you know that the length of your blog posts can have an impact on your SEO outcomes? Over the years, Google’s algorithms have changed a great deal—with the overall trend being that longer and more robust blog posts are often favored over shorter ones.
This is a trend that we anticipate will continue into 2019 and beyond. So, what are the benefits of long blog posts and how long, exactly, should your blogs be in 2019?
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Benefits of Longer Blog Posts
When comparing shorter vs long blog posts, there are many advantages of posting a longer one. For starters, long blog posts give you the opportunity to write in-depth on a specific topic rather than just skimming the surface. As a result, your content is more likely to be useful to your readers. Longer blog posts, as a result, tend to allow for increased engagement with your readers—especially if you incorporate things like images and videos.
Longer blog posts also give you the opportunity to naturally incorporate more strategic keywords and backlinks than a shorter blog post, so you have that going for you as well. The key is to make sure that your backlinks are legitimate and authoritative, and that your keywords are incorporated as naturally as possible (not stuffed into each sentence).
How Long Should Blog Posts Be in 2019?
With all this talk about the benefits of longer blog posts, you may be wondering exactly how long should blog posts be 2019? There is no universal answer here because what is considered a “long” post can vary a bit based on your industry and target audience. In general, however, you should likely be aiming for blog posts that are at least 800 words in length.
And remember, longer is only better up to a certain point. If your post has become so expansive that it’s covering multiple different topics in-depth, you may actually be better off breaking the post up into several different segments so that your readers aren’t overwhelmed. Another option to consider here would be to make your long post available for download as an eBook, but the drawback is that you won’t be able to reap the SEO benefits with an eBook.
Tips for Creating Quality Blog Posts
A long blog post is only going to perform well from an SEO standpoint if it is well written and useful to your readers, so don’t make the mistake of thinking it’s only word count that matters. You can publish a 1,200-word blog post on a topic, but if it’s poorly written or the information doesn’t go beyond the surface to be useful for your readers, it’s not likely to help your SEO much. In fact, it could even hurt your SEO.
Fortunately, there are a few basic tips you can follow when creating longer-form blog posts to optimize success.
For starters, focus on topics that haven’t been done before. The more unique the topic, the more likely your readers will be interested in reading it over another blog topic that’s been done a million times. Also, be sure to incorporate plenty of media to break up your content in the form of images, infographics, and videos when possible.
And of course, always do keyword research so you have a solid understanding of what your target audience is searching for. This can help to inform what you write about!
The Bottom Line
Overall, longer blog posts (at least 800 words) can benefit your SEO in 2019 and beyond. Here are a few takeaways to keep in mind:
- longer blog posts allow you to go more in-depth on a topic
- longer blog posts should be broken up with media and subheads
- longer blog posts should incorporate internal links and keywords
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I'm the Director of Digital Services and Partner at Ballantine, a family-owned and operated direct mail & digital marketing company based in New Jersey. and started in 1966 by my great uncle!
