How Long Should A Blog Post Be?

Answer: Both long and short.

What? That doesn’t make sense. It will if you read on ….

Over the last few months I have read article after article, forum post after forum post and training course after training course on this topic. Some recommend blogs posts of at least 800 words, others over 1000. Nearly all use the term “quality content” without really defining what that is. Everyone agrees that “fluff” is to be avoided, but few will tell you what “fluff” is.

One content watchdog helpfully described quality content as “you’ll know it when you see it”.

Last week I struggled to get my head around a blog article on, quite prophetically, becoming a freelance writer. I knew what I wanted to convey, but the structure and words eluded me.

So, it ended up taking me more than a day to complete and it is much longer than my typical blog posts. I wondered how I could improve my writing productivity and learn to “churn them out” more quickly.

So, I read everything I could lay my hands on, including this post about productivity written by a writer suffering from ADHD and another on writing “epic shit”. Then I referred back to some training on traffic generation under today’s rules.

The conclusion from synthesising all of this – you need to write a mix of both short and long blog posts.

Why You Need both Short And Long Posts

Let me explain.

Why You Need Short Posts

Search engines take into account how active a blog is. Have you noticed how traffic drops off if you don’t post anything for some time?

Not every post can be a trove of magnetic content. But, that doesn’t mean that you can’t take a valuable snippet and turn it into a short, valuable post that is useful to visitors.

The best tip from the ADHD blogger is to separate blog post preparation from writing the post itself. I have come across this idea before, in Mark Levy’s book, Accidental Genius. It makes the point that, by researching and preparing the ideas behind the content beforehand, you will allow yourself greater freedom in the writing itself.

That way you can produce short, valuable posts quickly.

And, Why You Also Need Epic Posts

All the experts agree, though, that the long-term success of your blog is determined by your ability to produce “epic” posts at regular intervals.

What is an epic post? The top 10 search results for most keywords run to over 2000 words. This does not mean that you should set out to write as verbosely as possible. It means that you need to find the occasional topic that is so “meaty” and thought-provoking that to do justice to it requires a longer article.

Epic articles blow people away with their usefulness, change lives (or at least prompt people to change course) and build a raving audience.

If it takes you over a day to write an epic post, it is time well spent.

I must admit that I am a lot more encouraged than I was after taking over a day to complete the freelance writing post. And, I don’t worry so much about writing productivity.

It is the end result that matters.