How many words should I publish in a blog post?
A common question is how many words should I publish in a blog post to help improve its search engine ranking?
Depending on the answer you read, it could be 500, 1000, 2000 or more.
The correct answer is – just enough.
Google works on the principle that a user is looking for content that answers their question – however long that content might be. If you can answer the question in 10 words then that is enough. It is needs to be answered in 1000 words then that to is enough. For example, if you are looking for tomorrows weather in your area, then you are not expecting to see an article that is 2000 words long.
There are a couple of points to consider here; one is search intent and the other is the quality of the content. You should be aiming to satisfy your users search intent with quality content. If you are trying to hit an arbitrary word count, then there is a risk of lowering the quality of the content.
As Steve Krug said in his book “Don’t Make Me Think”, “Get rid of half the words on each page, then get rid of half of what’s left”. Although he was talking about usability, you can apply the same principles to SEO and content – less is more.
