Word Count
A topic that gets everyone double thinking themselves. Bloggers and content marketers are always wondering what’s the ideal word count to aim for. Should every single piece be lengthy or is it wiser to opt for shorter pieces? Word count isn’t a standalone factor it only has merit if the content quality is high! You can produce a 10,000-word article but if the content and quality isn’t great, then the article doesn’t deserve to get ranked. Never underestimate the importance of word count! Howver word count is only important when accopanied by great content.
Let’s begin with a brief history of the word count to where it’s at today. Not long ago the average blog post was somewhere between 500 and 800 words. Often even shorter.
For instance Seth Godin’s blog is known for extremely short posts that are often under 200 words.
But everybody knows that long-form content reigns supreme. According to research, 3000 – 10 000 word content gets the most shares.
Studies show that longer word count for blogs is still the best and resaonably so, here’s why:
It covers a topic with depth that’s simply impossible with a shorter post. Therefore, long form creates a perception of higher quality.
It’s ideal for scanning. Most people don’t read content word for word. They simply scan through. Here’s a chart that shows the maximum amount of text, users could read during an average visit to pages with different word counts:
Seldom do users read an entire long-form post. Instead, they scan and check out headers, sub-titles, and bullet points as well as the images. Creating content with a high word count leaves readers feeling like they’ve just read something epic. There’s a sense of satisfaction that shorter content just can’t provide.
But the question is, just how long should your blog articles be?
Yes long, but how long?
According to Snap Agency, content that received the most social shares was over 2,500 words on average throughout 2016. When it comes to the largest volume of organic traffic, the ideal word count was 2,250 – 2,500. 2,100 – 2,500 words is a solid number to aim for if you’re in the finance industry.
The manufacturing industry is huge. and a google search generated 795 million results. The sales industry is another one that’s quite robust. It’s a wide umbrella that encompasses many different areas. Therefore resulting in a higher word count. The successful posts in this industry, hit a high word count.
Marketing and advertising should have a solid 2500 – 3000 words. There’s no perfect resource that says “using X amount of words is guaranteed to propel your content to number one in search engine rankings and earn you thousands of social shares.” Of course, there are numerous variables that determine how successful your blog articles are, you just have to be smart and remember quality over quantity.