What should be the optimal length of an article on a company blog?

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What should be the optimal length for a company blog post? Hmm… Yeah… Honestly?

Personally, I consider the question of the optimal length of a blog post to be one of the TOP 5 least serious questions that can be asked in the context of running a corporate blog. The irony is that it is also one of the most frequently asked by Clients. Let's finally answer it once and for all: how many of these characters or words should there be in the text so that running a blog makes sense?
The industry has many answers to this question. Here are a few of the most popular ones.

length of post and reading time
Internet user engagement drops after 7 minutes of reading a text. (Source: Medium)
Percentage-of-bloggers-who-report-_strong-results_-by-average-blog-post-word-count
The longer the text, the better the effect. (Source: Orbit Media)
It is good if a blog article contains 1500 words. According to Orbit Media analyses, texts of this length achieved high results in 2014. (Orbit Media, 2014);
But it is even better for the text to not exceed 1600 words. Why? Because that is how many characters an Internet user will read in 7 minutes. 7-minute posts engage the Internet user's attention the best. After that time, their concentration drops rapidly, they start to yawn and get bored (Medium, 2013);
According to Backlink, longer texts rank higher in Google search results. The average first page result from Google contains 1,890 words. (Backlink, 2016)
In 2018, Orbit Media conducted a study that showed that texts must be longer than 1,500 words. Those with 2,000 words are indexed better (Orbit Media, 2018);
serp-iq
Length of texts in TOP 10. (Source: serpIQ)
yoast_seo
YOAST SEO recommends a minimum of 300 words. (Source: YOAST.com)
SerpIQ investigated the issue of ideal post length from an SEO perspective. They looked at the top 10 results on search engine results pages and counted the words in each article. They found that, from an SEO perspective, the top 3 Google results range from 2,350 to 2,500 words.
Seth Godin, on the other hand, says something different. The shorter the better. He himself writes sparingly. One of his posts was only 27 words;
One of the most popular WordPress plugins YOAST Seo recommends a minimum all contact number list with name article length of 300 words. Anything less will not do well in terms of your article’s position in the search engine. At the same time, they add that blogs with more than 1,000 words can become difficult to read, and large chunks of text can very well put off your audience. ;
Polish industry experts suggest the optimal number is 3000-4000 zzs, or 450-650 words. Apparently, this length works for us.
What does this mean? As you can see, not much. A lot of contradictory data and one conclusion.



There is no ideal number of words in a blog post.

Searching for this magic number is like chasing a unicorn. Some have seen them (they supposedly roam the Subcarpathian forests), while others have only imagined them, which does not prevent chasing virgins. It is symptomatic that none of the aforementioned data mentions, for example, Google's Webmasters' Guide as a source. This means that there is no such thing as the ideal number of words that should be crammed into a blog post. Google and its algorithms follow different, twisted paths. And all the speculations on this subject are, in a sense, like reading tea leaves. The fact is, however, that longer texts will always be indexed better. Provided that the length is accompanied by quality.

Writing longer articles is one of the biggest blogging trends in 2018-2019. According to the latest data (the aforementioned Orbit Media), in 2004 the number of words in a blog text oscillated around 800, in 2018 there were already 1115, which is over 42% increase over the last 5 years. Interestingly, most bloggers who took the trouble and spent at least 6 hours to write an exhaustive, valuable text of over 2000 words admit that it brought results. Longer texts were better indexed and met with a warmer reception from readers. But was it due to the length of the text itself? No, that is too far-reaching a simplification.

Of course, it's not about the length of the text itself, but about what the text contained. A long text requires more thorough preparation, deeper research, many sources, which translates into its substantive value. A long text cannot contain lorem ipsum, it is not "skidding on the subject" or containing 2000 words of pitu pitu. It must be longer by necessity, because it contains more valuable information and content. Simply.

The popularity of texts is influenced not only by length, but also by such elements as:

formatting, scalability, text clarity (e.g. justification, headings, subheadings)
media included in the text (infographics, photos, videos)
topic (some topics matter more, others less);
industry (niche or not?);
genre of article (interview, journalism, product review);
the author's style (if it's light and easy to read, you'll last more than 7 minutes);
the target audience, the target group (regular readers are more willing to share).

And there may be even more of these elements, everything “depends”, everything matters and counts in the final settlement.

The more valuable and comprehensive content you provide, the more you receive in return.

In 2019 and beyond, the priority in writing blog posts will be the quality of content, which should be placed over quantity.

What does it matter then?

Google itself provides the answer.
"Find out what users want (and give it to them)" . Give it to them, i.e. write it in an interesting, accessible way, with attention to formatting, text style and substantive content. Give it in such a way as to exhaust the topic to the extent that the user is satisfied.

The ideal text on a blog should not be valued due to the number of words, but whether its content is a response to the expectations of the Internet user, reader, customer. Is what is on the blog interesting, intriguing, engaging for this reader and, above all, is it what they were looking for ?
Can these requirements be met in a text of 2,000 words? Of course.
And one that is only 500 words?
Absolutely.