How Many Words Should a Blog Post Have?

Is there any requirement for the search engine (google and yahoo) on the number of words that your blog post should have so that the spiders would index that particular post?

 

This is debatable, but most people think between 200-500 is good. You really shouldn't be counting the words if you are building a quality site though. Just say what you have to in how ever many words it takes, whether its a lot or a little.

 

Good point, myp. I'll wait for others' point of view.

 

I agree with myp, the quality of your post is the important thing. I tend to think that 150 words would be the absolute minimum but 500 would definitely be much better.

When you write a blog post it should be about something interesting, so 200 to 500 words (as myp suggests) shouldnt be any problem. However, you should never 'pad' your word count just for the sake of having a longer post.

 

Hi There -

Great question. I have to say that the general answer is "form follows function." But to make the answer more specific to your question, I'd say, the length of a blog post needs to be as long as it takes to get the message across. So, a "top 25 list" of great sites for bloggers, with a review of each site will be longer than a simple "top 10 list" with no reviews. If you are writing thorough tutorials (possibly 800 - 1200 words), your posts will be longer than if you are posting a simple daily journal. If you decide to take a lesson from magazines, you can post a mix of long (ie. "Feature Articles") and short articles.

The answer so far looks at the question from the writer/blogger/editor's point of view. That is -- what do I want to put into my post? This is much different than asking (and actually getting answers) to the question, "what do my readers want in my posts?" How can you get answers to learn what your readers want? Ask them. Publish a poll -- "How long should our posts be?" Write a post about sites with different lengths of posts, and see what responses you get in comments.

Best of success -
Scott

 

Hi ... interesting question and more interesting answers.

There's a long line of scholarly research, going back maybe 70 years or more, that concludes a missive of about 650 words is most likely to get read. This goes back to the old days of typed, hard copy memos and hasn't changed much, lately. Blogging is likely too new to effect reliable research, yet, but soon.

The argument is readers see reading as an investment, of time, energy and emotion, and they expect a reward, such as usable information, confirmation of their beliefs or whatever.

To over simplify the results, when given variety of length choices, adults, especially in USA, Canada and UK, pick an item that's about 1.5 single-spaced pages long. This converts to about 650.

Obviously, interest, writing quality and so forth effect actually reading. The selection, based on perception, is much like a page view -- if it looks as if the pay off is good, readers at least start.

FYI. Hopes it helps answer you question.

 

thats good opinion there. Thats mean the article quality is the main purpose.

but i have bit confused here. Should the articles on the blog must have the high keyword density to make it as a quality content too?

 

Kentuckyslone, OSWebmaster, drgeorgep,

Thank you for the great insights. Cheers!