What should be the length of a blog post? #Blogging Insights 13

How long are your blog posts on average?

The annual site stats show average words I’ve written per post (year-wise) as:

2015– 79 words
2016– 152 words
2017– 235 words
2018– 176 words
2019– 175 words

Avg likes and comments per post were the least in 2017, followed by 2015. This indicates that less than 100 words per post or more than 200 words per posts has not worked out for me.

But I can’t say that I completely believe the stats. Because I have three types of content–

1. short form– poetry usually summing up in 30-50 or sometimes, 70-100 words, depending on the topics, my mood, etc.)

2. long form– musings which are usually in 150-200 words.

My Let it Bleed and Our Garden of Gratitude posts are also long form but they have repetitive guidelines.

3. photos– Moments which are just photographs with captions and a description for visually impaired in about 20 words or so.

The point is I have never depended on the length of the content. I write freely, not worrying about content length.

Also, my readership initially developed because of poetry. So this could be another reason for not getting views on long posts. I actually have no niche.

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Given the option, would you rather post long form or short form content?

It totally depends on the topic and mood. But writing 1,000 words in a post is really not my thing. I don’t prefer reading posts which have been over exaggerated just to increase the word count.

On the other hand, if the long post (of 1000 or even 2000 words) is having quality content, such as it is educating me about something or a story (I mean fiction) that makes me curious after first few paras, I will definitely go on to read it till it till the end.

The content I post is usually not educating people and is definitely not creating curiosity. It’s simple and straightforward. So, I stick to short form.

Here I’d like to add that my initial observations showed me that my lengthy musings posts did not get much engagement. But somehow, it is getting better now.

Another thing I’d like to mention is that I have tried to post content in parts sometimes. Usually it has been poetry. There was a poem titled ‘Who is she?‘ that I posted in four parts. It worked out for me because this particular piece had each part ending on a mystery which was revealed in the next one.

(FACT: I planned to post the parts separately because when I originally shared it on the blog, it just had three parts. So posting the fourth part out of the blue would have seemed stupid. And thus, I decided to post it like that. ANOTHER FACT: I said in the fourth part that it was the final part, but now I feel that I might write a fifth part of the poem in a year or so. Let’s see what the future holds.)

Other poems that I have posted in parts were on request of readers. After I posted them, readers expressed the wish to read their sequels.

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Time is short and the attention spans of social media users shorter still, why do you think the search engines prefer longer content?

I work in the digital department of a media house. They keep on telling us to make our news piece lengthy. The reason is this: Google ranks those articles which have quality content. If your content helps the users, Google will rank your article.

But my blog is more about poetry. I feel I have been trying to make a shift towards musings too. But time will tell what I feel like writing more.

Coming back, I have two options: either I ignore Google rankings, SEO and other technical stuff and post whatever I want to OR I focus on writing lengthy articles and forget why I started to blog.

I chose the first. Not because our span of attention is short but because blogging is my safe place.

Now coming to the answer of the million-dollar question, I have read a couple of articles on WordPress (I don’t remember whose they were) which indicated that even short form of content can be ranked on Google. How? Google also values engagement on the blog. So, if your short blog post has comments, it has chances of getting ranked. What I could comprehend from those two articles was that the words in the comments section get added to the word count of the post. Comments mean people found the content worth reading, implying that the blog has quality.

I really don’t know if that’s true or not. I’ll continue posting whatever suits me.

FACT: I realised before writing this post that it might turn out to be lengthy. I thought of posting it in three parts. But now, I feel that I have been talking about the length of the post. And I think this post can be taken as experiment to see if long form works on my blog. Since this post is educating about blogging, it might work.

What is the average length of the posts you write? Do you focus on the length or your mood?

Does the length of the post matter when you begin to read a post? Or does it depend only on the content?

Do you have anything to add to help all of us crack the secret of getting engagement on our blogs?

For your knowledge, this post has managed to reach a total of 950 words.

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In response to Dr Tanya’s Blogging Insights # How long is the ideal blog post?

Looking for inspiration to write?

Let it Bleed Weekly Prompt Challenge 39

The prompt for this week is- “Life” Read the post to participate. Also check out last week’s round-up here