January 28, 2025 • 9 mins
If you've ever wondered how long your blog post needs to rank high on Google and get organic traffic, then this week's episode is for you. Learn how to determine the perfect length for each blog post you write. I'll walk you through what you need to consider to determine what to write about to have your best chance of ranking at the top of Google with your post.
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Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Shure MV7 & C922 Pro Stream (00:00):
Hi, and welcome back to the simple
SEO podcast.
I'm your host, Rachel LynnTeigen.
And I'm so glad to have you herewith me today.
Today, we're going to talk abouthow long should your blog post
be for SEO?
So if you are creating contenton a regular basis, you're
blogging or you have a YouTubeshow or a podcast video, or a
(00:23):
podcast, and you are creatingblog posts to go along with your
content to showcase it, to helpyou get more traffic from
Google.
You're very likely wondering howlong does this need to be?
How many words do I need toinclude?
You may even be wondering, can Ihave chat GPT, write it for me.
Um, no.
Let's not have chat GPT, writeit for you.
(00:46):
We're not going to get thequality that we need.
Let's just say that right now.
But how long should it be?
So, this is one of thosequestions where the answer is
not black and white.
The answer is it should be aslong as it needs to be.
And that's really ambiguous anddifficult and not super helpful.
Huh?
You probably would, rather Itell you it should be 500 words.
(01:07):
It should be seven 50.
It should be 2000 though.
If I say it should be 2000words, you're probably thinking.
Uh, no, Rachel, I'm not doingthat.
So the reason I say it should beas long as it needs to be.
As, because Google really wantsyou to focus on your reader.
What information do they need?
What should you include in it?
(01:29):
The other thing I want you tothink about and look at is what
is the competition sharing onthat subject?
Because the reality is you'renot going to be the only person
writing a blog post on whateversubject you're writing on,
because most of us are not inunderserved markets.
Most of us have competition andhaving competition is not a bad
(01:50):
thing.
Having competition tells us.
There was a market for ourproduct, our service, our niche,
et cetera.
So what you can do when you'retrying to figure out how long
should your blog post be?
How many words do you need?
What I want you to start with isgo to Google using an incognito
browser window.
Remember, that's the reallyimportant part because that's
(02:10):
where.
We get the information thatdoesn't have our personalized
results.
So what we see is more like whatsomeone else would see when
searching for keywords relatedto our business.
So I want you to go.
Once you've identified kind ofwhat you should be writing on.
You found a keyword idea.
Go and put that keyword intoGoogle, using the incognito
(02:31):
browser window and take a lookand see.
Who's ranking on page one.
Now who's ranking at the top ofpage one.
You've already identified thatthis is a good keyword.
You have a really good chance ofranking for it.
So that part we don't have toworry about, but what we're
looking at is what type contentdoes Google think is a good
result for that?
Keyword?
Are these short blog posts?
(02:52):
Are they long blog posts?
Do they have video in them?
Do they have audio in them?
Do they have lots of graphics?
Do they maybe have aninfographic?
Is it a listicle like what typecontent is it?
And approximately how long itis.
Now, I don't want you to copythem because that's not the
point.
We're not going to rank high.
If all we're doing is copyingthem, but we want to have an
idea what's ranking because.
(03:13):
If what's ranking is a 1500 wordblog post.
And we write something with 300words.
It's very unlikely that Googleis going to think that our.
300 word blog post.
Is more helpful and providesmore value than a 1500 word blog
post.
That is probably going much morein depth than ours is.
(03:37):
So you do want to look at thatand think about it and be very
realistic there.
Now what you can do.
If you're trying to figure outwhat to cover in it, you can
always go to chat GPT or Claude.
I personally prefer clot.
I've played around with severalof them.
I feel like Claude works alittle bit better from a content
perspective, but you can go toan AI tool and you can give it
(03:59):
the keyword Intel.
Like who your ideal customer is,who your audience is, what you
want to write about.
This is the blog post title, andyou helped me outline it and it
can help you outline the blogpost, and it can give you ideas
for what you should include init.
You can even have it, give you arough draft of it, if you really
aren't sure what to say now, Idon't want you to copy paste
(04:22):
anything out of AI onto yourwebsite, because you're not
going to rank with it, but itcan help get you started, which
can speed up the process.
Another thing you can do.
Is to.
Put your competitors blog postinto your AI tool.
And ask Google.
To use that as an input.
(04:43):
So this is the article.
This is the competitor.
What else could I put into myarticle to hopefully beat this
article?
And you can ask Google andGoogle can give you suggestions
for additional content oradditional.
Here's another good onesemantically related keywords.
Like what other semanticallyrelated information or
(05:05):
semantically related keywordscould I add here that can help
you as well?
So the reality is.
The length of your blog post isgoing to depend on the
competition in your market andthe competition for that
keyword.
If everybody who's ranking atthe top of page one, Has super
long.
(05:27):
Blog posts.
You're probably not going tooutrank them with a super short
one.
If they all have video in theirposts, then you probably need to
have video because Google is.
Ranking those because they are agood user experience.
People who are going to thosepages.
Are liking what they're seeing.
They're watching the videos.
They're engaging with thecontent.
(05:47):
They're listening to the audioclips, et cetera.
So, if you're trying to breakinto the top 10, then looking at
that information is going to behelpful.
So how long is your post?
It depends.
And I know that's probably notthe answer that you wanted, but
I want you to take a very.
Um, I want you to take a verystrategic approach in creating
(06:08):
your content this year, becausethe more strategic we can be.
The better results we're goingto get.
So I don't ever want you to jumpyou.
Come in and say, we're going towrite a 500 word blog post
because when we write to aspecific word count, It's not
very good because we're morefocused on the word count, then
the value and helping our idealcustomer being, providing
(06:30):
helpful content, all of that andhelpful content is a big part of
what Google is looking for fromour content perspective.
They're also grading us based ondouble E T, which is experience
expertise, authority, and trust.
So make sure when you arecreating your blog posts, you
are highlighting yourexperience, your expertise, your
authority, and trustworthiness.
(06:51):
Now authority and trustworthyare.
Be something you can show alittle bit in your blog posts,
but they're also going to besignals that Google gets from
other websites.
And they're really looking atlike the sentiment around your
brand in general.
Is it positive?
Is it negative?
They want to see that you have abrand across different channels.
So Google's looking at all ofthat.
(07:13):
So when you're writing a blogpost, the answer is.
There's no perfect keyword orthere's no perfect number of
words for your blog post forSEO, you need to look and see
what the competition is doing.
What, how long their posts are,what type.
Additional media, they'reputting into the posts and you
need to create something thatwill hopefully outrank those.
(07:33):
I hope that helps.
If you have any questions, youcan DM me on Instagram or you
can submit the Google doc that'sin here that has the link is in
the show notes, the descriptionon the podcast episode.
Um, I go through all of thatwhen I'm planning my content and
I use your questions for podcastepisodes.
You can also.
(07:54):
Text the show through Buzzsproutnow.
I can't respond back to thetexts, but I read them and I use
them to help.
To come up with topics and helpteach on things that I know
you're interested in learning.
All right, that's it for today?
Have a great one.
Bye for now.
Hi, and welcome back to the simple
SEO podcast.
I'm your host, Rachel LynnTeigen.
And I'm so glad to have you herewith me today.
Today, we're going to talk abouthow long should your blog post
be for SEO?
So if you are creating contenton a regular basis, you're
blogging or you have a YouTubeshow or a podcast video, or a
(00:23):
podcast, and you are creatingblog posts to go along with your
content to showcase it, to helpyou get more traffic from
Google.
You're very likely wondering howlong does this need to be?
How many words do I need toinclude?
You may even be wondering, can Ihave chat GPT, write it for me.
Um, no.
Let's not have chat GPT, writeit for you.
(00:46):
We're not going to get thequality that we need.
Let's just say that right now.
But how long should it be?
So, this is one of thosequestions where the answer is
not black and white.
The answer is it should be aslong as it needs to be.
And that's really ambiguous anddifficult and not super helpful.
Huh?
You probably would, rather Itell you it should be 500 words.
(01:07):
It should be seven 50.
It should be 2000 though.
If I say it should be 2000words, you're probably thinking.
Uh, no, Rachel, I'm not doingthat.
So the reason I say it should beas long as it needs to be.
As, because Google really wantsyou to focus on your reader.
What information do they need?
What should you include in it?
(01:29):
The other thing I want you tothink about and look at is what
is the competition sharing onthat subject?
Because the reality is you'renot going to be the only person
writing a blog post on whateversubject you're writing on,
because most of us are not inunderserved markets.
Most of us have competition andhaving competition is not a bad
(01:50):
thing.
Having competition tells us.
There was a market for ourproduct, our service, our niche,
et cetera.
So what you can do when you'retrying to figure out how long
should your blog post be?
How many words do you need?
What I want you to start with isgo to Google using an incognito
browser window.
Remember, that's the reallyimportant part because that's
(02:10):
where.
We get the information thatdoesn't have our personalized
results.
So what we see is more like whatsomeone else would see when
searching for keywords relatedto our business.
So I want you to go.
Once you've identified kind ofwhat you should be writing on.
You found a keyword idea.
Go and put that keyword intoGoogle, using the incognito
(02:31):
browser window and take a lookand see.
Who's ranking on page one.
Now who's ranking at the top ofpage one.
You've already identified thatthis is a good keyword.
You have a really good chance ofranking for it.
So that part we don't have toworry about, but what we're
looking at is what type contentdoes Google think is a good
result for that?
Keyword?
Are these short blog posts?
(02:52):
Are they long blog posts?
Do they have video in them?
Do they have audio in them?
Do they have lots of graphics?
Do they maybe have aninfographic?
Is it a listicle like what typecontent is it?
And approximately how long itis.
Now, I don't want you to copythem because that's not the
point.
We're not going to rank high.
If all we're doing is copyingthem, but we want to have an
idea what's ranking because.
(03:13):
If what's ranking is a 1500 wordblog post.
And we write something with 300words.
It's very unlikely that Googleis going to think that our.
300 word blog post.
Is more helpful and providesmore value than a 1500 word blog
post.
That is probably going much morein depth than ours is.
(03:37):
So you do want to look at thatand think about it and be very
realistic there.
Now what you can do.
If you're trying to figure outwhat to cover in it, you can
always go to chat GPT or Claude.
I personally prefer clot.
I've played around with severalof them.
I feel like Claude works alittle bit better from a content
perspective, but you can go toan AI tool and you can give it
(03:59):
the keyword Intel.
Like who your ideal customer is,who your audience is, what you
want to write about.
This is the blog post title, andyou helped me outline it and it
can help you outline the blogpost, and it can give you ideas
for what you should include init.
You can even have it, give you arough draft of it, if you really
aren't sure what to say now, Idon't want you to copy paste
(04:22):
anything out of AI onto yourwebsite, because you're not
going to rank with it, but itcan help get you started, which
can speed up the process.
Another thing you can do.
Is to.
Put your competitors blog postinto your AI tool.
And ask Google.
To use that as an input.
(04:43):
So this is the article.
This is the competitor.
What else could I put into myarticle to hopefully beat this
article?
And you can ask Google andGoogle can give you suggestions
for additional content oradditional.
Here's another good onesemantically related keywords.
Like what other semanticallyrelated information or
(05:05):
semantically related keywordscould I add here that can help
you as well?
So the reality is.
The length of your blog post isgoing to depend on the
competition in your market andthe competition for that
keyword.
If everybody who's ranking atthe top of page one, Has super
long.
(05:27):
Blog posts.
You're probably not going tooutrank them with a super short
one.
If they all have video in theirposts, then you probably need to
have video because Google is.
Ranking those because they are agood user experience.
People who are going to thosepages.
Are liking what they're seeing.
They're watching the videos.
They're engaging with thecontent.
(05:47):
They're listening to the audioclips, et cetera.
So, if you're trying to breakinto the top 10, then looking at
that information is going to behelpful.
So how long is your post?
It depends.
And I know that's probably notthe answer that you wanted, but
I want you to take a very.
Um, I want you to take a verystrategic approach in creating
(06:08):
your content this year, becausethe more strategic we can be.
The better results we're goingto get.
So I don't ever want you to jumpyou.
Come in and say, we're going towrite a 500 word blog post
because when we write to aspecific word count, It's not
very good because we're morefocused on the word count, then
the value and helping our idealcustomer being, providing
(06:30):
helpful content, all of that andhelpful content is a big part of
what Google is looking for fromour content perspective.
They're also grading us based ondouble E T, which is experience
expertise, authority, and trust.
So make sure when you arecreating your blog posts, you
are highlighting yourexperience, your expertise, your
authority, and trustworthiness.
(06:51):
Now authority and trustworthyare.
Be something you can show alittle bit in your blog posts,
but they're also going to besignals that Google gets from
other websites.
And they're really looking atlike the sentiment around your
brand in general.
Is it positive?
Is it negative?
They want to see that you have abrand across different channels.
So Google's looking at all ofthat.
(07:13):
So when you're writing a blogpost, the answer is.
There's no perfect keyword orthere's no perfect number of
words for your blog post forSEO, you need to look and see
what the competition is doing.
What, how long their posts are,what type.
Additional media, they'reputting into the posts and you
need to create something thatwill hopefully outrank those.
(07:33):
I hope that helps.
If you have any questions, youcan DM me on Instagram or you
can submit the Google doc that'sin here that has the link is in
the show notes, the descriptionon the podcast episode.
Um, I go through all of thatwhen I'm planning my content and
I use your questions for podcastepisodes.
You can also.
(07:54):
Text the show through Buzzsproutnow.
I can't respond back to thetexts, but I read them and I use
them to help.
To come up with topics and helpteach on things that I know
you're interested in learning.
All right, that's it for today?
Have a great one.
Bye for now.
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