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The length of your articles for your SEO strategy

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Written by Gulupa Digital

Digital Marketing Agency in Colombia

For Google, “content is king”, and if we think about SEO strategies to position your websiteHaving a blog is one of the best strategies to offer quality content.

If you've written for a blog on a client's website or are about to start generating content for your own website, you may have wondered at some point: What is the perfect length for articles?

Well, there are many opinions about how long a blog post should be, what works best for both Google and your users, and in this article we want to clear up all your doubts regarding this topic.

Why is article length important?

In SEO matters, A long article gives search engines more clues about what your article is about., so they can index it better, and avoid falling into strategies that harm your positioning such as "Keyword stuffing«.

Furthermore, the longer an article is, the better developed the topic is, offering more points of view, data, illustrative images, more links, etc. which allows you to better incorporate your keywordsWhat's more, with these articles you can improve your positioning in long-tail keywords, thus improving your chances of attracting quality traffic to your website.

As a final point of this question, a short article does not offer Google enough data to index it in its searches, You can also consider them as spam..

What do the experts say?

In this section we want to present some points of view from different SEO experts on the length of blog articles.

Marieke van de Rakt, Founder of Yoast Academy, states that “A blog article must have at least 300 words to be better positioned in search engines.” She also claims that long articles rank better, but it takes great writing skills to write an article of more than 1000 words without losing the reader's attention.

Moz, in a study looking at user behavior regarding content, states that “Contrary to popular belief, long articles attract more links than articles with 900 words or less.They also claim that an article containing between 1,800 and 3,000 words ranks 15 times better than a post with 600 words or less.

In the article “The optimal post is 7 minutes”They claim that an article should take 7 minutes to read, having a length of 2100 words, which means 300 words per minute.

As you can see, opinions are different, but the conclusion that everyone comes to is the same: Long articles rank better than the short ones.

What is the perfect length for my articles?

We must start from the minimum, and That's 300 words, this amount is the minimum that Google needs. to consider your article as one that offers something, but is still very weak.

As experts say, The ideal length of an article is between 1000 and 1500 wordsWith this extension you have enough information to explain the topic and clear up any doubts that your readers may have had when searching and entering your blog. This does not mean that you cannot extend it to 2000 or 2500 words, as long as you provide quality content.

But there have also been cases of Articles that with fewer words (a length between 600 and 750 words) manage to position themselves in the top positions than a long article. This is due to the user's search intent: whether you are looking for specific information or if you are looking for more detailed information.

When we talk about timely information We refer to specific data on a topic, if we want to know “which days there are peak and license plate restrictions” we need an article that tells us the specific data on which numbers are imposed on a certain day and the time at which they will be imposed. On the other hand, when we talk about extended information, We refer to articles that explore a topic in depth., For example, "Tricks to avoid losing money on Google Ads"where we look for advice and solutions to this issue.

Speaking of topics, you need to be aware of the topic you want to write about, Not all topics are dense enough to be able to write more than 600 words.While length matters, content is just as important; if you write a 1000-word article and that article could have been written in fewer words, you'll be wasting your time, your users' interest, and it will affect your SEO ranking.

Clarifying all points of view, we can affirm that At least an article must have 300 words to be considered by search engines, but it is recommended that they be between 600 and 750 words If they are articles whose intention is to give concrete data and between 1000 and 1500 words if you are looking to provide more extensive information on a particular topic.

Tips for achieving the right length for your articles

The first advice we want to give you is that Don't force your articles, write as much as you can without becoming repetitive, or if you feel that you are offering empty content, remember that Google takes into account the bounce rate and the time spent in order to position you better.

Second, Keep in mind the topic and the objective you are seeking with your article. Are you looking to sell a certain product? Give information about something? A news item? Try to keep your articles short but concise. On the other hand, do you want to educate your audience? Provide information about a topic such as marketing strategies? Try to keep your articles long and explain as well as possible all the variants and information offered.

Third and last, Think about your target audience, what their reading habits are, the language they use, this will allow you to structure your articles in such a way that they can consume and understand them in the circumstances in which they normally interact with your content; it is not the same to write for young people as for adults, it is not the same to write for experts as for curious people, it is not the same to read from a computer as from a cell phone... if we keep these variants in mind we can use one language or another that will give us more or fewer words, but the message will be clear and valuable to the reader.

Summing up…

After all these explanations we can affirm that:

  • The number of words minimum is 300 to be considered by search engines.
  • If the search intent is specific information, the ideal is that your articles be between 600 and 750 words.
  • If the search intent is expanded information, the ideal is that your articles be between 1000 and 1500 words.
  • Write what you have to write, never force the length of a topic just to fill a minimum of words.
  • Language is your great allyIf you express yourself as your target audience would, you will find the right words to write.
  • Finally, “content is king” Write about topics that interest your target audience and that they find valuable or that resolve any doubts they had.

After writing this article with approximately 1200 words, we hope that we have helped you to clear up any doubts about the appropriate length of your articles and that you have found some tips to write better articles that will help you position yourself in search engines.

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