If you search, you will find contradictory answers.
- A blog post should contain at least 300 words…
- The ideal length for a blog post is 200-400 words…
- Any post that exceeds 500 words should be broken into two posts…
- The best blogging length should be 300-600 words…
- Consider writing 400 to 600 words for small effective posts…
- A post between 400-600 words is widely considered the “standard” length…
- Experts suggest that 1500-2000 words is the ideal length of a blog post…
- The ideal blog post length should be at least 2,000 words…
- Blog post should be 2,100-2,400 words…
So, how many words should you write for a good blog post that gets traffic?
I keep getting this question. The answer depends on why you are writing. If you are just writing as a creative outlet, don’t worry about it.
How many words make a good blog post?
Today I decided to look at my highest ranking posts to see if I can come up with any kind of answer.
My posts are all over the place. I wasn’t originally writing with any idea of putting ads on my pages. When I first monetized my blogs, I broke some of my longer content into two posts.
Highest Ranking Pages and Posts
The highest ranking page on my sites isn’t a post. It is the home page of Project Small House. The page length varies, but usually has around 650 words, or less. It averaged 1,289 views per day in 2021. The page first went up in 2017 with 76 views per day, 2018 had 210 views a day, 2019 grew to 264 views per day, 2020 had 883 views a day.
My highest ranking post in 2021 was written in 2019. The post has 1266 words.
Home Depot Sundance TR-1600 2-Story Farmhouse – The New Classic Manor New Day Cabin
In 2019 it averaged 3 views per day. In 2020 it averaged 301 views per day and so far in 2021 it has averaged 303 views per day.
The next highest is also a home page, my design42. It averaged 195 views per day. The page changes regularly, but usually has around 800 words. The first year it was up, it had only 8 visits per day and grew slowly, 9 the next year, then 17, 40 and a jump to 149 visits per day.
The next highest is a post from 2018. It has only 228 words and had 168 views per day in 2021.
Modular Log Cabin for under $10,000
It averaged 2 views per day. In 2018, 15 views per day in 2019, 61 views per day in 2020.
Other pages with around the same traffic are all over the place, 683 words, 448 words, 1485 words, 958 words, 180 words, 467 words, 459 words, 624 words… All different word counts, all with traffic around 150 views per day.
Conclusion
Did you notice how few views some of these posts got the first year or years they were up? Don’t get discouraged if you only have a few visitors at first.
Some posts will have a lot of visitors for a few days, then no visitors at all for a while. The posts and pages with the most views make up only a small fraction of the traffic to the site.
Some of the posts that at first got a lot of visitors don’t get as many any more. It’s important to keep writing.
An interesting topic is more important than the number of words on the page.
The posts and pages with the highest traffic are not where I make the most money. The pages that make the most money don’t even show up in my stats.
The long posts I broke into two shorter posts don’t show up in the stats either. They get traffic. They seem to get the same traffic short as they did when they were longer.