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Content: What is the Optimal Length?

If you’re a regular reader of our marketing blog, you’ll have noticed that a few months back our blogs suddenly got a lot longer. That wasn’t an accident. Our marketing team had been doing some research into ideal content lengths for different types of online content and found out that we were a little under where we needed to be to be able to get in the top organic Google search results. So we redesigned our blogging strategy and the blogging strategies of many of our clients. Conventional wisdom had us writing blogs that were around 300 or 350 words long—short, easily-digestible, quick reads on various topics that were relevant to customers. We thought that this length, which could be read in about five minutes, was the right length. Then we did a little research. The best length for a blog post is actually double or triple what we had been writing. For a blog post to turn up in the top, organic Google or Bing search results, it needs to have between 700 and 1,000 words. Are your blog posts in that range? If not, that could be one reason why you’re not seeing the results you want from blogging. Since we started posting longer blogs, we’ve seen a lot more traffic on our site and our blogs are showing up higher in Google search. Inspired by this, we looked into how long the content should be on webpages and found out that we were coming up a little short there, too. Well, more than a little. Chances are you are as well. Check your website and approximate how much content is on each of your pages—100 words, 500 words, 1,000 words? Guess how much content you should have on each webpage for those pages to show up in the top, organic Google and Bing search results? Between 2,000 and 2,500 words. Your immediate reaction to that statistic might be to go post a bunch of random content on your website to increase the word count, but please, please resist that urge. Part of why Google likes content-rich sites is because people like content rich sites. And people show Google that they like content rich sites by linking to them—on social media, in other blogs, all over the place. So if you have a webpage that has 2,300 words of content, but 2,000 of those words are meaningless gibberish, then no one will link to your site and Google won’t prioritize it, even though it’s the right length. Same thing goes with blog posts. There’s no use in slapping up an 800-word blog post if 450 of the words are meaningless nonsense. Nobody will read it or link to it, Google will be able to tell that it’s not quality content and they won’t prioritize it in search rankings. Being high in Google search rankings is important. It is the most used search engine in the United States and in the world with 1.17 billion users. Those 1.17 billion users log over 3.5 billion searches each day. This might seem a little overwhelming (because it is) but the important thing to get out of it is this: most of your customers and potential customers are using Google search to find things—especially local goods and services. The higher your website and blog posts rank in Google search results, the more likely that customers searching for your or searching for a business with your expertise will be able to find you. When someone searches “dog groomer in Oklahoma City” they aren’t going to look through 75 pages of search results. They’re going to click on one of the top links that comes up. So if you want to be one of the top results to come up when someone searches “your business” in “your city,” it’s time to start prioritizing both the quality and the quantity of your content. If you need any help keeping up with your blogging requirements or updating your content, call the content creation experts at Skynet Solutions. We can write interesting, fresh content for any industry or business, as well as handling your social media and other marketing needs. Whether you’re targeting specific customers or just want to get the word out about your new business, we can handle it. We also have a talented development team who can build you anything from a basic website to custom software. With our diverse range of skills and experience, we are sure to have the tools you need to make 2016 your business’s best year yet. You can fill out our online contact form on our website. You can also connect with us on Facebook, Twitter, Google+and LinkedIn!