Recently there has been a lot of debate as to whether or not the article word count of your blog post matters. Lots of people will tell you that your articles need to be super long (2000+ words) in order to rank on the front page of Google, but that’s simply not the case – at least not anymore!
In 2012, serpIQ published a report that showed the average word count of the Top 10 ranking pages. As you can see, it shows that each of the Top 10 pages has more than 2000 words:
But a LOT has changed about the internet since 2012 (thankfully)!
Article Word Count Doesn’t Matter Anymore
As small business owners, we don’t have time to write a masterful piece of content once a month and especially not once a week. The good news is that correlation does not equal causation. In 2021, the top-ranking content on the internet ranges from 900 words to upwards of 1,500 words. Many of the Top 10 ranking pages are sprinkled with e-commerce websites as well (and no one is writing “epic content” for each of their product listings – neither do you!).
Does that mean you can skip blogging altogether? No. At least, we don’t recommend sleeping on your blog. Content marketing is still the #1 form of online marketing for ANY business. You should be creating content that your visitors, clients, and prospects want to read about. Here are a few guidelines to follow:
- Write content that answers questions your business gets all the time (FAQs).
- Use as many, or as few, words as necessary to cover/educate on a specific topic.
- Publish at least one piece of content per month, but more is better.
Google has said that word count is not a ranking factor, but that “content freshness” is a ranking factor. So while you don’t have to have 2000+ word articles coming out each month, you should aim to publish at least one article per month.
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