Stop Counting Words On Your Blog Right Now

The SEO "experts" are telling you it's time to focus on more words.  Here's why they are wrong.

All of a sudden everyone is once again focused on the perfect length of a blog.

In the past week, I've seen one "expert" say 1,000 words.  I've seen another person say 1,500 words.  The third piece I read said 2,000 words.

What began as quiet whispers over word count turned into thunderous roars as the bloggers began scrambling for enough content to fill the enlarged hole.

So what is the IDEAL length of a blog?

Well that, my friends, is an entirely pointless question.

It's a pointless question because it shifts the focus to the entirely wrong end game.  It changes the movement from quality to quantity.  It disrupts the play in a very negative way, encouraging writers to care less about providing value and engaging readers and more about trying to game Google.

And if we've learned ANYTHING from Google in the past few years, it's that they will ALWAYS win.  Period.  Bottom line.

Listens, ladies and gents.  I can bore you with 2,000 words about stats and case studies pertaining to the ideal length of a blog.  Or I could trust that you're just going to Google it anyway.

No, let's instead use a couple of examples.  

I publish on our website, LinkedIn, Medium and a couple of other industry specific websites.  Hands down the most traffic has come from LinkedIn thanks to Pulse.  But there's an art to it.  Is the art the word length?  You tell me.

In May, I published this piece:  

With The Rise Of The Millennial Comes The Fall Of The Suit

Word Count: 566 words

View: 46,458

Likes: 832

Comments: 382

Last November, I published this piece:

What I Learned About Marketing From The Boss I Fired

Word Count: 1,579

Views: 40,610

Likes: 568

Comments: 199

Notice the difference in word count.  But notice the views, likes, and comments.

What do we learn from this?

It's simple, really.  Nobody gives a damn about the word count, including Google, if you're not curating content that offers value.  Word count also doesn't matter nearly as much as these three elements:

1. Create a captivating headline that gives people a reason or intrigue to read.
2. Publish your content where the eyeballs are and WHEN they are.  What I mean by this is know what's trending and be a part of the conversation.
3. Market your content.  You can have the best restaurant on the planet, but if nobody knows about it...nobody will ever taste the magnificent food.  Distribute.  Mine social media.  Engage in Twitter as part of the conversation, and keep the distribution of the teaser not to 140 characters but rather to 110 characters so that when people retweet it, they can inject their thoughts.  Respond to comments.  Distribute....but engage. 

So people - for the love of God - will you PLEASE stop worrying about the number of words and start focusing on the quality of them?

P.S. - Total words: 485.  BOOM.

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POSTED BY

Kyle Reyes is the President and Creative Director of The Silent Partner Marketing, New England's #1 Marketing Agency. We're a boutique marketing firm focused on helping businesses grow in an age of exploding technology. You can find him on Facebook and Twitter.