How Long Should My Blog Posts Be?

Every time I talk to real estate agents and brokers about real estate blogging, I'm asked the question, 'How long should my blog posts be?'

Every. Single. Time.

The easy answer is, 'As long as it takes.'

Easy, yes. Helpful, not so much.

The correct answer is, of course, 437 words. The perfect blog post is 437 words long.

I jest. You see the thing is there is no right answer to this question. Much like any question posed regarding the 'best' thing to do, there is no one answer that fits every scenario.

If you dive into the research that has been done on things like Internet user attention span, eye-tracking studies and the like, you generally hear that the shorter the blog post the better. The logic behind this argument is that Internet readers tend to scan pages; they don't really read pages. So short copy with lots of headers and white space makes for easy scanning and consumption online.

Then the SEO (Search Engine Optimization) experts start to weigh in. They will tell you things like, 'Google needs to see at least 300 words to figure out what a post is about.' Or 150 words, or 437 words, or 1,200 words. You see, the problem with asking an SEO question is that if you ask five SEO experts the same question, you get eight different answers. Why? Because outside the hallowed halls of Google, the simple fact is no one really knows the formula to the secret sauce.

There is little argument that shorter articles tend to be read more often (or at least more thoroughly) than longer articles.

But sometimes, you just need more words to convey the story than the magical 'keep them short, between 300 and 500 words' mantra provides.

(Incidentally, If you're wondering how long 300 words is, THIS is the 300th word in this article. It really isn't that many words. And trust me, it took a lot of planning and editing to get that 300th word in just the right spot.)

So what is the answer? How long should a blog post be?

As long as it takes.

Seriously. Don't worry about the length of your article. Just tell the story and write. If it's 100 words, great. If it's 1,500 words, great. Just by publishing an article to your blog you are one giant leap ahead of the vast majority of agents who say they blog. Writing and publishing is the hard part. Focus on that — the writing — and don't worry about incidentals such as word count, keyword density, H1 and H2 tags and all that SEO geek-speak. Just write.

If, like me and many others, you tend to write long articles, and if you have decided you would rather publish shorter articles, here are a few tips:

• Try reducing the scope of your article — perhaps you are tackling too broad a subject? Narrowing the scope will almost certainly reduce the word count.
• Part it out. Some article ideas are by their very nature going to be longer than others. "Tips for First-Time Home Buyers" could be the length of a novel. Break lengthy subject material into smaller parts and publish multiple posts. "Three Beginning Steps for the First-Time Home Buyers" lends itself to a shorter, and easier to digest, article. And it can be followed up with things like, "The Middle Game for First-Time Buyers," "What No One Tells First-Time Buyers," "Closing on Your First Home" and on, and on. Now instead of one lengthy tome on all things first-time buyers need to know, you've got yourself a little series. You could even combine several posts into a PDF file and offer it as a call to action on your site — "Free download! Get our entire first-time buyer series."
• Edit ruthlessly. The hardest part of writing, for me, is editing. Going back into a post and trimming and tightening your prose is a necessary evil. Don't skip this step, even if word count isn't your focus.

And really, word count should not be your focus. Tell the story. That's the important part.

But Seth Godin writes really short blogs, and look how successful he is!

Sure he does. But he's Seth Godin, New York Times best-selling author of many books. You aren't Seth Godin, so don't try to be. Be you. People are looking for a real estate agent to help them, and that's you, not Seth Godin, or any other author, marketer, publisher or candlestick maker.

If you can tell your story, and communicate who you are in 200 words, knock yourself out. If it takes 1,200 words, so what? Believe me, no one has ever said, 'That guy sounds like the perfect agent for us. If only his blog posts were shorter we'd pick him for sure!'

Just write, click publish and move on. Google is smart; it will figure things out. Your readers are even smarter — just give them the story and don't worry about word count.

It's the words that matter, not how many of them happen to be on the page.

Coming up in a few days, the companion question (and answer) — How Often Should I Post to My Blog?

See what I did there. I broke up what could be a very long piece into parts ... give it a shot.

P.S.: The word count for this article comes in at 897. But you don't care about that, right?