How many words should our blog posts be? What’s the word count to aim for?

Introduction

We get it, it feels like writing blog posts, main pages and evergreen content marketing takes forever.

Therefore, businesses up and down the country when they are writing a blog post often want to know- how long should the article be?

What is the ideal word count that Google is looking for?

Okay, lets make this super simple, writing 3,000 plus words until your hands hurt, well that doesn’t automatically mean that the content marketing will be considered better.

For the content marketing to be considered high quality, it needs the following attributes:

– High Google EEAT score
– It needs to be really useful for the customer
– Needs to be kept up to date
– Written in a way that holds the customer’s interest

What is the ideal word count?

Here’s the thing, there’s no ideal word count. You could write below 700 words and it ranks on page one of Google for some queries.

Alternatively, you could write 3,000 words plus, and that’s what’s needed to rank on page one of Google.

Here’s how Google decides what the word count should be for that question:

– Which page best answers the query?
– Which page has the highest dwell time?
– Which pages have the lowest bounce rate?
– Which pages cover the topic in-depth?

A word on the semantic web

This is not something that SEO agencies discuss enough in our opinion, that is the semantic web,

Basically, without getting too technical, if you mention say a famous racing driver, the Google Knowledge Graph will know who the race team is the driver works for.

Google Knowledge Graph will also know the drivers sponsors, information such as how many races that they have won in the past.

Also Google Knowledge Graph will know who the co-driver is, major events such as where a crash might have occurred.

Therefore, the point that we are trying to make is Google Knowledge Graph understand “entities”.

Entities can be a race team, a famous bridge or a product- it can be anything.

Now what has this got to do with writing blog posts?

Well Google understands the semantic web.

Therefore, if your content marketing is detailed, if its full of facts and figures which Google can cross-check with the semantic web, well this means Google trusts the content marketing even more.

Yes but why is it that long form content marketing seems to rank higher on Google?

The reason is simple, but there are also multiple reasons.

The first reason is if the work is long form, if its evergreen content marketing for example, that’s 4,000 words, if its well written it will cover a lot of questions and entities.

This means that Google can check if the answers are correct.

Plus, also because you mentioned so many entities, Google will know that they are offering a detailed answer to a question.

The other reason comes down to user engagement, for example, if you can get the dwell time really high, this shows to a search engine like

Google that you have gained the shoppers interest for potentially many minutes.

It’s a bit like when you wander into a clothes shop and you instantly know the items are not too your style.

You therefore walk out in a matter of seconds.

This is the exact same with a webpage that doesn’t answer the query.

You leave more or less straightaway, you don’t read another page, this sends the bounce rate higher.

This therefore contributes to lower engagement, if this happens for many weeks, and months, Google knows that the page is not answering the query.

Therefore, Google RankBrain and Google’s algorthim then ranks the work lower.

For example, lets give you an example of what might occur.

Two businesses are selling high-end running shoes.

One page has a dwell time of 4 minutes; plus other pages are visited.

The other business has a dwell time of 30 seconds, and no further pages are often clicked on by the customer.

Therefore, it’s clear to Google’s algorithm that one business has much higher engagement from shoppers, and therefore will rank higher than the page with low dwell time, but a high bounce rate.

Better answers the original query

A page that simply answers the shoppers query better will rank higher on Google.

This comes back to where we were talking about, the semantic web, and also user engagement signals.

Many people will have landed on a page and read it for a while, and then learnt that doesn’t even answer their query.

This is fairly common, because well rubbish SEO companies, sometimes write a title that they know will grab a lot of interest, yet then don’t answer the question.

They just go on to overly promote a set of products, or just write marketing waffle.

For example, it could “best ski-gear to buy for 2026”
Somebody going skiing to the Swiss Alps might read that, but then learn that only one brand of product is constantly being pushed as the best.

Therefore, another page, by a e-commerce business, might have different products, different items depending on budget, better quality advice.

Perhaps writing the pros and cons of a particular pair of ski boots, therefore the customer is better informed.

By being better informed through reading a more informative blog post , there likely to read the work for longer.

Therefore, the dwell time is higher.

A word on Google EEAT

Whether your writing a main page or perhaps your writing a blog post always think about Google EEAT.

In relation writing content marketing, you want to show that you’re the expert on the subject.

Plus, you have real experience.

It’s the articles where its clear to the reader and Google, that you know what your talking about, that work will always rank higher on Google.

The reason is simple, a lot of work is written by AI today, and this often doesn’t rank that high on Google.

The reason is AI hasn’t experienced the real world.

It hasn’t fixed a car, its hasn’t fixed a dripping tap, it just learns from existing knowledge from existing pages.

It’s therefore the pages which offer in-depth advice, where its clear that the person say an expert lawyer, and an expert on that subject, those pages will rank higher.f

Therefore before you start writing blog posts, and perhaps evergreen content marketing for your business do make sure that you have a good read of Google EEAT, its really important that you understand this, as integral to improving your businesses organic SEO.

What should we do we haven’t got the time to write 1000 word plus articles?

In our opinion, there are two options here.

You could write less articles, but when you do, make sure that they are high quality and remember a golden rule when it comes to search engine optimisation.

That is quality is always better than quantity.

Although you could also hire one of the best SEO agencies in the whole of Bristol, and that is Digital Tailors.

Packages start from 1k per month.

Included in that fee will be content marketing writing.

And who better to write your content marketing and improve your on-page SEO, that having SEO consultants, which have over 10+ years of experience.

We therefore have experience of writing hundreds of thousands of words per year, and because of that we know which content marketing works and what doesn’t.

Some rather lazy SEO companies, use AI tools, and sometimes mix AI text with human written text, that’s no good in our view.

Instead, we research, we use some of the best SEO tools in the world, they we write the work.

Partner with one of the best in Bristol.

We are one of the best SEO businesses in Bristol, for a quote why not call us?