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REALITY CHECK! Who has time to write 1000-word blog posts every day?
Often, you’ll hear SEO experts tell you that content on your website should be as long and as in-depth as possible.
‘Blog posts should be at least 2000 words long.’ For example.
Let’s set aside for a second the fact that it’s completely unrealistic to expect busy business owners to churn out thousands of words of content every single day, week, or month.
And let’s come back to what it is your audience actually wants – and has time - to read.
We know that Google wants to provide audiences with content that is relevant, useful, and accessible.
Where in that description is Google telling us that content must be wordy, long, and time-consuming?
NOWHERE!
People are busy. A lot of the time, we are researching stuff online, and we need a quick answer.
There is a time and a place for long, in-depth articles, absolutely.
But the important question to ask yourself is whether or not long-form content is the kind of content YOUR audience is looking for.
I built a website for my previous business that attracted over 45k organic visitors/month. Most of the content on that site consisted of articles between 300 and 500 words in length. So really short articles!
Yes, of course we had longer articles on the site, when there was a topic we needed to explain in depth, or information we needed to share that merited thousands of words.
But most of the time, simplicity and clarity was what our audience was looking for. So that’s what we gave them. We provided lots and lots of nuggets of information, that was approachable and easy to digest.
By helping our audience and answering their most immediate and pressing questions succinctly and quickly, we really helped them out. We gave them what they needed, and they grew to know, like, and trust us deeply. We quickly became an online authority for that topic.
So this is me telling you that you don’t need to write long blog posts in order to clearly demonstrate your expertise either to your audience or to Google. Consider yourself officially off the hook.
Make sure your content is relevant and useful for your target audience, and you’ll be ten steps ahead of your competitors.
My name's Claire and I’m an SEO and content strategy expert. I help startups and ambitious businesses improve their content, so that customers can find your website in search, and so that when they do, they convert.
I’m a former startup CEO, and I’ve worked for some of the world’s biggest publishers (Penguin Random House, Oxford University Press), as well as training with Google's in-house SEO team. I even built a website to attract 45k in organic search visitors/month. Drop me a line if you need help of any kind with SEO and content.
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