This is an excellent topic to write about as I have quite a bit of personal experience with this. As many of you know, I am a total nut about blogging. I enjoy it a lot and the content always seems to flow very nicely. But the question remains, how long should my blog posts be? This is something that you should really focus on for your blog and the results actually do vary depending on the personal preferences of your readers.

My rule of thumb until you can get a better feel for your readership is to be fairly standardized with the length of your posts. By default I would recommend that each post be limited to around 500 words or less. You can to consider that many readers live very busy lives and their time they can spend in reading your blog is very limited.

Why Should Blog Posts Be 500 Words?

I think a 500 word post is a size that is very easy to read in a quick amount of time. Also I believe that 500 words should be enough space for a blog author to complete the objective, goal or point that they are trying to make across to their readers. Another thing to consider is material. When house builders are building a house, they don’t want to waste material. Builders are not going to use extra nails when only two nails are required. Builders are not going to install extra layers of flooring when its not needed.

The same should go hand in hand in hand with blogging. Consider your words as nails. You never want to waste more nails that what is needed to complete the job. Too many nails in wood is bad. Too many nails can actually damage the wood and cause it to split and become weak. The same goes with blogging and the same goes with the attention span of your readers.

Can I write Less Than 500 Words

Sure you can, but I believe that if you go under the 500 word threshold that you start to degrade the quality in your content and also lessen your ability to successfully deliver your message to your readers. If you write an article that has 300 words, don’t get me wrong, that is fine, but often I always try to hit my 500 word mark. The most important thing to consider is your readers. You should study the reading habits of your readers. See which posts deliver you the highest number of desired actions. Whether that action is comments, clicks, successful leads or sales, you should always study your blog readers patterns.

Can I Write More Than 500 Words

Indeed you can. And in all honestly, I am the type of blogger who does around 500 to 1000 word posts. While I always aim for 500, it doesn’t always work out that way. However, in my experience I have come to learn my optimized word count sweet spot. My readers tend to favor 500 to 1000 word articles. They don’t mind 500 or less, but I believe I get the best bang out of a 500 to 1000 word article.

One thing that I would consider doing if I have material that exceeds 1000 words is to break my material down into a multi-post series. If the topic of my blog post can’t be wrapped up in 1000 words or less, then I can really get the best bang by breaking the material into a part one, part two and even a part three series. Bloggers love this and it also gives them a reason to come back for more.

How Can I Figure Out What My Readers Like?

Simple. Ask them. You can easily ask your readers directly by writing a post stating that you’d like to collect their opinions. Ask readers to use the comment form to submit their opinions, or ask them to email you directly. You too have the option of creating a poll. Readers on their own free time can simply vote or answer the questions you have included into this poll. I would provide multiple choice answers rather than allowing readers to submit their own random answers as it will be easier for you to make the determination based off the results. At the bottom of the poll you can have a section where readers can submit their feedback.

Just FYI, this article is near 750 words.