The Ideal Length for Blog Articles

by Rahimah Sultan

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Because your business strategy is in place, you should have already determined your audience.


Your audience should be a determining factor when deciding on an ideal blog post length as well.


You need to consider these questions when determining your audience and your ideal blog post length.


** Which social media platforms do your audience share content from the most?
** What types of media sources are they following?
** What types of content are they sharing?
** How long are the blog posts that they are engaging with?


Word count is not a standalone ranking factor. It only has value if the content is of great quality.

A few years ago, the average blog post was usually somewhere between 500 and 800 words or even less.

Now long-form content is dominant.

There is no magic number for every post every time.



What is the average length of a blog post?

Although there is no average length per se, there are suggested lengths for different industries.

Financial technology (FinTech) – 2,000 – 2.150 words

The topics in this industry are fairly complex so they require a lot of depth. For adequate coverage, you should aim for between 2,000 – 2,250 words with a significant number of data-driven images like graphs and charts.

Finance – 2,100 – 2,500 words

Research has shown these numbers to be ideal for the largest volume of organic traffic in the finance industry.

Manufacturing – 1,700 – 1,900 words

The manufacturing industry includes chemicals, textiles, machines, and heavy equipment. There might be differing opinions regarding the word count. But, on the whole, 1,700 – 1,900 is a safe number.

Sales – 2,500 – 2,700 words

Sales is a wide umbrella covering many different areas. The most successful posts in this industry have a high word count.

Retail – 1,500 – 1,700 words

Retail drives the U.S. economy, whether it’s massive chains or mom-and-pop stores.

Online retail has experienced massive growth over recent years, and like manufacturing, the retail industry can involve a lot of different types of content.

So, 1,500 – 1,700 words or even less is sufficient to explain a product or service.

While images are always important across the board, for retail-based articles they’re especially critical.

Real estate – 1,800 -1,900 words

Real estate is an incredibly competitive industry in which you’ll need to specialize in a few strategic areas and be able to deliver expert advice to your readers.

You’ll need to master local SEO.

Home and garden – 1,100 -1,200 words

The word count for this industry is much lower than for the rest because these types of posts are more visual-centric and use lots of pictures and how-to videos to demonstrate their products.

Tech – 800 – 1,000 words

 Most tech articles are a short commentary on a product, technology developments, or events, so 1,000 words is a reasonable count.

Gadgets – 300 – 500 words

After talking about long-form content being best, this seems incredibly low.

There are always exceptions. You probably don’t need to go on and on about a new gadget. Just be practical and cover the background, key features, nice images, pricing, etc.

You want to give readers a clear idea of what to expect if they buy it.

Marketing/advertising – 2,500 – 3,000 words

Just about everyone in marketing engages in content marketing. Which means a lot of content.

In this area, giving value with a high word count will help you to stand out from the competition.

Healthcare – 2,000 – 2,150 words

Healthcare is a huge industry. Not only are there major publications, but there are so many scholarly articles that feature original research from top universities.

To get your content noticed and shared, you must create top-level articles that are filled with valuable data.

Fashion – 800 – 950 words

As with tech gadgets, there’s no need to over-state fashion content. This number of words will allow you to adequately discuss fashion trends, styles, or industry models.

It goes without saying; be sure to include plenty of images.

Recruiting – 900 – 1,000 words

This industry content tends to be statistics-heavy but fairly short.

Food – 1,400 – 1,900 words

There are a whole lot of people writing about the food industry, and food blogs have increased.

Be sure to include beautiful images to make an instant connection with readers.

Travel – 1,500 – 1,850 words

This should be long enough to entirely cover topics like travel tips, destinations, useful gadgets, and more.

Film – 1,500 – 1,700 words

This industry keeps growing. To stand out you have to create substantial, long-form posts.


Producing content is not all about length. There are other variables that determine the success of your blog articles.

** Substance – The most basic consideration is what you’re trying to say. It may require 150 words or 10,000 words.

** Style – Of course, writing styles vary and will affect your content. Some styles will use content that is short, brief, and to the point, and other times it’s conversational and interactive. The style will affect the length of your content.

** Frequency – It takes time to write good content. Some bloggers post once a week while others put out short posts daily. The frequency depends on how much you can manage.

** Format – Your format has a great impact on its readability. You should break your content into small sections so readers can easily skim it. You can do this by using lots of subheadings, a few images throughout the article, and short paragraphs.

** Purpose – What is the purpose or purposes of the article? You may want to spread brand awareness, drive social engagement, provide education, grow email lists, or improve SEO. All these are sub-goals related to your ultimate goal of making conversions.

** Audience – You have to create content based on what your particular audience needs and wants. It should be based on their passions, interests, and their problems.

** Medium – When you post a video, meme, or infographic, word count doesn’t matter. With an infographic, you might use around 100 words to introduce the topic.



Why is long-form content best?

You can cover your topic with a level of depth that’s clearly impossible in a shorter post. So, long-form is perceived as high quality.

As most people don’t read word for word, long-form content is perfect for skimming. What people do is scan and check out headlines, subtitles, and bullet points, and look at the images.

Research shows that most visitors only read about 20 percent of an article.

It seems that creating content with a high word count leaves readers feeling as though they’ve just read something very impressive when they’ve finished.

Short, thin content can’t provide this certain sense of satisfaction.


As long as you provide value to your readers, they’ll appreciate a short or long article. So, use this information to determine the ideal length for blog articles that works for both you and your reader.


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