What’s the best article length for SEO?

Ideally, the word count for blog posts and articles used to be around 500-700 words. In 2012, experts called this the "sweet spot" that allowed visitors to easily read, share, and bookmark blog posts. However, over the years search engines placed higher emphasis on quality content, leading to some changes. As Google's need for high-quality content increased, so did the ideal word count.

Push for Around 2,000 Words or Greater

According to SEO experts in 2014, it should take around seven minutes to read a blog post, which translates to roughly 1,700 words. So, today's ideal word count for most blog posts and articles is closer to around 1,500-2,000 words. Data that Moz, Serp IQ, and Medium collected supports this, having found that posts of over 2,000 words in length performed much better than shorter posts in both social media shares and backlinks. This means that even exceeding 2,000 words can be highly beneficial in many instances.

Write Up to 2,500 for the Greatest Amount of Organic Traffic

Posts as long as over 2,500 words have some of the highest amounts of organic traffic as well, with the sweet spot for blog posts' organic traffic sitting between 2,250-2,500 words. The reason for this is the greater chance of including naturally integrated long-tail keywords in the content. You may not even realize while writing long posts about a certain topic that you're including a specific relevant phrase that others might search. In turn, you'll be able to rank for certain niche terms that competitors may not have even thought to target.

Put simply, the longer your posts, the more you'll be able to attract engaged readers and rank for a wide range of terms.