3,457 Words in One Article - Is It Enough?

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68.1K followers

Hello my friend,

I would like to ask you a question today. But first, let me tell a quick story.

When I first started writing articles to my blog, my minimum was 500 words per article.

Then I realized 700 words per article is better.

Some professionals said me that 1,000 words is better.

Then Carson said 1,500 words is better.

So, during the last 6 months 95% of my articles have been over 1,500 words and they seem to get more traffic than shorter ones I guess.

Neil Patel said that his minimum is 2,000 words per article but usually writes 3,000-7,000 words.

Eric Cantu, the guy who achieved success on Wealthy Affiliate, said on one of his blog posts here than he writes usually long "Best of" articles that drive tons of traffic and make sales.

Now I just published my longest article with the title, "15 Best Ways to Learn Spanish Online". It's 3,457 words and the writing took almost 5 hours.

It didn't get yet ranked high on Google but I'm going to follow if it will.

What Is Your Opinion - Are +3,000 Articles Good?

Writing a 3,000-word article takes twice as much time as writing a 1,500-word article.

Which one do you prefer? Writing two 1,500-word articles or one 3,000-word articles?

What has given you the best results if you think about the results compared to your invested time?

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Recent Comments

19

I think it really depends on the topic. It's not hard to add more words to an article, but are they really making the article better? Is your article losing it's focus in the effort to make it longer? Are all those words really truly focused on the single keyword for the article? Words are just words, and quantity will never outrank quality. Always choose quality.

I like to mix it up; I'm usually in the 1,600-2,000 but I definitely want to give myself the challenge to write more posts that are 2,500-3,000.

I can't remember the article, but I remember reading about a site that dedicates itself to getting various stats on what's working for different websites. They discovered that posts that were 3,000 words or more were more likely to get shared than those that were 1,000 or less! Granted, those posts are still being shared, but there's a huge gap...I think it's 20% less than the lengthier posts!

I reviewed a few of your posts, Roope, so I have no doubt that you'll get the traffic. You write in a way that's very engaging ... interestingly enough, you actually came to mind a few days ago! Seriously! I've been saying to myself for the longest time that I want to learn another language and I thought about your language site.

I think it all depends on the article and how you can break it up.

Some articles do need more than 1000 words because you don't want the visitor to get stranded halfway through the message.

I think it is not wise to cut short an article because it is reaching the 1K mark, Finish the post properly with consistency is what I am learning.

I will be honest and say that I would get bored with anything over 2000 words. I read online because I want to learn something relatively quickly. If it goes on for too long my eyes glaze over.
I don't want to read a book, if I did, I would buy one.
I have only ever written over 2000 once and that was only 2300 ish. Even I was lost by the end of it. It took a lot of editing to get the message clear.
With Grace and Gratitude
Karen

I don't think there's one right answer. I have an educational website, and writing a post or page takes me weeks considering the research and structural problem I face. So, I think you have to look at the purpose and scope of the website. For instance, if you're selling something on your website, you'd want shorter content with emphasis on the sales funnel creation.

I suggest writing with purpose in the context of your niche and concentrating on quality without forgetting your ultimate goal. There's a fine line between writing to get people to your website (SEO) and having people get lost in volumes of writing and not be able to find the answer they were looking for.

This is my perspective, and I hope it helps. Keep up the good work. Ted

Lately Roope, I've found that almost all of my written articles for my website are around 2,000 - 2,200 words in length. I topped out at slightly over 2,600 words for one article -a concise review of an online MLM company.

To my way of thinking, I have always believed after joining WA now almost 3 years ago that writing even a 1,200 to 1,500 word article is not enough. I end up not really making my point that I intended to make within the body of that article. There just would not be any depth, or level of concise thought coming from me.

It is absolutely crucial, in this age of A.D.D. afflicted human beings, plus those who just skim through articles, that you break up the content into no more than 2 - 3 sentence paragraphs. No one is going to read some 2,000 word article that was only broken up into several paragraphs.

Having engaging headlines throughout the article, plus relevant images will also help to keep the attention span of most readers.

A 7,000 word article as you stated is the length of some of Neil Patel's publications is a bit long - although for me if it is in a subject that would appeal to me, (sports for example) I could be drawn into reading the entire thing. Again, it would all be due to how the author wrote out his/her content.

If it's dry and non-engaging, a truly long article meant to be along the likes of a short doctoral dissertation, sorry to say but the publication would definitely not appeal to many readers, unless they're scholars and/or academic professors.

I agree with Patsy. I personally don't know how Neil Patel does it as his posts are insanely long. However, that works for him and google bots.
Mobile devices are taking over and people will probably not be reading any more than 3 or 4 screens before moving on.
The other worrisome thing is that millennials are getting older, so the future of blogging will probably come down to FB like posts by the time Gen Z starts to browse seriously:)

The only people who will be faithfil to reading to the end, are "readers" people who like to read. If a visitor is a person who is into reading, period, bloggers will not have a problem.
David

I use to worry about the length of my articles in the beginning, but know I just try to be as thorough as possible when writing and let the word count be whatever.

Some may be around 500 words while others may be 2,000 plus. But I do agree I think longer articles have a better chance in ranking -- since Google as more to go on and can rank you for multiple keywords. :)

I have heard various sizes myself but who knows?

I have posts from 900 to 6500 and when some heard that about the 6500 post, they told me nobody would read it because they would get bored.

I write until I have finished what I was going to write about and if it takes 2000,3000,4000 then so be it.

I know by writing large posts means that you are making a lot more work for yourself.

I'm trying to get mine down to 1000-1500 but sometimes it is not possible.

mick

Keep in mind that cell phones have basically taken over a higher percent for online searches and shopping. Many won't have time or patience for so many words since people want quick results these days. Reviews are a different story.

Some members divided their longer articles in 1/2 for this purpose.

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