Perfect Number Of Words For Marketing Contents

Written By: Claudia Jeffrey

Word count is the topic that gets a massive amount of attention in marketing strategies these days. Content marketers and bloggers often wonder for an ideal word count to shoot for. There is a question that comes into every marketer’s mind that “should every piece of content be a long-form to publish or they should opt for a shorter one?”
Undoubtedly, it is a valid question and in this article, we have compiled some extensively researched facts to help those suffering souls and get them the perfect word count for their upcoming content to be published.

Before starting, let us get a thing clear in our minds, “word count only matters if the content is of a good quality.” Hence, word count is not a standalone factor to rank your page. It just has a merit when the content is of high quality. Writers can create a 15000-word article as per the requirement of a brand or a company; however, if it doesn’t comply with a quality line, the efforts may be wasted.

An Ideal Word Count

Just a few years back, an ideal blog post was considered to fall somewhere between 500 to 800 words. However, nowadays, this is not the norm as long-form contents reign superior. There are a number of researches that shows long-form posts perform better than short articles.
A study analyzed the correlation between content length and social media shares found that 3,000 to 10,000 word articles get the most number of shares.

Another study elaborated differently that an average of 2,450 word article gets the sweet spot in popularity.

While, 3rd study found that an ideal word count for an article to get organic ranking on Google’s first page is 1,890 words.

Hence, the ideal word count for an article-length may vary in all of the above studies, but there is a common finding which elaborates that a long-form article is still the best for marketers.

It’s Not Just About An Ideal Length

As mentioned above, word count or an article length is just a factor among the list of considerations for an SEO, when it comes to an ideal web content. Below are some contributing factors that affect the performance of a content along with word count.

Purpose:

Every marketing strategy has a purpose or multiple purposes. Mostly, the ultimate goal of a blog post is conversions. Other objectives may include; driving social media engagement, spread brand awareness, grow email lists, and provide education regarding a product or service or merely enhancing SEO. A variety of purposes leads to different length requirements.

Audiences:

The creation of content is hugely dependent upon the profile of your audience. Marketers should consider their needs, socio-economic statuses, passions, interest and pain point to tag a perfect product into their stream. Hence, the goal is to create a content that your audiences starve to read.

Medium:

Content is not just words, and it may include an infographic, a podcast, a video or even a picture. Hence when you go for the other options instead of a blog post, word count becomes irrelevant.

Message:

What are you trying to communicate to your audiences? That’s the primary consideration to determine an ideal length. If your message can be covered in a 200 word, then go for it. If it needs 2000 words to demonstrate well, that is fine too.

Style:

Some writers have a writing style that is precise and concise. While some write in an elaborating way to interact with the reader. Style affects content length as well, so choose accordingly.

Format:

Formatting of an article has a significant impact on its readability. It is essential to format an article in a way that grabs the attention of audiences as they have to engage them at first glance. Use subheadings, short paragraphs and visuals and break up your content into useful chunks to help people scan it smartly.

Frequency:

Some marketers may like to post weekly with a long-form hit while others want to update it daily with little shots. It’s all about how much and how often a content marketing team can manage to create useful, relevant and targeted content. Keep in mind; quality content takes time.
Hence, we are not saying that a content-length is not essential. However, word count should not be considered as the only thing to affect your content marketing strategy.

Content vs Niche

As we discussed above that from the birth of an ideal word count that was considered to range from 500 to 800 words, things have changed dramatically with the popularity and effectiveness of long-form posts. It’s tough to get any accurate traction in most industries without going long-form. However, the question is still there how long it should be? Of course, we know that they should be long enough, but how long is enough?
Below are some suggested word counts classified for every niche to help marketers get a sweet spot for higher rankings, more shares and better engagement for audiences. These recommendations are based upon most outperformed blogs with respect to their average article lengths. There is no hard and fast rule to follow the accuracy; however, revolving around those numbers can be beneficial for your content marketing strategy while getting you a better ROI.

• Sales: 2,500 – 2,700 words
• Retail: 1,500 – 1,700 words
• Marketing & Advertising: 2,500 – 3,000 words
• Real Estate: 1,800 – 1,900 words
• DIY: 700 – 1500 words
• FinTech: 2,000 – 2,150 words
• Finance: 2,100 – 2,500 words
• Manufacturing: 1,700 – 1,900 words
• Home and Garden: 1,100 – 1,200 words
• Technology (IT): 800 – 1,000 words
• Recruitment: 900 – 1,000 words
• Food: 1,400 – 1,900 words
• Travel: 1,500 – 1,850 words
• Gadgets: 300 – 500 words
• Healthcare: 2,000 – 2,150 words
• Fashion: 800 – 950 words
• Entertainment: 1,500 – 1,700 words

Take-Home Messages

Considering all the facts and research findings, there is no end-all or be-all source found that using a certain number of words can guarantee to resonate a content to rank high in search engine results and get a thousand number of shares across the web. By all means, there are innumerable variables which determine the success of a blog article; some of them mentioned above as well.
Furthermore, when taking into court all the essential factors, the length is pretty important as per your industry and strategy. To get proof of the fact, go through to the top 5 articles from a random search, and you will hardly end up to some concise and thinly written articles. People are far more likely to have a comprehensive content that is long enough to cover a topic with depth and detail.
Aiming for word count will provide you with a baseline to write with an outline of a rough number of words for an article. That is the way by which you will get a better position to get conversions by more social shares, links, likes, comments and responses. Also, it will help to improve website retention time and decrease bounce rates which will ultimately impact on your site’s SEO in a positive and profitable manner. So set back with your content marketing team and make a blasting strategy to get the high nodes with peace of mind. Good luck!