Tips for writing blogs people want to read

How long should a blog post be? This is a question I have asked and people have asked me when I teach The Social Brand. I have Googled it and Googled it again. The answers are wide and varied, says Mia Botha.

The most definitive answers are outdated, because Google changes their algorithms 500-600 times a year. Some changes are minor and some are game changers.

One of the biggest changes was when content trumped Search Engine Optimisation (SEO). Changing the algorithms meant that SEO was no longer the most important consideration. You need frequently-updated, good-quality, original content to rank higher.

Your Search Engine Results Page (SERP) is influenced by these algorithms. Previously all you had to do was ensure that your tags were well done and then you were fine. Now, content trumps the tags, but how much content?

In some of the articles, 250 words is considered too short, but again and again the experts state that content trumps word count. Seth Godin is brilliant at short posts – 200 words is a long post for him.

I decided to look at the lengths of articles that our readers enjoyed. Below is a table of our Writers Write Top 42 posts for 2014. I have included the word count and the number of views in 2014.

Ranking	Post	Views	Word Count
1.	45 ways to avoid using the word ‘very’	1,361,105	Table
2.	Cheat Sheets for Writing Body Language	325,064	Table
3.	Eight Commonly Misused Words	57,221	Infographic
4.	The Five Elements of a Story	34,971	Infographic
5.	Persuasive Writing – Emotional vs Intellectual Words	32,935	Infographic
6.	15 Questions Authors Should Ask Characters	31,351	294
7.	The Locked Room – A simple way to test your plot	26,559	386
8.	Five Incredibly Simple Ways to Help Writers Show and Not Tell	22,196	596
9.	The Importance of Inciting Moments	18,733	724
10.	50 Lyric Titles As Writing Prompts	17,004	561
11.	The 12 Question Fiction Writing Conflict Test	14,036	Table
12.	The Six Defining Characteristics of Strong Female Protagonists	11,717	704
13.	10 Things Successful Authors Do	11,154	586
14.	Universal Needs – Creating Characters	10,546	Infographic
15.	How to write a one-page synopsis	9,659	Infographic
16.	An Editing Checklist For Writers	9,554	Infographic
17.	10 Short Story Competitions To Enter Before The End Of 2014	9,506	List of links
18.	What does it take to write a book? The five qualities published authors share	9,472	624
19.	Know Your Dashes	9,366	Infographic
20.	Confessions of a Serial Killer- How to kill characters when you write	9,352	587
21.	Character Questionnaire – How well do you know your hero?	8,901	List
22.	10 (Amazingly Simple) Tips to Get You Back on The Writing Track	8,858	806
23.	Which one of these is your favourite writing position?	8,411	Image
24.	The Top 42 Writing Posts of 2013	8,400	List of links
25.	Psychopath or Sociopath – What’s the difference?	8,361	Infographic
26.	Which famous writer’s style is most like your own?	8,031	Link
27.	How the five senses make stories seem real	7,721	588
28.	Types of Love – Creating Characters	7,580	Infographic
29.	The 25 Best Quotes About Authors	7,563	743
30.	21 Literary Quotes on Beginnings, Middles, and Endings	7,379	607
31.	Five guaranteed ways to bore your reader	7,104	536
32.	A Fabulous Resource for Writers – 350 Character Traits	7,087	Table
33.	Punctuation Personality Types – Which one are you?	7,034	Infographic
34.	10 Things You Didn’t Know About JK Rowling	6,768	265
35.	Seven Extremely Good Reasons to Write the Ending First	6,730	670
36.	Seven Essential Things to Remember about Very Important Characters	6,486	323
37.	Why you need strong verbs when you write	6,400	Infographic
38.	20 words used to describe specific tastes and flavours	6,304	321
39.	17 Ways To Make your Novel More Memorable	6,267	671
40.	Writing About Characters With Phobias	6,201	Infographic
41.	How to make your characters shockingly real	6,023	402
42.	Examples of Character Archetypes	6,014	Infographic

It is interesting to note that many of our top posts are infographics. (It is important to remember that these were once articles made up of words.) This tells you what kind of information readers are looking for.

The posts that aren’t infographics average around 500 words. Not one of our popular posts is over 1000 words. I prefer short posts. Most people start waffling or repeating information if they write too much.

Eight Tips For Writing Posts People Read

Content is king. Find and identify topics that interest you.
Simplify the content as much as possible. Use a visual form if you can. This site – Piktochart – allows you to create your own infographics.
Use one topic per post. If you need to write more, rather write a series instead of making your post too long.
Pack a punch with your writing. Use strong nouns and verbs.
Cut the flab: reduce modifiers, qualifiers, adverbs, and adjectives.
Use the inverted pyramid of media writing. We have a short attention span especially on the internet or in fiction speak: Don’t start with backstory.
Read and follow as many successful blogs as you can. Take a look at their best posts and try to identify what worked.
Make sure to tag keywords in your posts for SEO, but focus on as much new, good quality content as possible

In short, don’t focus on the length of your post. Focus on the quality of your content, that is until Google makes another change.

Mia Botha is a facilitator at Writers Write. Follow @Writers_Write on Twitter