How Long Your Marketing Content Should Be, and a Better Question to Ask

It’s a question I get all the time from clients and colleagues.

How long should the content be on each page of my website?

How long should each blog post be?

How long should my press release be?

How long should my newsletter article be?

Everybody is searching for the magic number that will bring the most traffic, the most comments, the most social shares, the highest search ranking and the most qualified leads.

Too many people are living in a world where problems are expected to be solved with the push of a button or hard data that provides an undisputed, concrete answer to each of life’s questions. Sometimes I wonder what color the sky is in that world, because I’m not living in it.

When someone asks me how long their marketing content should be, my answer is simple.

As long as it takes to make your point clearly, completely, accurately and transparently while staying true to your voice and personality.

I hate to break it to you, but there’s no single number that quantifies “as long as it takes.”

Take Seth Godin, for example. He’s one of the most influential people in the world for us marketing folks.

His blog posts rarely exceed 150 words.

Would that approach work for most people? Of course not. He’s obviously doing something right, but that doesn’t mean everyone else is doing something wrong.

The only time to adhere to a hard word count is when you’re submitting an article to be published on somebody else’s platform, whether it’s a print or online publication, a blog, or a newsletter.

In this case, the publisher typically provides guidelines that fit their platform and audience, including content length, subject matter, first person vs. third person, rules about self-promotion, etc. If you want them to publish your content, you have to follow their rules.

That doesn’t mean every piece of content should be fewer than 1,000 words or 500 words or 300 words. It means you should cut the fat whenever possible.

If you have a 1,500-word newsletter article and you can edit it down to 1,200 words without affecting the quality of your message, do it. If you have 300 words on a page of your website and you can pare it down to 200, do it.

On the other hand, if 300 words isn’t enough to make your case, there’s no rule that says you can’t make it longer. Just do it in the name of content quality, not length.

When I overhauled my website , I doubled the amount of the content on my About page to clearly explain why my background is relevant. It makes the content better.

Research has shown that longer content – more than 1,500 words – tends to rank more highly on Google. Apparently, longer content allows you to use more long tail keywords and gives more meat to Google bots. It also garners more backlinks.

I’m probably in the minority, but I don’t think Google should dictate content strategy. I’m pretty sure none of my blog posts have broken the 1,500-word barrier, but my blog still makes me money.

Different companies and audiences have different sweet spots. 500-1,000 words may work for me, but 1,500 words may work for you. And that’s fine.

But if a self-proclaimed content expert, wizard, guru, maven, master, rock star, ninja or jedi tries to tell you that content of a certain length is best for anything other than search rankings, ask how they arrived at this number.

Actually, instead of obsessing about content length or appeasing Google algorithms, there’s a much better question to ask:

Are you speaking to the needs of your target audience? Are you speaking their language? Does your content capture your voice and personality?

Does your content show how you can solve a problem, fill a need, or make someone’s life better?

Are you using content to brag and sell stuff? Or help people?

Does every piece of content serve a specific purpose and support your overall marketing strategy while remaining relevant and valuable to the reader?

If you can answer “yes” to all of these questions – except the one about bragging and selling – content length doesn’t matter.

I don’t care if your content is 200 words or 2,000 words. If it has value, I’ll read it.

If I think my audience will benefit by reading that content, or if I find it particularly entertaining, I’ll share it.

And if I have a need for your product or service, I’ll contact you.

If your only goal is to reach the top of Google search rankings, go long. Or pay for the privilege.

If you want to make more money by building trust and credibility, establishing your expertise, and improving your search ranking, don’t obsess over the length of your content.

Obsess over your audience and providing them with content worth reading.

By the way, this post is 852 words. Raise your hand if you care.