How Long Should a Blog Post Be? [Infographic]

When you have an idea for a post, it’s easy to feel like you need to just jump in and see where it goes. But what happens when you run out of steam?

Is it done? Maybe. But probably not.

Before typing a single word of your next blog post, you should have a rough idea of how long it’s going to be.

And that means you need to think about what you’re trying to do with your post. Your goal directly affects how long your blog post should be.

Once you know what you want to accomplish, you can create a target word count that makes sense—which helps you write your best post and gauge your progress along the way.

So how long should your blog post be?

The short answer is: it depends. The long answer? Here’s what it depends on:

What are you trying to do with this post?
How long is your competition?
What are you writing about?
How long are your best posts?
What do you have the capacity to write?

There’s no universal answer to how long a blog post should be. There are too many factors for a prescriptive catch-all rule to be helpful. Every blog is different. Every audience’s needs are different. Every blog post is different.

You’re bound to find plenty of arbitrary guidelines for blog post length. That’s not what you’ll find here. We’re going to help you gauge how long your posts should be based on your goals, your topic, your audience, and, well, you.

After that, we’ll talk about how to make your blog posts longer.

Let’s get started.

Want to print this baby off and hang it up in your office? Go ahead.

What are you trying to do with this post?

One of the first filters you should use to decide how much you’re going to write is your goal. What’s the purpose of this post? What does success look like? Specifically. And we’re not just talking about your call-to-action here.

Your CTA doesn’t determine how long your post will be.

For each blog post, “what are you trying to do?” goes beyond “sell this product” or “promote this resource.” We’re looking at the second part of your goal: how this post will help you achieve your objective.

Here’s what that means.

I want my post to be popular on social media

Suggested length: 500–1,000 words

Everybody wants to go viral. And while people who have gone viral act like there’s a magic formula, the reality is a lot of it is out of your hands. There are things you can do to increase the likelihood that your content catches on, but what “going viral” means and how it happens largely depends on your audience. (And that’s a post for another day.)

If being popular on social media is your goal, I have good news: your posts don’t need to be that long.

In fact, 59 percent of people who share blog posts on social media don’t even read them. So in theory, you could just write a bunch of catchy headlines and call it good, right?

Maybe. But that’s not the right approach. Because then anyone who actually reads your post will think you’re just an attention-grabbing schmuck. And they’ll be right. And they won’t come back. And they’ll become anti-fans and bash your posts when they see other people share them.

There’s a happy medium, and it’s about 500 words.

Even if your blog post is image-heavy, it should be long enough to satisfy the intrigue or emotional response created by your eye-catching headline.

You can certainly get away with fewer than 500 words–just keep in mind that the shorter your post is, the harder it is to satisfy that itch that got someone to your blog. Your title convinced them your post was worth checking out, but your content has to meet that expectation.

Technically, there’s no upper limit to a blog post you want to do well on social. Plenty of long posts still get shared. (Ever heard of the New York Times?) But once you get beyond 1,500 words, you’re getting into a range where you’re already doing so much work, you may want to focus on writing a post that’ll rank in Google.

Even if you’re just writing from personal experience and it’s easy for you to crank out 2,000 words, you’re going so in-depth that with a little research and clear organization, you can probably write an evergreen post that provides long-term traffic.

I want my post to rank in Google

Suggested length: Long

There’s no magic word count to land on the first page of Google.

Wait, what?

Doesn’t Hubspot say “the sweet spot” for ranking on Google is 2,250-2,500 words?

And don’t countless other SEO experts say your post should be around 2,000 words, 2,500 words, or 3,000 words?

Most experts cite a Serpiq study that claims the average length of posts that rank #1 in Google is 2,450 words.

graph showing the average length of blog posts that rank in Google

Most people use this graph as a prescriptive guide to blog post length for SEO. Image source: Buffer

And doesn’t Yoast SEO say your blog posts should be at least 300 words to rank in Google? (HA!)

Yes. They do. But it’s not that simple. Depending on the quantity and quality of data and the industries it comes from, you’re going to find all kinds of conflicting answers.

That’s why Rand Fishkin cautions bloggers to be skeptical about prescriptive blog post lengths. It’s easy to assume that data gives us objective answers, but unless that data is isolated to your niche, your audience, your keywords, and your goals, it isn’t as helpful as it appears.

“What does the average [word count] tell me?” Rand asks. “How is that helpful? That’s not actually useful or prescriptive information. In fact, it’s almost misleading to make that prescriptive.”

Depending on the keywords you’re targeting, a 2,500 word post might be excessive, and less helpful than a concise 1,000 word post. Or if your topic is really complex, 2,500 words might barely scratch the surface of what someone is looking for.

“If you are trying to help someone solve a very specific problem and it is an easily answerable question and you’re trying to get the featured snippet, you probably don’t need thousands of words of content,” Rand says. “Likewise, if you are trying to solve a very complex query and you have a ton of resources and information that no one else has access to, you’ve done some really unique work, this may be way too short for what you’re aiming for.”

After studying 2 million keywords, Ahrefs (makers of our favorite SEO tool) found that a page’s age may have a bigger impact on it’s rank than word count. In that same study, they found that the median length of pages that rank #1 on Google was 800 words–significantly shorter than what most SEOs recommend.

Remember that Serpiq study everyone cites? They studied about 20,000 keywords. Ahrefs studied 100 times more than that.

Even with all that data, Ahrefs supports Rand Fishkin’s conclusion that great content does not equal long content.

So why does Overthink Group still recommend you write “long” posts if you want to rank?

Long posts are not inherently better. But a short post is also much easier to knock out of a #1 spot.

Here’s why.

When I see a post under 2,000 words sitting on the first page of Google, I know that I can probably cover that topic more comprehensively without adding fluff. And that means my post will probably become a more helpful result than some 500 word squirt.

Longer posts also have the potential to rank for more related long-tail keywords, which account for about 40 percent of all search traffic. And as you rank for more related long-tail keywords, that clues Google in that your post is a good resource for those shorter, more valuable keywords.

Sometimes when a short post outranks longer posts, it’s because the longer posts are poorly organized, or they take the topic in a really specific (and unhelpful) direction. Or their website is just plain atrocious (slow, unreadable on mobile phones, not secure—take your pick). But that doesn’t mean that you should write a short post about that topic in order to rank.

With a little research, you can find huge content gaps that the short post simply doesn’t address, and organize the missing information in a way that provides a better experience.

Google uses more than 200 factors to help people find what they’re looking for, and a lot of them can be connected to content length. If someone spends a long time on your page, for example, that tells Google that your page was probably a helpful result. But there’s only so much time you can spend on a 500 word post.

Bottom line: keywords are more poachable if the main competition is short. At Overthink Group, we generally stick to the 2,500+ word guideline, but it depends on the keyword.

That’s because with good outlining (which you should do if you want to rank) you can write 2,500 words about pretty much anything.

(In case you’d like some inspiration, here are 10 case studies on how organizations use blogging to increase traffic from Google.)

I want my post to establish thought leadership

Suggested length: 1,000+ words

Unless you’ve already established a reputation as a thought leader in your space, your post probably needs to be more than a couple hundred words. It’s tough to become known as an authority if you never have much to say.

“What about Seth Godin? Doesn’t he write like 200 word posts all the time?”

Seth Godin is a New York Times bestselling author. He’s written like 20 books on marketing. He’s an outlier. He can write daily 200 word posts about whatever he wants and people will gobble them up because they already see him as an authority on marketing.

If you’re trying to establish yourself as a thought leader, you need to provide something more substantial.

Maybe you have access to data no one else does. Or a unique perspective or experience to speak into your industry.

When you take the time to share what makes your insights unique and explain where they come from, it’s easier for people to trust and appreciate them. Making unsupported assertions and stating uncited facts takes fewer words, but it doesn’t do much good in terms of building authority.

Our thought leadership piece on fintech blogging is about 3,300 words. It involved a lot of research, and if we’d cut the length of that post in half, it would’ve been a lot less helpful. (We’d probably have fewer fintech companies reaching out to us about content marketing opportunities, too.)

We recently created a visual guide to Cambridge Analytica that runs about 1,500 words. There were already thousands of articles about Cambridge Analytica, and many of them were comprehensive pieces that covered the whole story. People weren’t interested in reading another thorough post about Cambridge Analytica. But there was room for a more clear, concise explanation of what happened.

How long a thought leadership piece should be really depends on what you’re writing about. (More on that later.) But generally speaking, aiming for 1,000+ words is a safe bet.

I want to start a discussion

Suggested length: Doesn’t matter

If your goal is to start a discussion about a topic, these two things matter a lot more than the length of your post:

How engaged your audience is.
What you tell them to do.

The Write Practice recommends your blog posts be 275 words or less if you want to create a discussion, using a very short post with 300+ comments as an example.

If you actually look at their example though, you’ll see that it’s less about the length of the post and more about their call-to-action. (And probably, the fact that they have a large, engaged audience.)

a call to action asking readers to comment and engage with other commenters

If your CTA asks people to comment and respond to other people’s comments, odds are you’re going to get more comments. Image source: The Write Practice

Obviously, their example demonstrates that you can use short posts to create highly active conversations, but it doesn’t make sense to focus on length if engagement is your goal.

Brian Dean’s 1,300 word post about his famous skyscraper technique has over 600 comments. Does that mean you should write at least 1,300 words to get more comments? Heck no! He got all those comments because he wrote something valuable and periodically promotes it to his huge email list.

His CTA doesn’t even encourage people to comment. They just do, because it’s good content, he’s an established thought leader, and his audience is highly engaged.

Plenty of brands and blogs regularly get far more comments than Brian Dean, and it has very little to do with how long their posts are.

If you already have a highly engaged audience, you’ll get plenty of comments on a post of any length. But if you’re starting from scratch, you might want to connect this to another goal (like doing well on social or ranking on Google) and make sure your CTA invites people to interact with your post in a specific way.

I just need to hit an arbitrary quota

Suggested length: Set a goal. Then see above.

If you don’t have an objective for your blog post, it’s pretty hard to say how thoroughly you should explore your topic.

It’s also pretty hard to justify writing the post at all.

A lot of bloggers (especially professional ones) feel pressure to hit quotas. Quotas have a purpose. And they can be a good thing. They help you create expectations for your audience and consistently produce content.

But if your quota is your goal, you’ve got a problem.

This is where bloggers sprawl across the finish line and click publish on “bare minimum” blog posts that just don’t offer anything to your audience.

So if writing regular content is preventing you from producing your best work, maybe it’s time to focus less on the “regular” and focus more on the “content.”

Bad content that comes regularly is a constant disappointment. Good content that comes sporadically is a pleasant surprise.

So set a goal. Then worry about length.

Here’s something else you should consider.

How long is the competition?

We touched on this earlier, but your competition’s word count should affect your target length–especially if your goal is to rank in Google.

If every link on the search engine results page (SERP) is to a 2,000+ word post, you’re probably not going to break onto the scene with a 500–1,000 word post.

Being more clear and concise certainly makes your post more helpful, but you have to also consider the scope of your competition.

If the top results are all several thousands words, they’ve probably already covered the topic pretty thoroughly. It’s also a good indicator that people are looking for comprehensive content. So if you want to beat them, you’re probably going to have to be more comprehensive, not less.

To provide something better than the competition, start by digging through the best posts. Pull out their key talking points, and do some research to find out what else belongs in an epic post about that topic.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, sometimes your competition is a clump of short posts. Let’s say they’re all around 500 words. That’s a good indicator that the scope of these posts is pretty narrow, and leaves their readers wanting more.

Obviously, it takes a lot more work (and words) to write something more extensive than a 500 word post.

If you’re looking for a bare minimum word count, you can probably get by with a post that’s about the same length as your main competition.

You can still write something better than them without writing more than them–but if you ask me, it’s harder to do. This is where you’ll need to optimize your on-page SEO factors and then promote the heck out of your post.

OK, but what if I’m not focusing on Google?

Even if you’re not trying to rank, you still want to pay attention to how long your competition’s posts are. You’re trying to set your brand apart from theirs, and content length can help you do that.

Maybe your main competition already covers topics in your industry really thoroughly, and they’re known for that. You could focus on particular angles or write unique thought leadership pieces. Or you could provide concise, simple answers to the most popular questions people ask in your industry. (Gusto is making bank with this method, by the way.)

If none of your main competitors are writing comprehensive content, maybe it’s time for you to start. This could be a prime opportunity to do something no one else in your space is doing, and to serve your potential audience in ways no one else is willing to.

Still, within every industry, there are some types of posts and kinds of topics that simply don’t need to be that long.

So now let’s look at what you’re actually writing about.

What are you writing about?

Just because you can write 2,500 words about anything doesn’t mean you have to. Sometimes a thorough post is excessive.

In addition to your goal and your competition, what you’re writing about is going to affect the target length of your post. And no, I don’t mean your industry. I’m talking about things every industry has.

Here’s what I mean.

List of things

Suggested length: at least a couple hundred words per list item

The more items you have in your list, the longer your post should probably be. Plain and simple. We recommend a couple hundred words per list item so that you’re taking the time to explain and develop each idea presented in your list. Some ideas may not need a couple hundred words to develop though. And some may need much, much more than that.

The key is to make sure that your content delivers on the promise established by your headline. Depending on the type of list, it might be perfectly appropriate to use 50 words or fewer per list item. (This is especially true for image-based lists.)

List posts can be a good way to format thought leadership–or to organize information to rank in Google. If you’re trying to accomplish either of those things with your list, you’ll want to stick to at least a couple hundred words per item.

Keeping the word-count per item somewhat consistent makes it easy for you to estimate (and control) how long your post will be. Just add or subtract items to increase or decrease the length of your post.

You don’t have to make each section uniform, but it’s easier to read (and skim) a list post when each section is roughly the same length. Some sections are bound to be a little longer or shorter than others, though, and that’s OK.

Story-centric posts

Suggested length: 500+ words

Customer testimonies and interviews are a great way to showcase your organization’s work and the real benefits you provide to the people you serve. In cases like these, you’re often looking to make an emotional impact more than communicate a lot of facts—so writing too long of a post can hurt more than help.

For a story-centric blog post, you just need enough words to tell the story and ideally connect it to a theme or purpose.

In many cases, you’ll be able to do that in about 500 words. It’s mostly just a matter of deciding how much of the story you want to tell and how strongly it needs to connect to your larger theme or purpose.

Case studies, however, are a little more technical, and should probably be more than 1,000 words. When someone reads a case study, they want to know exactly what you did and how you did it.

Think about it like a recipe. Even though you can’t promise “do these exact things to achieve these exact results,” people are reading the case study because:

The results caught their attention.
They want to try to do what you did.

Imagine if you were looking for a recipe online and all you could find was pictures of the finished product. A lot of case studies fail because they’re more interested in showing off than showing how.

It’s just a feature update

Suggested length: 0–800 words

If you’ve cultivated an audience specifically around your product, they’ll be interested in even the most granular details of your updates.

But if you’re using your blog to reach a broader audience and talk about your industry as a whole (AKA you’re filling the top of the funnel with qualified leads), minor product updates probably don’t belong there.

Just send an email or an app message, OK?

Basically, it comes down to what you’re building your audience around. Is your blog about you? If it is, then by all means talk about those feature updates. But if your audience is going to feel blindsided (and totally turned off) by an announcement about a minor product update, your blog probably isn’t the right place to talk about that update.

That means the suggested word count is zero.

If you decide they’re appropriate for your audience, blog posts about feature updates still don’t need to be long. And unless it’s a MASSIVE update, they shouldn’t be.

Hopefully, your updates connect in some way to a larger narrative about the direction of your company or overarching purpose of your product. These are opportunities for you to steer the conversation around your product and keep people engaged in what you’re doing.

Feature updates are also a time to show your audience that you listen to their feedback (assuming you do). If feedback in any way contributes to your update, say so. This affirms the people who provided the feedback and encourages others to do the same. Your audience will be more willing to engage, and you’ll ultimately wind up with a better product.

So with the basic facts of the update, the larger story it tells about your organization, and your nudge to keep giving feedback, your feature updates will probably weigh in under 800 words.

Super complicated topics

Suggested length: 2,500+ words

The more complicated something is, the longer you should take to explain it. Really.

I know what you’re thinking:

“Isn’t it better to simplify something complex?”

Yes. It is.

And that’s exactly why it takes more words to explain it. Sure, simplifying a complex topic involves using clear, concise language.

But the fewer nuances you explain, the less helpful your post is.

The fewer questions you answer, the less helpful your post is.

The fewer subtopics you explore, the less helpful your post is.

And the less helpful your post is, the less likely it is to rank in Google. The less likely people are to share it on social. And the less you’ll be seen as a thought leader in your industry.

You can use clear, concise language to explain those nuances, answer those questions, and explore those subtopics. But simplifying a complicated topic doesn’t mean pretending parts of it don’t exist.

In my guide to remarketing, I reduced my definition of remarketing to two words: follow-up. And then I spent almost 6,000 words digging into the benefits of remarketing, what you should use it for, and how you actually do remarketing. Each of these items had between 4 and 17 subpoints.

And I didn’t even get into the specific details of how you set up a retargeting campaign in Google or Facebook. (That was beyond the scope of the post.)

During the research and outlining phase, I also found that there were 390 monthly searches for “remarketing vs retargeting,” and the top results weren’t very helpful. Clearly some people interested in remarketing are curious about its relationship to retargeting. So I added a section about that, too.

So when it comes to blogging about complicated topics, “simplifying” and “being concise” should apply to each individual component of your topic, not just the topic as a whole.

Use the complexity of your topic and the overlap with your audience to decide what belongs in the post.

Which brings us to another thing you should always consider, regardless of how complicated your topic is.

How much does your audience need to know?

Everybody gets lost on a rabbit trail now and then. But bloggers shouldn’t ever lead their readers on one.

Most of the time, we think of rabbit trails as things that aren’t relevant to your main point. But when you’re blogging for a specific audience, you also need to think of rabbit trails as things that aren’t relevant to your audience.

Suppose your organization makes HR software. How much does your audience need to know about specific HR-related laws? They need to know how those laws affect office management and company policies, but do they need to know all the legal jargon contained within those laws?

Nope.

When you define the scope of your blog post, you need to think about what’s relevant to your topic and what within that topic is relevant to your audience.

Does it matter what my industry is?

I mentioned earlier that every industry has certain types of posts and kinds of topics that require more or less words than others.

Not everyone agrees with that. You probably even have people in your organization who believe all blog posts on your blog should be about 1,000 words. Or 500. Or 2,000. Or some other number they made up.

Ask them where that number comes from.

Neil Patel created guidelines for blog post length by industry. But he’s basically just looking at a few examples and guessing. And the reality is, within every niche, there are going to be some topics that you’ll need to write more in-depth posts about, and some that only need a few hundred words.

Your goals and your topic are going to have a bigger impact on blog post length than your industry.

There’s another thing you’ll want to consider though: what’s already working for your blog?

How long are your best posts?

It’s easy to miss this in Hubspot’s piece on character count, but when they get to blog posts, they do something every organization should do.

They learned what blog post length is currently drawing the most organic traffic on their blog.

graph showing the word count of best performing posts on Hubspot blog

What the best length for a blog post? Well . . . what’s working the best for your blog right now? Image source: Hubspot

This brand-specific data is a lot more useful to Hubspot than some random sampling of 20,000 keywords (like the Serpiq study everyone cites), or probably even AHrefs study of 2 million keywords. It tells them what their audience is already responding best too.

And then they can look at other things those posts have in common, like topic, approach, promotion tactics, and on-page SEO.

And then they can write more of those posts.

Rand Fishkin is so critical of prescriptive blog post lengths because they aren’t specific to your brand, your topics, and your audience.

Every blog post is different. But knowing what’s already working for you should absolutely inform what you do in the future.

Last thing: don’t bite off more than you can chew.

What do you have the capacity to write?

A little over a year ago, my max capacity was hovering around 3,000 words per week. I was split between two blogs, five social media accounts, email marketing, and app messaging.

If I had to write a 2,500 word blog post, a lot of things simply wouldn’t get done.

I get it.

Professional copywriters often simply don’t have time to write the ideal blog post on their topic.

We have quotas. And too many different types of work.

And so we click publish on things even when we feel like we could write a better post with more time.

If you don’t have capacity to write the ideal blog post, and you have good reason to believe that your post needs to be longer in order to accomplish your goals, bring it up with your manager.

Maybe your blogging quota is based on some arbitrary number of posts and not word count. Try to change that. Some posts take more or less time than others.

Basing your blogging quota on number of posts is like saying “I’m going to run X times this week,” instead of “I’m going to run X miles.”

If there’s no way you can shuffle things around to write the ideal blog post on your topic, then you’ll have to settle for what you can do. Cut the least relevant subtopics. Focus on answering the most important questions.

You won’t have the best post possible, but it will be the best post you can possibly write.

But here’s a less depressing way to look at it: you get the final say on how long a post is going to be.

(Pssst. Wanna increase your weekly writing capacity? Here’s how I write 10,000 words per week.)

Now, finally, let’s look at what you can do to write longer blog posts when you do have capacity for them.

How do you make a blog post longer?

If you haven’t written long blog posts before, they’re super intimidating. I used to write from personal experience and whatever came from the top of my head. That was good for a few hundred words. But a few thousand? No way.

Sure, I did “research,” too. But that was mostly just reading a couple related blog posts to find a couple more big ideas.

I had very few tools to expand my blog posts, so they usually stayed pretty short. 1,500 words was a biggun.

Today, my longest post is 10,131 words. And I’ve had quite a few over 5,000.

Here’s how to expand any blog post without adding fluff.

Outlining

It’s a lot harder to answer “How long is this post going to be?” if you don’t know what’s going to be in it.

A good outline lets you estimate how big the individual pieces are, and then you have a rough idea of how long the whole post will be. If your outline is looking too skimpy to become a 2,500 word post, it’s time to get more granular.

In his post about how to write 2,500 words about anything, Jeffrey Kranz (co-founder of Overthink Group) says these two questions are the key to expanding any point in your outline:

What do your readers need to know before reading this point in order to understand it?
What do your readers need to know before moving on?

These questions force you to slow down and think about the questions your readers will ask in each section, and the areas where they’ll be wanting more if you don’t expand.

If it still doesn’t look like a meaty post, here’s a pro-tip: add examples to each section. (Jeffrey calls this “cheating.”)

Anytime you start drawing blanks though, it’s probably time to step away from your outline and let research lead you to the next big idea.

Research

Research is a deep well of ideas that don’t come from your own head.

It’s a plunger for writer’s block.

And it’s how you make any piece of content longer, more helpful, and more reliable.

Good research is a key ingredient in a good outline.

“The best researchers don’t just present a list of facts and sources,” says Laura Kranz, co-founder and strategist at Overthink Group. “They collect what they’ve found in a way where each bit of research makes the other research more valuable, and they present it in an organized way that can easily translate into an outline of a piece of content.”

Research doesn’t have to be limited to reading articles or digging into keywords, either. Maybe it means surveying customers. Or pulling data from your app or software. Or interviewing your coworkers or clients or other people in your industry.

The point is to get out of your head and find insights that give you more valuable things to talk about.

Writing

When it comes to the actual writing, there are plenty of tricks to boost your word count without adding fluff.

Here are some of my go-to’s.

H2s and H3s

Every new idea or major transition in your post should have its own H2 or H3. This helps your reader skim (face it, they’re going to do it), and it forces you to expand on the idea in your H2 or H3.

It’s basically making a commitment to the reader that says, “Now I’m going to talk about this for a while.”

It’s helpful to think of an H2 or an H3 as a tool that plays the role of an in-post title. It should clearly communicate what you’re talking about in this section, but in a way that says, “Hey skimmers, you’re gonna want to read this.”

Hopefully you identified as many H2s and H3s as you could in your outline. But often as you’re writing, you may discover a new major point that deserves some more time on the mic.

Transition sentences

If you’re working on a long post with lots of subpoints, transition sentences quickly add up. But they’re not just about padding your word count, either.

Clear transitions make your post more readable by ensuring that each idea smoothly leads into the next. Bad transitions make it harder for your readers to follow your argument and connect the dots.

Sometimes an H2 or an H3 makes a sufficient transition on its own. (It’s a pretty obvious signal that you’re moving on to a new idea.) But your posts can almost always benefit from transition sentences as well.

Quotes

If Jeffrey thinks using examples is cheating, I can only imagine what he thinks of quotes.

“Quotes are also cheating, Ryan.”

Jeffrey Kranz
Co-founder, Overthink Group

Sometimes your competitors have already said something in the best possible way. Or an established thought leader made a point your post shouldn’t ignore. Or a coworker knows way more about something than you do.

Quote ‘em. Boom. 50 more words. And then you have to talk about the quote to contextualize and analyze it. Boom. 50 more words.

And the best part is: you already found quotable posts when you were doing your research. The best insights are still fresh on your mind so you can find them fast.

Ask more questions

In the research and outlining phases, you probably identified a lot of questions you should answer. But if you hit a dead end while writing, or simply can’t come up with anything more to say, ask a colleague to read what you’ve got and stop whenever they have a question. Or hop on Quora and find the questions that are most relevant to your topic.

If all else fails, trust your editors.

Editing

When Stephen King finishes the first draft of a novel, he puts it in a drawer for a couple months. Then when he pulls it out, it feels like someone else wrote it, so he can tear it to pieces.

But you don’t get a few months to write a blog post.

For many professional writers, the editing process looks more like this:

Finish typing the last word. Dink around in email for a few minutes. Start editing.

When you read your own writing right after you wrote it, it still looks pretty good. So good you barely even notice the typos, let alone the opportunities to expand on your ideas, or the places where your transitions are too rough.

If your post is too short and you’re totally stumped, ask your editor to take a quick peek. Then you have a brand new brain to help you come up with more ideas.

When you’re done with that, that’s how long your blog post should be.

Every blog post is different

There is no universal blog post length that works for every situation. Wait, actually, here it is: your blog post should be 0-10,000 words.*

Every post has its own goals, purpose, topic, perspective, competition, and timeline. And that makes every post’s ideal length a little bit different.

Over time, you’ll definitely have a lot of blog posts that are roughly the same length—and that will contribute to your ideal blog post length, too. If your blog has 100 or more blog posts, it’s probably worth taking a quick inventory—how long are your best performing posts? Once you know what your audience responds best to, you can use that to give them more of what they want.

If you are looking for some sort of cookie-cutter blog post length (because let’s face it, that’s helpful when you’re cranking out copy all week), make several cookie cutters. Lump your blog posts into types based on purpose and topic, and determine a range for each type of post using the factors we discussed above.

And if it comes down to it, you can always copy this article onto a post-it-note. Or just print the infographic and hang it over your monitor.

*Some blog posts may be longer than 10,000 words. Sorry.