Ever since blogging became mainstream, site owners often wonder how long a blog post should be.

Pick a number and stick to it

If all your posts are of about the same length—or, at least, all the articles in a certain category—then your readers should know what to expect.

I, for one, open up my reader in the morning and skim through a few blogs while I have my coffee. If I know Site X posts short and informative articles and I find a 3,000 word write-up on some random fact then I am very likely to postpone it to my lunch break, but there’s a chance that I may forget about it altogether. On the other hand, if I know Site Y always posts large articles then I’ve probably already made a habit of reading their feed later in the afternoon, when I have already done most of the work for the day and I can afford to spend half an hour reading up on the topics that interest me.

You should pick an average post length and try to stick to it. Split your articles in two or more posts if you are writing a post and it goes way beyond your usual word count.

Write until you get your story across

The post length you chose in the point above should serve as a somewhat rough guideline. Don’t stop in the middle of the article just because you reached the ‘allotted’ word count. Write until you are done with whatever you have to say and try to chop off ideas and paragraphs only if your article is long but not long enough to split into multiple posts.

Whatever you do, don’t stop because of the word count, the main goal of your blog should be to provide your readers with quality content, and a great article can do magic in terms of building readership. If you have written a great post then you can afford the risk of boring 10% of your subscribers.  You aren't going to be able to please everyone, so it's inevitable that you will loose a few readers here and there. The main thing to remember is that, as long as you build up on trust and consistency with your blog, you are on the right track..

Posting frequency

An unwritten rule of blogging says that the less often you post, the longer your articles should be. If you post once a week then your articles should be well argumented, drawn from your personal or business experiences and you can rarely accomplish this in 400 words. On the flip side, if you post five articles a day then they should be short and to the point.

It’s alright to average around a 1,000 word per article target if you post every once in a blue moon. On the contrary, if you post several daily informative pieces then you can aim for a 150 to 200 word count.

Next time you wonder how long your blog post should be, factoring in these tips should point you in the right direction, just remember these aren't rules written in stone, just broad guidelines, so treat them as such.