Are you wondering what the ideal length for a blog post is?
What is the suitable blog post length to secure top rank on SERPs? Which length
of a blog can easily reach your business out to the maximum number of
audiences? Well, you are not alone to think this way. You can easily manage
your daily blog posting needs by hiring professional blog
writing services and experiencing faster outcomes. But, if you want to write
and publish blogs on your own then this blog can be a great help.
The ideal length for a Blog Post
There is no rigid rule to maintain when it is all about blog post length. Though, you need to write more than 300 words to create a blog post. Depending on the niche and criteria to cover topics, you can write a large blog post that may contain 3000 words or more than that. No one and not even Google seeks a penalty for shorter or longer blog posts. But, the main fact is Google itself prioritizes lengthy blog posts.
So, if you can write at least a 1000-word informative and SEO-friendly blog then you may find your blog ranking on top of SERPs.
Why does Blog Length Vary?
Blog length varies for numerous. You need to look at different variables when you are about to produce a blog post. Let us know what the variables are,
The niche you are about to cater
Type of audience you want to reach
Whether it is an SEO blog or a blog about someone’s personal experience
A blog post for website or social media platforms,
These are just a few. There are so many purposes that raise the request for blog creation.
Endnote,
So, you need to pay attention to the purposes; after that the word length. But quality should be maintained always. And, if you are that busy and you need experienced hands to manage your blog posts then hiring blog writing services is always the best option.
Have you ever attempted to read something just to be drained by the whole experience? It is certainly not a good feeling when readers have to put in efforts to comprehend the meaning of the words in the SEO content writing.
This is the underlying principle of readability.
Make sure your content can be comprehended by 13- to 15-year-old students
What is readability in SEO content writing?
Readability denotes how easy (or how difficult) is the content to read. An essential but frequently ignored component of SEO content writing is creating content that needs to be simple to read.
Many content pieces that are difficult to read and grasp, turn readers away.
Here are some things you can use to make your writing easier to read.
People who read content need to be compelled with simple and easy-to-understand words. They should have an enjoyable reading experience rather than a draining experience after reading it. They leave websites that are poorly written or have readability issues.
Why is readability important?
Search engines adore content that is well-written and understandable by a universal audience. Providing high-quality content is important because it’s difficult to rank well without it.
Click-through and bounce rate, dwell time may not be a direct Google ranking criterion. But it does provide a useful indicator for monitoring a webpage’s health. And easy-to-read content will boost the dwell time.
So, as an SEO content writing expert, you must be conscious of and actively work to improve the readability of your material.
What is the meaning of ‘good’ readability?
The typeface, style, and colour schemes of a webpage, as well as other elements, all affect how simple it is to read written content there.
However, in this article, we’re going to focus on increasing the score of SEO content readability using a few online tools.
The number of words per phrase, short paragraphs, and use of simple words affect readability. The length and degree of difficulty of the words employed, and other factors also affect this metric.
Higher syllable words are more difficult to read than their shorter equivalents. The word “went” is seen to be simpler to read than “progressed” or “proceeded,” for instance.
How to check readability in SEO content writing?
The Flesch-Kincaid test is a universal barometer for assessing readability. It shows a score of 0-100.
90-100 is extremely easy to read. A scale lower than 60 denotes that the content is difficult to read.
Many SEO content writers aim to score 60+ to cater to a universal audience.
The test consists of two assessments. One assesses reading comfort and the other assesses grade level. These two factors are the most used method for determining readability in English.
For reading ability, the higher the score, the smoother it is to read. The grade level identifies the amount of education needed to comprehend it. So a 60+ plus can be understood by 13 to 15 year old students.
What tools help you check readability?
You can carry out readability tests using several tools. The massive importance of readability for professional SEO content writers mean that the market has quite a few options available.
Let’s look at a few handy tools that can help you to assess the readability of content.
There’s a high probability that Flesch-Kincaid scores are somewhat recognisable to you because of Microsoft Word.
The widely used word processing program has reading ease as one of its functions. It is an incredible way to get a decent idea of how your article reads.
Select “Spelling and Grammar” from the Review tab. You can view Document stats after completing the spellcheck.
You can get statistics about reading difficulty and grade level under the Readability section. It also shows passive sentences percentage.
If you use Word, you should take advantage of this function since it is included with the software for free.
Don’t worry if you don’t use Word; you can still check readability statistics with several decent applications. Learn more about what other SEO content writers use by reading on.
The “world’s most effective readability grading tool” is called Readable. It has a lot of capabilities, including functionality made especially for websites.
Instead of assessing the Flesh-Kincaid score, it has its standards that give your writing a grade (from A to E). Additionally, it offers to reach analytics that SEO content writers can use to determine what proportion of your audience is capable of comprehending the material.
The readability of your website’s content is continuously assessed by its website readability tool. These also span the , including headers, footers, and non-content material. The tool assigns scores based on the assessment.
To prevent being penalised by Google for keyword stuffing, it also allows you to analyse keyword density.
Its tools are available to individuals for $4 per month; however, its small company and agency programs cost $24 and $69 per month, respectively.
Use the WebFX Readability Test to see how well your content reads quickly. It gives you a fast overview of your text’s reading level and various scores. You can copy and paste text, type in a page’s URL, or use embedcode to test a full page or a specific region.
You receive data on sentences and complicated words. It also identifies words used in each sentence and the typical number of syllables in a word.
There are five readability standards available to you since there are differing views on which is the most accurate.
It computes your Gunning Fog score, SMOG index, Coleman-Liau index, and Automated Readability index in addition to Flesch-Kincaid.
Using the WebFX Readability Test is uncomplicated.
Please copy and paste the written SEO content into the Datayze Readability Analyzer to analyse it for readability.
After submitting your copy, you will receive statistics on overall readability and ratings using different metrics. These include Flesh-Kincaid, SMOG, Gunning Fog, Dale-Chall, and Fry Readability.
Additionally, it provides a spell checker and an extraneous word finder. SEO writers benefit from the passive sentence identification, and paragraph-level analysis. These assist you in understanding how your readability varies throughout a text.
Ernest Hemingway was regarded as one of the best American authors. He is renowned for his direct writing style. The Hemingway App pays homage to the legend. It assists content creators in streamlining their SEO writing for improved clarity.
After you enter your text, it assigns it a grade level and identifies opportunities for improvement.
These are examples of adverbs and passive sentences. It also shows words with clearer alternatives, and difficult-to-read sentences. This utility is available online free. It also ships as a $19.99 desktop application.
Grammarly is a tool for optimising your SEO content writing. It identifies text problems, including grammar, spelling, tone, and conciseness. It is available as a browser extension, cloud-based service, and app.
It provides suggestions for words and sentences that are difficult to understand using AI. It also does a plagiarism check.
Grammarly offers two membership programs. These offer more comprehensive writing assistance over and above the basic free plan.
ProWritingAid Writing Assistant is an AI-powered tool. It helps check for spelling, grammar, and readability checks. It offers capabilities that can help you present information more properly.
It provides 20 writing reports highlighting a lot of issues. These cover cliches and overused words, sentence length, and consistency. It also helps with style recommendations, a contextual thesaurus, and other writing-related issues.
ProWritingAid interfaces with other applications. These include Word, Outlook, Google Docs, and Scrivener. It also includes browser extensions.
Prices start at $20 per month for a monthly subscription and go up to $399 for lifetime access.
A proofreading program called LanguageTool looks for grammatical and stylistic errors. It is accessible online, as an app, or as a plugin and is available in 22 languages.
The available version verifies spelling, grammar, and style. It draws attention to writing problems in your SEO content writing and identifies places for development. Additionally, it provides an estimate of a piece’s reading duration. Premium versions cost $4.99 a month for individuals or $9.48 per month for teams of up to 20. They offer recommendations for enhancing style and tone and pointing out misspelt names, titles, and numbers.
Ginger Writing Assistant uses artificial intelligence. This helps it to find errors in your writing, fix them, and enhance the style. It offers context-based corrections, such as different ways to phrase things. Additionally, it may provide synonyms for whole phrases and individual words.
A yearly package costs $7.49. Monthly costs come to $13.99. For companies with more than 2000 users, Ginger additionally provides customisable plans and discounts for teachers and students.
Yoast is a well-liked WordPress SEO plugin that comes with a readability function. It examines your writing’s readability. This way, it identifies problems specifically created for search engine optimisation.
It shows green, yellow, and red scale. Green is good, yellow may need improvement, and red needs work. This way, the tool rates your content’s readability.
It looks for passive voice, transition words and the distribution of subheadings. It also examines the length of paragraphs and phrases, and the use of consecutive sentences. It offers your Flesch reading score after this assessment. This enables you to carry out a range of optimisation steps in SEO content writing.
The $99/year Yoast SEO premium package, which includes this capability, is available.
An online Character Calculator can count characters, words, phrases, and paragraphs. To grade your SEO content writing, it also has a Dale-Chall Readability Calculator.
You can copy and paste text using this method to generate the score. In contrast to Flesch-Kincaid, it is easier to read information with a lower Dale-Chall score.
Character Calculator gives you your score. It also shows the required reading grade level, and a brief explanation of the level of reading difficulty. It is free to use.
Copywritely is a piece content management system made for SEOs. In addition to rating how readable your SEO writing material is, it also looks for SEO problems to ensure your copy is optimised for both people and search engines.
The SEO capabilities identify issues with your material that affect your search rankings. It suggests editing, deleting, or rewriting it as necessary.
The readability checker uses the Flesch-Kincaid formula to identify and rectify dense content.
For individuals, Copywritely costs $18 per month, while business organisations pay $67 per month.
Semrush’s SEO Writing Assistant analyses the readability and consistency of the text while testing for plagiarism. It helps you optimise your SEO content writing for both human readers and search engines.
It leverages copy-and-paste or import from the web functionality to assess your material and provide recommendations. You can choose your target market by nation, region, and even city. You can also choose whether to target desktop or mobile consumers.
The tool provides visual data on readability, SEO, originality, and tone. You may input keywords for comparison with rival content.
Semrush includes the SEO Writing Assistant. Its pricing options cost between $119.95 and $449.95 each month.
Sixty free search engine optimisation tools, including Content Analysis, are available from SEO Review. You can enter both primary and secondary keywords. It also provides ideas for different keywords and SEO improvement.
15-Searchmetrics Content Experience
Searchmetrics Material Experience uses Machine learning to determine which content is most pertinent to your audience.
As you type, it gives you immediate feedback on your material and grades it according to various criteria. These include word count, sentence structure, keyword coverage, and repetition. Searchmetrics provides personalised pricing.
With Content Editor, you can report keyword usage. You can also download SEO best practices, and develop page-specific suggestions.
There is a limited-use free version and professional ($299/year) and enterprise ($499/year) editions.
Final thoughts
Good readability aids in:
drawing traffic to your website,
improving message clarity, and
inspiring concrete action by readers.
Maintaining visitor engagement by making your web pages simpler to read and understand, will improve your search engine quality rating. These tools will definitely help polish your work in SEO content writing.
But even the most skilled writers occasionally have trouble creating information that is simple to read.
Our team will help improve the readability of your SEO writing. This way you can publish highly engaging content without the reader having to put in any effort. This will boost your SEO. Contact us today!
As digital marketers and content writers have seen over the years, every major update to the Google algorithm has led to massive changes to the very foundation of digital marketing. Today we look at the major update of August 2022 – the Google helpful content update. We also assess how it impacts content writing.
What was the impact of Google algorithm updates in the past?
Consider Panda – the first major update rolled out in 2011. It aimed to tackle plagiarized content and keyword stuffing.
Right from that time, Google has made many updates to ensure two key objectives –
– The content is valuable for the target readers
– The content meets the search intent with which the searcher was re-directed from the SERP to the website
This denotes the immense responsibility content writing companies have for the success of SEO campaigns as per the prevalent algorithm.
Cut to the present scenario, and we see the rollout of the Google helpful content update in 2022. Let’s see what the update is and what content writers should know about it.
What is Google’s helpful content update?
Google rolled out the Helpful content update on 25th Aug 2022. This update targets a key point – “to ensure that people see more original and helpful content written by people and for people in search results.”
This means that Google will better reward the content for a website that offers a satisfying experience to the site visitors. It should focus on people-centric content meant for the content readers first instead of for Google bots.
So, if your content is written keeping only Google bots in mind, then mind it! The search engine will swiftly devalue your site.
How does the helpful content update work?
The update will penalize sites that have less-than-helpful information. It doesn’t cover just poor-quality content. It also covers sites that have a lot of content that is of no value to the readers.
A content writer will need to have this critical question in mind.
“Will this part of the content add true value to the reader?”
They need to keep this in mind when framing each and every sentence and paragraph of the content.
It is a site-wide signal. So, SEO webmasters cannot escape the penalty by removing one or two pages. They will have to do a thorough analysis of the site overall. This way, they can pluck out any page offering a ‘less than satisfactory’ experience to readers when consuming its content.
Sites that adhere to this norm will see a ranking improvement in some weeks (a month or two). The machine-learning-based algorithm update will scan billions of pages to see if the site delivers a satisfying experience.
What are the key points of the helpful content update?
Answers to the below questions will help you adhere to the people-first foundation of the helpful content update.
– Would your existing audience find the content useful if they visited your site directly?
– Does your site depict first-hand use/ experience of the product or service you are writing about?
– Will the readers be satisfied that they have learned enough about a particular topic after reading your content?
How to create content as per the helpful content update?
1 – Stick to your area of expertise
When you stay on the narrow with your expertise, you adhere to this update. You cannot chase after topics simply because they are trending. You should not expect search traffic as the barometer for choosing topics for your content. Such content may not be helpful if they are outside your niche.
What can content creators do?
When visitors come to your site, they should be served content that is well within your area of expertise. It is only under this circumstance that you can deliver content that is truly helpful to your target audience.
For example, if a company offers a web development service, here is some guidance:
– it should not stray to SEO services (if it doesn’t offer SEO at all).
– Many SEO-related keywords rank pretty high. If the web development company wants to go after site traffic by writing blogs around SEO, such an action can negatively impact it. Google will devalue your site.
– It’s better to stick to topics around web development.
2 – Demonstrate first-hand experience
If you are writing about a particular topic, be sure that you show first-hand experience.
Content creators need to substantiate their content with evidence like original opinions/thoughts about a particular area, a particular place of business (like a restaurant), or a particular product.
For example, many affiliate sites simply advertise a product on their website. But the site author may not have used these products/services. If you have first-hand experience, then provide evidence like photos or videos to add weightage to the content.
What can content creators do?
Suppose you are writing about a topic, ‘ Benefits of apple cider vinegar.’ You should show that you have used it on yourself in order to appear helpful to the readers.
You can add unique elements that are unique to your consumption of vinegar. Maybe you can show them how to reduce the pungent taste of the vinegar. This element will not be present in any other blog.
Such content will be deemed in compliance with the new update because –
– It is not written only for search engines (by rehashing what others have already written)
– It is not written for affiliate marketing, where the author earns a commission even though she hasn’t used the product personally.
– The content establishes that the author has actually used the product and can give a unique opinion.
3 – Show that your site has a primary purpose
Are you trying to sell many things in different niches on a single website? Then don’t do it. You may be tempted to spread it wide in the hopes that one of the topics may hit the bull’s eye in terms of rankings and perform well on SERPs.
Such a site will be extremely unhelpful to the visitors. Plus, it will confuse the search bots about the site’s relevance to a particular niche.
What can content creators do?
For example, you may have a site that covers technology, beauty, and automotive. It is clearly covering multiple niches.
– You can build 3 different websites for these three niches.
– Build blogs and website content separately on each of the three sites.
– Do not overlap one site’s business with another (in the form of unhelpful links). So, if you are writing on a beauty topic, stick to internal/ external links of only the beauty site.
4 – Provide sufficient answers to the readers
After reading the content, the visitor should feel that they have adequate information needed on a particular topic.
This aligns with Google’s philosophy that content is helpful when it educates the blog readers or helps them address a particular issue for which they visited your site.
What can content creators do?
For example, let’s consider a topic “How to Grow Cannabis.” A writer needs to do in-depth research. This way, the blog will become the only blog that a legal cannabis cultivator needs to follow.
There are many factors covered within the blog. These include sub-topics like sunlight, water, lighting, temperature, and soil pH. Now, let’s consider the ‘soil pH’ section. If a writer writes:
“Cannabis prefers slightly acidic soil conditions. You can maintain an acidic level in soil for better results.“.
This will leave the reader with so many questions –
– What is meant by acidity/alkalinity levels?
– What is the right acidity level in terms of pH?
– When to check pH level?
– How to check pH level?
To get these answers, he will close your site and open another search for the answers. This means that such superficial content is not helpful. Such unhelpful content may run a risk of being devalued by Google.
The writer needs to add depth to this section as below –
“Cannabis grows will in acidic condition between 5.0 to 7.0 pH. You can maintain a level between 5.8 to 6.2 as an optimal level. You need to check the pH level every two days using a digital meter.“
Such content will provide all answers to readers related to the soil pH of growing cannabis.
Our final thoughts
Google has only recently added the helpful content update. SEO and content experts are still gauging the impact on site rankings. But these points will offer good guidance.
If you are a content writer, you will come to know how to tweak your content creation process so that Google considers your content helpful as per this algorithm update.
Let us know which other point of this particular ranking signal will influence the content writing process.
