The Worst Misconception About Blog Posts You Probably Believe In

The Worst Misconception About Blog Posts You Probably Believe In

The one thing that remains constant in an SEO professional’s strategy is that content is still king, and to make the best SEO blog post they could possibly produce on a regular basis. However, I am here to tell you that you’re probably believing in something that is actually a common – and the worst – misconception about blog posts.

The misconception is that the “perfect length and publishing frequency for your content does not exist. One reason you might think of is that content is composed of factors that are subjective and they do not cater to each and every one of your audience. So, today’s article is all about finding the right factors in content creation to have a successful blog strategy.

01_blog lengthBlog Post Length

There are actually numerous statistical data that supports the “ideal blog post length” or “ideal publishing frequency”. The best place to look for that specific data is through Google Search Results. Notice that when you input the keywords I quoted above into Google, the first page shows you sites that expound on the best content length. You will see that in a span of 5,000 keywords, the ideal length the results show is between 2,300 to 2,425 words, and that’s what they say you should push for.

Personally, I will never believe this. It’s false and misleading. If you believe in these types of information, you’re just giving yourself a hard time.

02_what should u askWhat You Should Ask

When you see this type of data, statistics, charts, or anything that tells you to write your blog posts with a prescribed length, you should ask yourself if:

  1. Keywords: Think about if the ideal blog post length that the data tells you to follow applies to which specific keywords. If you don’t ask these questions, you’ll be confused if the proposed ideal length is for navigational, informational, transactional, or maybe e-commerce keywords. Even if you target multiple keywords, not knowing the specifics would be a waste of your time. Basically, if you don’t get the answer if you ask a question that’s along the line of reasoning I mentioned above, then that’s a bit meaningless. Its meaning would only diminish if you notice that the standard deviation is high. Being incomplete means that the data that you find is not useful in any sense, or it would not even be considered as prescriptive information. It would be misleading if people deem it prescriptive.
  2. Similar Results: Ask yourself if the charts look the same if it used the keywords that you targeted and if the proposed blog post length would be the same if they used YOUR keywords. Always remember that some keywords need deep, comprehensive content in order to fully answer the query, but some keywords only require short, descriptive content.
  3. Correlation: Always remember that correlation will never imply causation. It never has, and probably never will. If you see charts implying that the average number of words are related to a certain rank, then don’t believe it. Basically, the length of your blog posts will never be directly related to your site’s ranking. Google will never work that way.

03_what you should doWhat You Should Do

  1. Know and Understand What Works and What Does Not
  2. Be Critical: If you look at the top three rankings for a certain keyword, and you notice that their content is unnecessarily longer than needed, do not be afraid to target that certain keyword with what you think is the right amount of content needed to answer it. Not only would you be giving yourself an easier time, but your readers will greatly appreciate it. Overdoing your content is something that happens to the best of us, so be mindful of your content. Be concise, comprehensive, and critical.
  3. Complement Your Content to the Searcher: This is the best way to determine the length of your blog post. If you want to target a query that can be answerable through a short blog post, and you want to have a featured snippet, then you don’t need a blog post with thousands of words. Conversely, if you’re trying to target a query that is complex, specific, and needs a lot of explanation, then go ahead and produce a blog post that has thousands of words; not because you’re following a prescribed content length, but the query actually needs a comprehensive explanation to be answered.

post frequencyPublishing Frequency

Now we’ll be talking about publishing frequency. You have probably experienced seeing content that details on finding out about websites that publish more than 10 times a month receive more traffic than those who publish less than 5 times per month.

What you should think about is WHY the website that has 10 or more blog posts receive more traffic. There are so many factors to consider, so don’t automatically believe everything you read. Maybe the website that has 10 or more blog posts only receive more traffic because of one blog post while the others are just there to fill in their blog.

04_what u shld askWhat You Should Ask

  1. The Websites: Ask yourself if the websites that were included in that certain content that contains data about publishing frequency is similar to yours. Find out if you have a similar audience if they are in your niche, and if their content is of certain passable quality. Make sure that the 10 or more posts are just as good as having one high-performing blog post. Because if they aren’t comparable, then you are just wasting your time.
  2. The Traffic Quality: Always remember that you have to think about the quality of traffic the websites have. In data/charts that you commonly see, you will not have the chance to see if the websites included in them have quality traffic.
  3. Factors that Matter:
  • Your Content Schedule This is for the SEOs that want to build up subscribers. The best thing you can do is to make a content schedule that matches your goals. For SEO-Hacker, we regularly publish content on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and our subscribers know that. If you do publish content on a schedule, then more often than not, your audience will deduce that you publish on a certain day/schedule. Basically, your publishing should imply a frequency that your audience could understand. Your goals might lead to you publishing only once a month, weekly, or daily. That’s just fine. Just make sure that your content schedule is in-line with your goals.
  • Consistency subscribers and even users that are new to your blog would know when to expect your blog posts.
  • Content That Converts Conversely, if you only publish once or twice a month, but convert more than 5 visitors into paying customers, then that’s actually pretty good. Always think about your ROI when balancing your workload and the expenses you have to make.

Key Takeaway

Remember all the things I have highlighted in this article to improve your content creation. However, I do advise that for those who are just starting out in blogging or publishing, it would be beneficial if you publish more content than others.

I started out writing a lot, and I only improved from that point on. That is also true for the web publishers. Over time, if you give the right amount of effort, and learn from all your mistakes, then you’ll eventually get better at it. Publishing more content than you need, or your audience need will be good practice for you and will enable you to be better at your craft.

Do you know any other misconceptions about blog posts or content creation? Let’s talk in the comments section below.

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Sean Si

About Sean

is a Filipino motivational speaker and a Leadership Speaker in the Philippines. He is the head honcho and editor-in-chief of SEO Hacker. He does SEO Services for companies in the Philippines and Abroad. Connect with him at Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter. Check out his new project, Aquascape Philippines.