Should I be keeping the blog posts short?

Selected answers from the Dumb SEO Questions Facebook & G+ community.

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  Rhiannon De Havas: Basically, what’s the best strategy for making sure I get the most out of my budget?
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  Rayhan Alam: Rhiannon De Havas You can dictate the length of the article to make sure they don`t fill your blog post with unnecessary words just for the money. You will have to do competitor research to dictate what should be the length.Or you can hire a reliable and affordable writer like me who costs less and will provide you a great value for your investment
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  Rhiannon De Havas: Rayhan Alam ah ok. So I want to make sure my article is longer (more in-depth) than my competitors. That helps! Not sure about hiring you. My website is very niche and I’m looking for writers who know about my niche.
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  Bekah Bottone: What kind of content will you need to create? Just wondering
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  Rhiannon De Havas: Bekah Bottone I’m not sure that’s relevant to the question
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  Bekah Bottone: Rhiannon De Havas As I said, I was just wondering. Good luck!
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  Rhiannon De Havas: Bekah Bottone thanks!
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  Angie Simons: Hey I just saw your post and I want to share some advice that I think might be helpful you may know this already so if you do please forgive me for taking up your time however the first thing that you want to do is a site on it you want to make sure that the website is 100% fast responsive mobile-friendly and engaging not just for the search engines but for the viewers but you want that engaging content to be relevant to your keyword content header tags titles alt text all of it without cramming in too many duplicate keyword tags but being relevant that increases the user`s experience there are ways to do this that doesn`t cost a lot of money I got to do is a few things if you have a WordPress site install WP optimize.com plugin I swear to God that plug-in is what makes your site goes fast also no affiliation I`ve used it on my own size client sites and once you have the ground work the foundation of the site going fast then it`s a matter of finding out what people are searching for incorporating the key words into exciting engaging header tags and writing engaging content that is relevant to what they`re looking for and making it user friendly.
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  Rhiannon De Havas: Angie Simons thank you.
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  Angie Simons: Rhiannon De Havas you are absolutely welcome I didn`t learn this stuff overnight but I`ve been doing it for 20 years I`ve had a lot of friends that have helped me along the way. That`s where it`s all about
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  Michael Martinez: "If I have a budget of $10, 000 should I be keeping the blog posts short so I end up with more articles or should I be making sure the articles are long so they perform better?"What matters (for SEO) is whether the content is useful to people. Length …
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  Rhiannon De Havas: Michael Martinez thank you! I do get that. But when my writer asks me how many words an article should be, what do I say? I can’t just say that’s irrelevant. I guess I should give them a ballpark and then read the article and see if it needs trimming or expanding, right?
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  Michael Martinez: Rhiannon De Havas I don`t know how much editorial control you want to exercise over the articles. But you should be aware that simply throwing freelance-written content onto a site isn`t a good SEO strategy.Good editorial guidance directs the writer to cover topics, sub-topics, talking points, references, etc. Requiring people to write a specific number of words usually leads to padding and conflation. A good editor can manage that but if you`re not investing much time into the editing process you`ll probably end up with a mixture of quality in the content.
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  Rhiannon De Havas: Michael Martinez that’s really helpful, thank you. So perhaps, my ability to manage and oversee will have the greatest effect? Cheers!
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  Michael Martinez: Rhiannon De Havas It would be a good idea to review these guidelines and consider having your writers review them.https://developers.google.com/.../creating-helpful-content
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  Rhiannon De Havas: Michael Martinez thanks, will do! Appreciate your help so much!
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  Huma Kanwal: Rhiannon De Havas It depends on each KW. Analyze competitors and create better content than them. Your writer will do this for you. Each article`s length is different. Expert writer will not ask about word count. Further, no one stuff words unnecessary. You can keep good editorial checks and mention them time to time. At any point you need writing services I can do for you.
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  Rhiannon De Havas: Huma Kanwal thanks so much!
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  Rehan Sanadi: Jody MacBeth you might be able to help her
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  Tricia Barnes: Length should depend on the type of article - Cornerstone content will be longer than, for example, a piece that answers a basic question.Don`t try to hit X number of words for Google; the experts will argue until they are blue in the face about the content should be X number of words long. Surveys show most posts in the top spots are between 1300 - 1600 words, but this might be because that is the optimal length to meet the reader`s search intent, rather than Google simply saying X number of words? Check - this must be a good post; let`s throw it up the rankings!Give your writers a tight brief with a word range and agree to pay by the piece rather than the word. That way, you`ll get the length of the article you want and will still be able to control your budget.And just a word of reassurance - not all of us will bloat a piece to make more money. I regularly tell clients if I think their word counts are too high or too low!
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  Rhiannon De Havas: Tricia Barnes thanks so much, this is super useful! Sorry about disparaging your profession!
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  Tricia Barnes: Rhiannon De Havas Not at all - no offence taken! I just like to give a little reassurance when I can that there are reliable, ethical writers out there. Have a fabulous evening.
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  Rhiannon De Havas: Tricia Barnes thanks, you too!
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  Tricia Barnes: Rhiannon De Havas Also - don`t be afraid to check out several writers before you find one you click with, give plenty of direction to ensure you get what you need for your site, and ensure all of your content has a purpose. Content without strategy is wasted moneyI`ve lost count of the number of clients who have come to me asking for content, and they don`t know why they want it or how it will benefit their site.I can send you a great writer`s brief outline if you like. It will help keep you in control of the process and will focus your writers talents. - It`s a win for you both!
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  Rhiannon De Havas: Tricia Barnes that would be amazing! Thank you!
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  Emily Retherford: The length of the article should come from your research. In most cases, between 1200-1500 words. I usually keep them closer to 1200.Also, don’t pay by word. Pay a flat rate instead to avoid filler content.Example 1, 000-1, 500 you might off $200.Lastly, if you need SEO writers, I have room to take on a couple more clients. Let’s chat.
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  Rhiannon De Havas: Emily Retherford I’m not quite at that point yet. Probably early 2023.
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  Emily Retherford: One more thing to keep in mind, if you decide to use an SEO optimization software like Clearscope, RankIQ, or SEO Hero, take the word count suggestions with a grain of salt. I’ve noticed they pull ALL the words from a page so everything in the footer, …
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  Rhiannon De Havas: Emily Retherford thanks! I’ve found most of the SEO software to be not so useful, though I haven’t used many. So far I’ve just been creating content I know will be useful to my subscribers because I know quite a lot about my niche. Some of the articles I think are the best and most useful don’t perform as well as the ones I don’t put much attention to. It seems almost random. But my business is doing well and I’m ranking higher on google than I would have expected because I don’t have much content and haven’t done any active backlink building, just let that happen naturally. Unfortunately, other aspects of the business keep me from creating content, which is why I’m going to hire a small team.
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  Emily Retherford: Obviously, user intent is a very important aspect of SEO. But, as you know since you’re asking about content length, it’s not the only think to look at long-term. A lot of SEO tools can be confusing because there’s so much info. I’d recommend starting with a content optimization tool, like RankIQ. It helps you optimize your content, gives you an estimated length, and does some basic keyword research.
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  Rhiannon De Havas: Emily Retherford thank you!
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  Emily Retherford: Rhiannon De Havas No problem. I hope it helps!
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  Ash Nallawalla: Do some searches in your target niche and do two things. First, what`s the word count of the top 10 valid pages. Second, would you describe the content as "useful". Now find a way to convey EAT to your writer, particularly the EA part of it.
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  Rhiannon De Havas: Ash Nallawalla thank you!
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  Kristen Hansen Lowrey: Don’t pay per word! Pay per article. Generally writers are happy to charge a specific price for a certain general length of article 800-1000 words for example and often that’s long enough. 1500-2000 for cornerstone content.
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  Rhiannon De Havas: Kristen Hansen Lowrey thanks, that’s really helpful!
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  Sal Isme: There isn’t an ideal length for SEO copy, it really depends on the subject and the structure of your website. You want to make authoritative, trustworthy content and that might 500 words on one page and 3, 000 on another.
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  Richard Hearne: Lots of comments, and I didn`t read them all. Has anyone mentioned that (from an SEO POV) the length and format of content you commission should be based on what Google is returning for the target keywords? There is a question about the "kind of content", and it is relevant since Google will show very different content types based on searcher intent.At a bare minimum, research the types and lengths of content Google is surfacing for your target keywords. There are quite a few tools that will do this for you. Then you can validate a baseline approach to what you should be doing here. But beware - there is no magic number, or single answer to your question.
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  Shane Deubell: Would also add creatives with slides, videos, etc. to the blog page. Some topics are abstract and readers need an image or something for it to click in their head. Similar to word length, whatever you need to explain the topic to the most people. Usually when I go off topic too much it drops in ranking eventually.