Blog Post Best Practices for Accountants
If you’re thinking about improving your blogging strategy in 2022, you might be wondering – how long should a blog post be? And what’s the ideal blog post length for SEO? The reality is, there are no hard and fast rules. There are benefits to writing both short and longer posts. So let’s delve more into this topic and check out some blog post length best practices.
What is the Best Length of a Blog Post?
A blog post can be any length. The most important thing to consider is its purpose. Is the blog you’re crafting useful? Will it entice your audience? Does it answer consumer questions? Could it be considered a thought-leading piece? Does it set you apart as industry experts? Know what you want to achieve before you start writing.
Is 500 Words Long Enough for a Blog Post?
Think carefully about what the blog post will be used for, as this will certainly impact the word count. If you want your website to look busy and be continuously updated with fresh content (which Google loves, by the way), then creating a series of 500-word articles can help to achieve your goal. Similarly, if you’re creating short, sharp and snappy posts to fuel your social media strategy and want to regularly touch on news updates or industry regulations, then your articles can be short and to-the-point. That said, you also need to think about the channel you’ll be posting on. Research has shown that longer-form articles between 1900 and 2000 words perform the best and gain the greatest number of post views on LinkedIn. They also get the most LinkedIn likes, comments and shares on this platform. And there are many reasons for this.
The Benefits of a Long-Form Post
There are many reasons why writing a long-form post is a good idea. For example, blogs of this kind in the accountancy sector tend to:
- Contain more valuable and detailed material. They allow you to really delve deeper into a topic and provide people with new and insightful material. This, in turn, helps you to become a go-to source of information for consumers.
- Improve your link building strategy. Longer-form content that’s well-researched and full of accurate facts is more likely to be referenced by external sources and this is great for your link building strategy – particularly if the links come for high authority sites. Similarly, you’ll have more chances throughout the blog to link to other pieces you’ve done, and create a strong internal linking structure. This will, again, confirm your authority about specific topics or areas of interest.
- Keep people on your site longer. Google values the user experience. Therefore, the longer users stay on your site, the more they’re thought to be enjoying the content you produce. This is great for SEO and could help improve your rankings.
- Offer more keyword opportunities. Remember, you don’t want to keyword stuff, so it’s about placing target keywords throughout the content. And if your word count is higher, this will be easier to do naturally.
- Turn leads into customers. A blog can showcase your knowledge and show that you’re a reputable industry player. This can attract the attention of new clients.
- Improve trust and loyalty. Would you rather work with a faceless brand, or one with a great website and an exceptional blogging strategy? The latter seems far more appealing, right? Especially if the blogs they produce are detailed, accurate and frequently address the pain points of clients.
Of course, crafting a longer blog does have its downside. Blogs over 2000 words obviously take longer to write and require extensive research. You, therefore, need to be sure that you have the time to craft such content in-house, or outsource your content needs. While marketers might feel confident creating shorter, sharper pieces, it requires a talented content writer to produce anything over the 500 word mark. And this requires careful budgeting.
When is it Worth Writing a Longer Blog?
If you’re looking to specifically drive search engine traffic to your website, then creating a long-form blog could be the way forward. Research from American marketing software giant, HubSpot, found that the optimum blog post length for being found on search engines was around 2,300 words – although, of its 50 most popular reads, some articles were quite a bit shorter. Search engines are likely to bring up longer blogs if they answer search queries, contain the right keywords, have links to authoritative sites, load fast, have images with alt text and a whole host of other reasons. Don’t forget, though, that you can still write shorter articles with the aim of appearing in Featured Snippets or for standing out in a niche market.
Blog posts can also be used to generate leads and improve business. But again, HubSpot research found that longer articles of around 2500 words were better for lead generation. This is actually good news as a long blog can improve your chances of being found via a search engine and generate leads at the same time. Also, if you’ve taken the time to produce a brilliant piece of work, you’re more likely to shout about it from numerous channels and this will create an even bigger buzz around your company.
Should My Blogs Exceed 2500 Words?
Again, it all comes down to purpose. If you want to become the number one authority on a subject then you might want to write a pillar page. This is a long-form landing page that delves into the specifics of a topic and includes numerous links off to other pages of the same theme. Pillar pages can improve your credibility significantly and should be between 2,000 – 10,000 words, with the average being around 4,000.
If you’re looking for content for accountants, contact Whitefish Marketing today for a digital marketing strategy tailored to your accountancy business needs.
