In my opinion and experience, blog posts shouldn't focus on word count, but instead, it should mainly focus on the quality of the content within the post, and what value it provides to your target audience.
In my observations, longer blog posts are quickly put in the 'can't be bothered reading a long blog post' pile, unless the marketing behind the blog post was really good and it's built some high anticipation for the post, paired with a really attention-grabbing headline.
I believe that shorter blogs posts are more likely to get more reads because people want fast information and fast answers, so the quicker you can provide that without the unnecessary 'fluff', the more likely your readers are to appreciate you getting straight to the point and offering them a quick solution.
And the more they appreciate they are combined with the quality of the content? The more likely they are to leave a comment/engage with your post, and/or share your blog posts on their socials, or with their email subscribers, even on their websites, which is where it's *actually* good for SEO!
You see, simply having a blog and writing a post every now and then, isn't going to really help you SEO wise.
The SEO gold in blogging is the interaction:
The clicks to your blog post (from Google, socials, other websites etc)
Whether the user reads the whole post or exits after a few seconds (Google takes note of this!)
Whether the user/reader physically interacts with the post (leaves a comment, shares it, clicks a link in the post, or reads the whole post then reads another post of yours)
So at the end of the day, it's not really about word count, it's about the quality of the content and how valuable your target audience finds it, and what they do with it (the interactions or lack of).
Here's some extra tips when it comes to blogging and how you can encourage your reader to do all of the above things:
ADD A CALL TO ACTION
At the end of each blog post, add a call to action, or ask a question to encourage your readers to leave a comment or share your post. Direct them to do something.
People need simple direction if you want them do interact with your content, otherwise they will just exit and get get on with their day, and this doesn't really do much for your SEO.
LINK TO OTHER BLOG POSTS
Always add links to other related blog posts within each of your posts - you can do this within the post itself if it naturally segues, for example, if you're looking for extra simple and tangible SEO tips, check out my 'Six sexy SEO tips for September'.
(See what I did there?!)
Or, at the bottom of your posts you could add a "check out my other related blog posts" section (scroll to the bottom of this post to see what I mean).
This gets people physically interacting with your blog and your website, which keeps them hanging around your website longer, which means people are finding your content valuable and they're happy to spend their time on your website, they're getting to know you better, and they start to feel like they can trust you and consider you an expert/authority in your field - all of this is taken into account by Google which helps improve your SEO!
Do you have any questions about blogging or blogging SEO?
Pop it in the comments or send me an email to hello@thetechnobird.com.au