Does length matter?

There’s a trend afoot right now in content marketing: longer is better. According to marketing expert Neil Patel, the ideal blog post on financial content should be 2,100-2,500 words. And the most-shared (via Google and social posts) are often longer than 1,500 words. 

Here’s the thing though: 2,500 words is long. Like. Really long.

Consider this: The average American reads about 200 words per minute. For technical material (so something complex like finance) that pace can shrink to 50-75 words per minute. That means your reader is going to need to set aside anywhere from 10 to 50 minutes to read your blog. Which leads us to…

Most people don’t have 50 minutes to read through a technical blog post on traditional vs. Roth IRA. So they skim.

That’s one reason I always do subheads with content. It’s another reason we strive to include graphic elements that break up text visually.

But that can only go so far.

Why I don’t think super-long posts are a good idea

Just because longer content does better on search and is shared more frequently on social… doesn’t mean that people are reading longer content.

Take a look at this chart showing the amount of words people actually read.

People aren’t reading your super-long blog posts.

So when you’re thinking about blog post length this brings up an important question. What is it you want your content to do?

If you want content on your site as a way to show up in more search results, or you’re keen to have your clients share articles among friends, long-form may be the way to go. Instead of Bonds 101 and Bonds 201 (articles offered in the Content 151 library), you might combine those to be a 2,000+ word comprehensive article on all-things fixed income. That could be your customization and it might work incredibly well.

But if you want your audience (namely clients) to really read and engage with your content, and learn from it, I retain an old school approach. Shorter is better. Write in a way that people will read it, in detail, from start to finish. And in my experience, that’s 500-1,200 words.

But the data!

So why am I resisting the data on this when we live in a data-driven world? I have to admit, it’s a weird feeling for me. Because I like data. But there are two reasons to resist it.

First, Google is always changing its algorithm for search. A few years ago, the ideal blog-post length was 500-800 words. Now it’s 2,000+. Patel references Motley Fool as an example of prominent financial content, since the site shows up frequently in search results. Motley Fool has begun to favor 3,000+ word articles, it seems. But financial advisors and the content they create shouldn’t be trying to compete with Motley Fool. They’re two different ball games; they might not even be the same sport.

Which takes us to the second reason. To (mis)quote Thomas Jefferson, “In matters of style, swim with the current. In matters of principle, stand like a rock.” While Jefferson didn’t really say that, the point is a good one.

Financial education shouldn’t be dictated by whatever social or search “style” is en vogue. It should be dictated by principle: What’s the best way to educate your clients, or general readers, about financial matters.

You don’t give financial advice based on trends. (When’s the last time you told your client to go ahead and trade options on Robinhood because everyone else is doing it?)

So why would you change the way you present that advice based on trends? The goal is to share financial education content in a way that … educates.

Audience first

The question shouldn’t be, “What is most shareable?” But rather, “What’s the best way to get through to my audience?”

For instance, young people are more likely to engage with video content. So if you’re targeting young people, you’d want to make more videos. A 22-year old isn’t going to sit through a 2,500 word article. In fact, an article that long is likely to remind them of their college reading list, no matter what the statistics on Google search say.

So here’s my question to you:

This article is under 750 words. Did you make it all the way to the end? Would you have been more likely to share it if it was 3x longer?

And what has your experience been with content of varying lengths?

Leave me a message in the comments… I want to hear!