To blog or not to blog
A recent conversation with a client about my voice over artist website got me thinking. He asked me whether there was any point in writing blog posts in 2024. I’ve been writing blog posts for a long time now and have long assumed that they help with SEO (search engine optimisation) on a website. There is certainly evidence that they have done in the past – my Google analytics shows blog posts frequently come up in searches ahead of webpages – but do blog posts still fulfil that SEO function?
I decided to do some research.
Polly Clover is a blog writer (as opposed to me who is voice over who writes occasional blogs) and she thinks that blogging is far from dead in 2024.
In a blog she points to research published by the ahrefs website that shows that 77% of internet users still read blogs and that includes all ages not just older internet users (for example 26% of 5-18 years olds in the UK are reading blogs). Nevertheless getting people to read your blog is increasingly difficult in a world with an estimated 600 million blogs on the internet.
According to Polly Clover the effectiveness of a blog post from a SEO perspective using Google is not just to do with the quality and relevance of the content but also to do with its length. It turns out that the optimum length of a blog article needs to be around 2000 words. A post of 500 words will also work from an SEO point of view but nowhere near as well as a longer article. I was surprised at this as my general feeling is that for most users brevity is a virtue. Asking visitors to my website to read a 2000+ word article seems to me like it could be rather overwhelming. Attention spans are generally shorter for most people these days.
The website searchenginejournal.com suggests there is a trade off between content that is easy for users to read and long form content that ranks higher in search. Searchenginejournal suggests that quality of content is also very important. They quote Google’s Martin Splitt who says that Google does not measure word counts of posts as a ranking factor – however the evidence from ahrefs and searchenginejournal suggests that longer articles do rank higher. This is possibly because by having more content they are able to deliver more of the quality content Google does use for ranking.
Searchenginejournal says:
“What you should take away from Google’s position on blog post length is to focus on satisfying searchers. If a short post satisfies the query, then there’s no need to extend the length in the hope of pleasing Google.”
To me this is good news as I feel with many posts I would be really padding out the content to get to 2000 words. As an example this post will be around 630 words and it feels plenty long enough to me.
Why have I talked about SEO so much in relation to blogging? Well the reason I write blog posts is not really to attract new readers to my insights on the world of voice over (although they are welcome!). I write blog posts as I believe they are still a good way of getting fresh new date-stamped content onto my website and experience tells me that my website ranks better in Google searches as a result. In addition my research when writing this also suggests that despite the increased use of social media writing blogs is still very much relevant in 2024.
However having said that – according to Polly Clover to be effective I need to write more often, in greater detail and with a clearer format and structure to the post which also needs to have a clear intent – which means answering a specific query for the reader. Looks like I will have to work on that aspect going forward!
Chris Radley – Voice Over
Find out how I became a voice over on the about page.
You can download my voice over demos from my voiceovers.co.uk profile.