There are those who say longer is better. I've never really worried about it. Some of my posts are shorter and some considerably longer. I let the subject "guide" me and don't worry about writing only for SEO.

Crank out the 2000 word plus authoritative posts and watch what happens. The reader can really drill down into a topic and you use that post a lot in answering email questions on the subject. Label your images what they are to help the search bots, label the video code going in and what you save from the render, make it descriptive. Upload the blog post to Pinterest, etc to harvest the images for the link back to the work not just to post the image itself alone.

From an SEO standpoint maybe longer is better but I believe a combination of both is ideal.  The shorter posts are going to keep you blogging daily (or at least regularly) and then the longer ones when the subject justifies it.

Personally, I have a hard time reading longer posts unless I'm really into researching a specific subject.  I prefer the shorter posts.  

NEVER blog just for word count.  ALWAYS add value... or don't write anything!  

Let me tell only my personal opinion. The other day I read featured posts that were around 600 words. It was a WALL of words. I couldn't get past the 1st paragraph because it just seemed too lengthy for my little brain.

I was 'bored out' after the first paragraph. Was it really boring or was it my little brain that said - 'too long for me, I have the attention span of a peanut'?

With that said, epic posts or evergreen posts by some are just so lengthy it makes me crazy. Call it chock full of info possibly but I feel it's just over done, over blown. I want to compete with the likes of Steven King, etc.

Is it good or is it ego?

Nina Hollander and Andrew Mooers again here. I share Nina's approach, but I'm well aware of many articles I've read, including here in The Rain that support Andrews answer. I suppose you have to experiment and decide which subjects warrant 2,000. My average post is 500-700 words. Mostly because I run out of steam on the topic at that point 

Wayne and Jean,

If you are writing to be read, it does not matter.  However, if you are writing for the bots in Googlish, I don't think that this the best way to reach human beings...Our SEO expert in his job spent 1million dollars a month for Search Engine marketing for the firm he works for.  He was also the president of the SEO/SEM chapter in his city that is the third largest chapter Worldwide, and he recently told us, the hardest thing to do for the Google bots is to match the intent with the search criteria.  That is because most people don't know who they are marketing to and who those people are.

I dont think that the count of words matters as much as your consistency in posting.

Post whatever you can post consistently.

the latest algorithm, according to those who know SEO, is 3,000 words.... Nestor & Katerina Gasset (Katerina) is my go-to SEO person.... however, I've never done one more than 1,000 and those are rare!!  mine average 300 to 500 words....  they get found and indexed.... but that may be because I'm online all day, everyday....and Google likes reliability !!!!  maybe that's the reason....

Never think about SEO when trying to cover a subject. When the job is done, it is done! Don't concern yourself with long or short, focus on if the job is done!

Content put in the proper context is more important than the count.

I write about the topics I enjoy and that will interest consumers. While I pay attention to keywords it's not ony about that nor do I focus on a particular lenght of post. Every now and then I get in an epic one I can use over and over

I have no clue.

I am circling for a landing on this one. Interesting answers. Is any one answer the rule though?

Who knows really?  Where's Waldo? 

There are many experts who will tell you what it is if you are willing to pay them for information.  I'm laughing.  

Write what is necessary ... use good key words, tags, links and I feel we will all do just fine. 

I'm not an SEO expert.  I've just been blogging for a long time and have learned a lot. It all seems to be working. 

I believe Google says 500 words - I try to stay in that 500-1000 word range. It may be good to 'rank' with more words than that but, if your readers don't want to read past that 500-word mark, the ranking does you no good!

You want to KEEP your readers' interest with links to other posts (on your site) that keep them there.  If the posts are too long, they'll click on it, see an exhaustive dissertation and then click right back to Google again!

I think all the SEO word counts in the world are no help if you can not get the consumer to read the whole post. 

I wish we knew.

I don't write for SEO, I write for my customers.  If I find I have a very long post, I break it up

For SEO?

That means you want to know what GOOGLE says about ranking.

The number 1 priority of big G is interaction. That means lots and lots of people interacting by writing, voting and buying. As you can imagine, this specific measure is very temporary and can disappear in a week.

The second priority is authority. Authority according to big G is determined by engagement with 'higher authority' sites such as .edu and .gov. Links to sites like Wicapedia and DrMd suggest the content has research involved.

Additionally, big G looks to content regarding authority. The content must be aligned. That means if you are about real estate and too much 'making jam' appears, ones authority will suffer.

Authority is also established by authoritative posts. In the past, superficial, short reads were recommended and as the description suggests, not the stuff of which authority is based. Big G, in responding to a question they did not want to answer suggested one can not go on for 2,0000 words without knowing something. That is where that baseline came from. Clearly, big G has not met very many real estate agents.

Finally, there is the 'Rankbrain," a deep-learning, Artificial Intelligence deployed by Big G that will 'MAGICLY' determine ranking using AI. When sued in German courts by a company that was 'deranked' by Rankbrain, big G stated they don't know exactly how it works but that it works great!

That being said, your question regarding IDEAL word count and SEO is too simplistic to garner an actionable response. Why? It is just a matter a time until 'services' are available to generate material appearing as authority.

My suggestion is to create a PILLAR POST to which you can repeatedly refer readers to in your shorties. That strategy helps in all aspects of SEO.

It depends on the search engine and the algorithm that is used.

There is no ideal word count, and there's more to seo than amount of words.

Actually, for SEO, and for conversions, the longer the better. Back in the day Google wanted short posts like 200 to 500 words. But they discovered rather quickly that spammers can do that easily. 

The benefit to long form content is the ability not just to rank but to repurpose the content. 

Google indexes long form content in two different indexes, In depth search being one of them. 

The gurus have done a lot of testing on this and it appears that the longer the content the more google will rank it especially for semantical terms. 

I say that the content needs to be at least 2500 words in length but it has to be good content. 

Here is a screenshot from a year or so ago, but since then, even longer than 2500 words is ranking on page one more. This is a chart of how many websites with different number of words  are on page one. 

With content that is 3000 to 7000 words in length, you can create an e-book out of it, and use it for an optin for your FB ads. You can turn it into videos, audios, smaller posts, etc. So much you can do. 

You do have to make it attractive with photos, charts, bullets, video, subheadings and a TOC. 

I teach a webinar on how to create the long form content - it is a free webinar. 

Wayne and Jean Marie Zuhl - for detailed posts, even 5,000 words are fine. For regular posts - limit it to 500 or so.

I'm not buying it anyway. Most readers are more like Tigger and want lots of pictures !

More is better.

I have heard 1,000 plus.

parked and reading...

I do not worry about word count myself

I HEAR 1000, but I know unless the topic grabs me, I never make it to the end.   Some of my posts with only 500 words have ranked very well.

Some say 500, others say 1500, others say 2500.  At some point the only one reading to the end of the blog is google.  I write with the content as my muse and until the muse leaves me.