Content length, how much is enough?

It does not matter how long your articles are.

The Internet is full of marketing blogs that tell you the content must be 2000+ words long, 10000+ words long, and so on.

But it does not matter as long as your content solves a problem for a person.

I have posts that solve the problem in 50 words, and if this is the solution to someone’s needs, that’s great!

There is no need to dilute the content with useless words, and I’m sure you immediately notice when a blog post is trying to transform a 5-line answer into a 200-line one.

The same thing happens with videos, right? You are looking for something, but you need to watch 15 minutes of intro to get to the meat of the subject.

Do the opposite. Do what’s great for your readers.

Plus, Google does not care.

Keep posts focused

When I say that Google does not care about content length, it’s because I’ve observed this first-hand.

Some of my most visited blog posts are very short, yet they take a problem and they solve it, quickly.

And Google notices it. The key is solving a problem. Google notices that you are helping it help its users, and that’s what happens when you keep your posts focused on a specific topic.

Some topics will perform better than others, some might be less popular, but as long as it’s focused on a little problem and it solves it, it’s great.

Don’t try to appeal to everyone

You can’t write great content for everyone. Pick your ideal person, or group of people, and write for them.

Pick your crowd.

Pick your tribe.

Ignore everything else.

Don’t aim for perfection

Done is better than perfect.

This is my mantra. As long as what I do is technically correct and does not have errors, it’s all fine.

You don’t need to overthink it. Focus on being good enough. That’s when the point of diminishing returns starts.

Most of the time, good enough is already better than 95% of what’s out there.

Don’t let chasing perfection limit your production volume.

It does not matter if someone already wrote about it

There are thousands of water brands. Thousands of brands of wine and beer. Thousands and thousands of hotels.

The more people write about a subject, the more interest there is around it, and the more people read about that subject.

If no one wrote about something, it might not mean you are a pioneer or “first”, it might just mean no one cares about that topic.

You don’t need to bring something new to the table

If you worry that you don’t have a unique spin on something, or a revolutionary idea, you might be limiting yourself.

Often, a 1% or 5% improvement over something that’s already out there is enough.

Google was not the first search engine. It just worked better.

Basecamp was not the first project management tool. It just worked better.

Focus on being better, not new.

You can blog about anything

I am a programmer and I blog about programming. If you’re a programmer too, you don’t just have to blog about programming.

There’s space for everything.

The topic does not matter, as long as you are passionate about it. There’s no way you can force yourself to write about one subject for a long time without burning out.

Anywhere there’s a problem, you can bring solutions.

For me the niche was programming, for you it might be something else. Also, programming is even a bad niche as most developers consider even a little bit of marketing to be spam and mostly hate receiving emails (as they’re using email every day and probably already receive a lot of it).

I think blogging, properly done, can be even more successful in less technical topics. It can work, as long as people search for those topics on the internet and have a place where you can find them like a big subreddit, a big Facebook group, or a popular online forum.