Miranda
One school of thought is to write a few words more than the no. 1 ranking site. It does work at times. However, personally I like to spread out my content for easy reading.

Bara
As other typical SEO answer: it depends. Before ordering a piece of content I always look at what's already ranking in top 5 and I try to overcome the word count by 20-30%. Besides word count there are other things I'm looking at such as images, videos, infographics. These may add true value to the article as well.

Anirban
I would vote for 2*1000 words. Here's why : An article longer than 800 words won't be considered thin. You thus have 2 quality articles instead of one. They could also boost one another by inter-linking ( that would positively impact your bounce rate).

Charlotte
Ones not really better than the other.. it really just depends on what needs to be said, formatting and other on page attributes continue to add value. Such as adding graphs and tables as another method of explaining what’s written in text. Adding Q and As etc… if you can explain something well in 1000 words why complicate it by writing 2000? Write for users not robots.
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Garner
get the average word count for the top 3 ranking for that keyword add 500 on top of that, also SurferSEO is a great tool.

Alvarez
It depends really, I will said nether of them. If the keywords is a simple answer that only requires like 100 to 250 words, you only need to make an article that long, it really depends on the keyword. (I have multiple articles that are around 250 words and they are ranking with the main keyword)

Chris ✍️
I just want to add that this is a great group. Everyone here is really knowledgeable and the quality of responses beats any other group I'm in. Thanks to everyone!
Crayola
Look at it from the perspective of the reader. Even if you write 1000 but have almost no images or anything to break up the presentation, you will get way more bounces from people who think it's too long to read from first impression of looking at the page. Images are also another spot you can fill up with keywords metadata.

Globen
On the side of personal experience here's my viewpoint. Word count affects you in two ways
𝟏. 𝐆𝐨𝐨𝐠𝐥𝐞 𝐑𝐚𝐧𝐤𝐬 𝐓𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐀𝐫𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐥𝐞 𝐎𝐧 𝐌𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐓𝐡𝐚𝐧 𝟏 𝐊𝐞𝐲𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐝 (𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐧 𝐞𝐱𝐩𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐞𝐝)
Check the image I've attached and see the organic growth in the number of keywords we've gained (for a client) in a month for an article we wrote that's about 7k words long.
The amount of content will contribute to more keywords (if relevant) you can possibly rank.
𝟐. 𝐏𝐞𝐨𝐩𝐥𝐞 𝐆𝐞𝐭 𝐚𝐭𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐨 𝐡𝐢𝐠𝐡-𝐪𝐮𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐲 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐞𝐬𝐩𝐞𝐜𝐢𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐲 𝐢𝐧 𝐥𝐨𝐧𝐠-𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐦, 𝐢𝐭'𝐬 𝐚 𝐠𝐨𝐨𝐝 𝐚𝐬𝐬𝐞𝐭 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐤 𝐛𝐮𝐢𝐥𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠
Remember the 80/20 rule in writing. The 80 percent is spent on research and building the facts while 20 percent is spent on writing.
𝐀𝐧 𝐄𝐱𝐭𝐫𝐚 𝐓𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐠𝐡𝐭…
People these days do not read from top to bottom, they skim and check for interesting headings or areas of your article.
Long-form articles tend to offer more content to be skimmed, hence, users spend more time on your article. You also have a higher chance of them finding out an interesting section of your long-form article than an article that finishes in a single scroll.
𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐜𝐥𝐮𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧
It isn't the length mainly, it's how you take advantage of length coupled with quality.

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Michael Pedrotti 🎓
What’s the average of the top posts. If you come in with a 5000 word post in a niche where the average articles are 700 words, there is a chance you won’t rank. Check out Surfer SEO and their plugin keyword surfer. You will get an idea on what you should be targeting.
Rienzi
People throw length of content like it applies to all. Lol clearly the inexperienced and just borrowing what gurus tell them.
Is not the length but the relevancy. If your low keyword difficulty (KD) keywords require only average 500 words to satisfy the intent then you have about 4 articles to write for your budget. If you are going for highly competitive keywords then it might take more than 2k especially if your aiming for evergreen content.
Analyze the ranking pages. use cora/pop/surfer to save you time.
But going back to your question – I would rather create 2×1000 words article than one 2000 words. Is like should I open 2 store in 2 separate location or 1 big one.
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Lori
It's not so much about the word count. I agree with Rienzi. Use the SkyScraper technique: look at the top-ranking posts or pages for that topic/keyword and add MORE value – do much better. If that means condensing it down more succinctly, adding images and using bullet points and headings to make the content more digestible or adding more details in those areas that can be beefed up, that is where I would go.
Garry
Repeat – Number of words doesn't matter. When was last time you read stupid 2000 word article on someone's blog? (Maybe couple of times in a lifetime).
Just write it in the natural flow and try to make the message/tutorial/etc clear to your readers, I have 350 words articles outranking those long cluttered articles.
Jarno
Whichever is most useful for your customers. Don't think too much about word count as long as you create quality content.
Okuto
Hey Chris, great question!
The number of words you write doesn't matter provided your content is fluff-free and top-notch.
You can determine the number of words to cover by looking at the word count of the top ten post on Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs).
Why cover 1000 words if the top ranking posts ranking are at 2000-2500 words range?
You can make 2700 words, optimize it for search engines and compete for the top ranking, right?🙂
PS: My Dm is open if you have any question.
Great day!
Daniel
That's the wrong question… the question is, "What do I need to write to rank for a specific keyword". That length, words used, number of headers, etc… will differ for each keyword. Create a content calendar, know w'hich keyword each article is designed to rank for and how much traffic it gets and then do the research to determine the correct length and structure. Don't just write content for the sake of writing content.
Rhiz
2 article posts at 1.2k is much better, especially when posted – 2-3 weeks apart. It helps to show Google’s spiders that the site is regularly updated while also still using the same keyphrases.

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