How to Make Short Blogs Long and Why You Need To, 19 Ways

Janice Wald

Do you need actionable hacks to make your short blogs longer?

How long is long?

When I first started blogging, experts advised making your posts 1500 words if you want to rank on Google.

Today, experts advise making your posts 2,000 words long if you want to rank due to the increased competition on the internet for readership.

Is writing that many words really necessary to rank?

Is there an easier way?

This post will answer those questions.

By reading this post, you’ll receive an action plan with 8 tools and 11 methods you can use to make short blogs longer.

You can go back and edit your short blog posts to make them longer using these strategies.

Imagine having posts that rank on Page 2 of Google move up in the SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages) so they rank on Page 1.

Imagine a world where you don’t stare at a blank screen wondering what to write next.

Imagine a world where you get more search traffic from Google.

Imagine a world where you make more sales from the increased traffic that comes to your site.

Finally, imagine a world where your social shares are so high, you find yourself on the most-shared post lists at Buzzsumo.com.

That’s what long blog posts can do for your blogging success.

Do you edit your posts before publication?

I imagine you do.

After all, you want your mechanics and facts to be correct.

This article will explain how to edit your posts both before and after publication.

There are many reasons to update your posts after publication.

For example, you might want to optimize your content for customer acquisition or ranking in Google’s Search Engine Results Pages.

Google likes fresh content, after all.

Readers do too. Therefore, publishing long blogs pleases both Google and your readers.

Making your blog posts longer, therefore, boosts your SEO as well as your visitors’ user experience (UX).

Today, people look for detailed solutions to their problems. This is why how-to guides are in vogue more than ever in 2020.

How can you conduct before-and-after-publication post-editing?

After reading this post, you will know how to edit your content to make your short blogs longer to improve your SEO and user experience.

Let’s dive in.

Why You Need to Turn Short Blogs into Long Blogs

Decrease your bounce rate by keeping visitors on your site longer.

More detailed blog posts take longer to read.

By keeping people reading longer on your site, your bounce rate improves.

In turn, you’ll boost your SEO which will bring you more search engine traffic.

If you have an in-depth post filled with substance and not fluff, Google feels by showing your post to its users, they are showing a quality article.

Make your website visitors happy.

People go to websites looking for answers to problems or entertainment.

If your visitors come looking for solutions, and your details fall short, your visitors will be dissatisfied and your blog’s user experience will tank.

Visitors will have more to talk about on your blog.

Are you tired of short comments that just say, “great post?” Those comments give no indication people even read your writing.

The longer your content, the more material people have to comment on.

Which Posts Should You Edit?

To determine which posts to edit, you need a keyword positioning tool.

There are many free keyword position tools that tell you what positions in the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) would benefit from updating.

If the posts rank between 5 and 15, update them following the tips in this post.

Post-Editing Tools

CanIRank

According to the website, “CanIRank is the first SEO software using AI to give you specific action recommendations rather than just data.”

The company actually guarantees that CanIRank will grow your traffic!

CanIRank tells you which changes will make the biggest impact in the shortest amount of time.

The tool monitors your website and your competitors’ websites to make informed recommendations for how you can boost your search engine rankings.

This analysis is completed in seconds.

CanIRank https://www.canirank.com/

If you like to have your self-esteem enhanced, like me, you will appreciate the wording of your report recommendations.

For example, can you tell in the first recommendation in the screenshot, CanIRank congratulated me for getting my keyword on Page 2 of Google’s Search Engine Results Pages? Then CanIRank went on to tell me how to get the post to Page 1.

CanIRank advises me to put in six internal links and two outbound links.

Isn’t that great? We know we need internal links, but how many? We also know we need external links. How many?

CanIRank solves that by letting you know the exact numbers. SEO ambiguity is gone.

Refer back to the screenshot: If you click “Do, I want to do this,” you’ll be asked to upgrade to a Pro account.

If you click, “Delegate Do It For Me,” you’ll be taken to a place where you can book a free consultation and review.

Content Suggestions

Pricing: CanIRank’s basic plan is free for up to 5 reports.

I have been enjoying the basic plan and found it more than helpful enough for me.

CanIRank Alternatives

CanIRank is enormously helpful in letting you know which posts to update and how to update them.

However, CanIRank only provides 5 free reports.

Consider these other tools to help you make short blogs longer.

TextOptimizer

TextOptimizer also gives you a site analysis for content purposes.

Notice my content optimization for my post about lifestyle blog post ideas is only “Fairly optimized” according to TextOptimizer.

The words and phrases in gray are already in my post. The tool suggests I add the words and phrases in white.

By doing so, my post will rise in the rankings.

To use TextOptimizer, go to https://textoptimizer.com/.

The site predicts your post will rise in the SERPs within 5 weeks.

My observation supports this.

After experimenting with TextOptimizer, I found my posts went up the SERPs by two positions. Often, this boost resulted in my posts moving from Page 2 to Page 1, an enormous increase in visibility.

Alexa

Fill your keyword gaps.

These are keywords your competitors are ranking for but you’re not.

Alexa.com shares your keyword gaps.

A while back, Alexa told me my competitors were writing about the keyword phrase “blog commenting sites.”

After doing some research, I composed the post.

The resulting post, How to Boost Your SEO with 1000+ Blog Commenting Sites, over-performed and received the 13th highest number of page views of any post I published in 2019. The post still generates page views.

Here’s how you can use Alexa to find your keyword gaps:

Go to Alexa.com.

Scroll down to Browse Top Sites. Put in your blog’s URL.

Notice all your keyword opportunities.

Click Keyword Gaps. You’ll see 3 keyword ideas in each section on the free plan.

[Related Reading: This Is What You Need to Know Before You Use Alexa.Com]

Google Analytics

Add keywords to the post that people search for.

These were the keywords people typed into Google which brought up my blog posts.

Look at the underlined keyword, “advantage and disadvantage of Instagram.”

Since my post was about the advantages and disadvantages of Instagram, I did not use this phrase in my post.

However, if people are searching for “advantage and disadvantage of Instagram,” I should put this keyword in my post to enable it to get more search engine traffic from Google.

Spyfu

Spyfu.com makes relevant keyword suggestions for you.

Put those keywords in your short blogs to make them longer.

Look:

At Spyfu, I put in the keyword for this post, “short blogs.” The tool suggests I include information about short story blogs. Apparently, 510 people search for the term each month.

How to use SpyFu to find relevant keywords to put in your posts:

Go to SpyFu.com.

Put in your blog’s URL.

Click Keyword Research/Related Keywords.

Click Generate Keywords Now.

[Related Reading: How to Spy Now so You Can Boost Traffic and Sales Tomorrow] [Note: Do you need more in-depth help with keyword strategy? Here you’ll find enough keywords for the next two years.

Answer the Public

Semantic optimization is the act of creating content to answer the question of the searcher.

The best approach to creating a semantic piece of content is to try as much as possible to answer all possible questions related to that keyword’s topic.

Use Answer the Public to find those questions.

Answering them will certainly help you make short blogs longer.

Answer the Public has a goldmine of information.

The search engines collect questions users ask. These questions are presented at Answer the Public.

This is a free service.

All you need to do is type your focus keyword into the search bar at AnswerthePublic.com.

Click Get Questions.

Doing research for this post, I went to Answer the Public and typed “short blogs” into the search bar.

Look:

Content ideas appear alphabetized. These are just the “A” content ideas.

I could potentially lengthen this post by adding details about how to lengthen short blogs about life, short blogs about food, or short blogs about love for example.

LSI Graph

LSIGraph is a powerful tool.

You can use the site to find more words for your short blogs. You can even use LSIGraph as a keyword generator.

People use LSIGraph to find synonyms for their focus keyword so they aren’t accused of keyword stuffing.

You can also use LSIGraph to add relevant content to your short blogs.

Post-Editing Methods

The above section shared tools to help you lengthen short blogs. This section shares methods that will help you make short blogs longer.

Update your meta description.

As mentioned, Google likes to show its users fresh content so you should update your blog posts often.

When you add 2020 information to your posts, add “2020 update” to your meta description. Both Google and search engine users will be pleased.

Update your tags.

Suppose you happen to be searching for keywords at Ubersuggest, KWFinder, or the many Ubersuggest alternatives.

You may find a keyword that will boost the traffic coming from search engines you didn’t add when you originally composed the post.

Go back into the post and add the tag.

You might also remove tags.

In my early days of blogging, I used too many one-word tags. Now, I know keywords should be ideally longer than one word. So, I go into posts and remove one-word tags as well as add new, longer keywords.

Add internal links.

You know to add internal links when composing your posts. Internal linking boosts SEO and is a terrific source of potential traffic.

Did you ever consider adding a link to relevant content that was published after your post published?

For example, in January, I published a post about market research trends. in February, I published a post on Trend Research.

After the February post published, I went back into the January post and added the link.

Update the image.

Guest author Ryan Biddulph wrote a post for my blog about how to be a blogging student.

In my younger blogging years, I believed a photo I took myself was best, so I took a photo of books in my office.

The lighting was awful. Bottom line, every time I looked at this blog post image I cringed.

The post generated a great deal of interest at the time. I cringed knowing readers would see the photo.

I went in and replaced the image.

Add a video.

Lumen5 draws from your RSS feed.

You embed the video in your blog post.

Then, you can use the video across social channels.

Adding the video to your blog post keeps visitors on your blog post longer reducing your bounce rate and, in turn, boosting your SEO.

[Related Reading: 3 Free Online Video Maker Tools: How to Easily Enter the Video Age]

Add a paragraph.

The other night I saw an episode of the TV show, the Good Doctor.

I knew my post How to Become an Instagram Influencer was on Page 2 of Google.

The episode’s plot revolved around a YouTube influencer. Seeing a connection, I added a paragraph about the influencer on the show to my post.

If SpyFu.com tells you your posts are on Page 2, adding a paragraph is a great way of moving your post higher up the SERPs.

Add more tips.

This is a great strategy for posts that use the listicle format and present a list of tips.

Google your keyword.

If the post on Page 1, Position 1 of the SERPs has more tips than you do, add more tips.

This is a screenshot from Searchgg, a custom search.

Notice the number of tips in each headline.

I discovered my post has more tips than other posts when I received traffic to my Instagram post.

My post has 13 tips. My number of tips beats the others. Therefore, even though my post isn’t in Position 1, my link still got clicked, and I got traffic.

Add anecdotes.

People love inspirational stories.

By sharing an anecdote, your post becomes relatable.

By sharing a personal anecdote, readers learn more about you and realize you understand their problems.

Add quotes.

Inspirational quotes make great hooks.

If you didn’t start with a hook when you originally published, adding an inspirational quote is an effective way to make short blogs longer.

You can even include quote graphics.

Look:

Then, explain the relevance of the quote.

In this case, I could use this quote to introduce any post I’m writing to try to inspire my readers.

I can also put the quote in a Click to Tweet which helps me across channels.

Look again:

This is a time-saving technique that will help you get more return for your efforts: This method helps me make my short blogs longer. I shared this graphic on both Instagram and Twitter.

One graphic helped me lengthen short blogs and boost my social media promotion.

Add a “VS” Section.

In an attempt to make your short blog posts longer, you might consider adding a “versus” section.

Many search engine users Google comparison keyword phrases.

It is 2020. It’s important to optimize for voice search.

Look:

Exciting! According to Hubshout.com, I rank on Page 2 of Google for two keyword phrases containing “VS,” MeWe vs Facebook and “PosterMyWall vs Canva.”

By adding a Versus section, you extend the length of your short blog post and increase the chances of ranking for more keyword phrases.

Add Opposites

I love this tip!

Regular readers of Mostly Blogging: Have you noticed I blog about both advantages and disadvantages often?

Here is an example:

13 Advantages and Disadvantages of Instagram: What You Need to Know

Look:

According to Hubshout.com, I rank on Page 1 of Google’s SERPs in Position 5 for both keyword phrases containing opposites.

Wrapping Up: How to Make Short Blogs Long

This post shared 8 tools and 11 methods to help you lengthen your blog posts.

Use these 19 hacks as a checklist. Now you have an actionable plan to ensure you make short blogs longer.

Important note: While you want to lengthen posts for the benefits to SEO and user experience you need to add quality content to your posts.

Filling your posts with redundancies or empty words will backfire on you.

In fact, instead of enhancing user experience, you’ll annoy your visitors. Add descriptive text that aids in solving the readers’ problems, not fluff.

Readers, please share so bloggers discover how to make short blogs longer.

I look forward to your views in the comment section. Can you suggest any additional ways to make short blogs longer?