Service Pages and Blogs: How Long Should They Be?

Writing your own blogs or service pages often comes with many questions. One of the most frequently asked questions is: “How long should they be?” However, it is a great question to ask when writing your own blogs or service pages for the first time! Because they actually have different length requirements, or well, length suggestions for SEO purposes but also so that you can put valuable information on your practice’s website. So, how long should they be?

Blogs

To start off with, your standard blog posts should be at a bare minimum of 500 words. These 500 words do not include your call to action section. This amount of words is just enough to cover a basic topic or cover a subject that is short. For example, this could be a blog update on what events your practice has taken part in. However, as an SEO copywriter, I would recommend blogs to be more than 500 words but 800 max for a standard blog. Because if you write more than that, you’re turning your blog into a cornerstone blog. Which is totally different from a standard blog.

Cornerstone Blogs

As I briefly mentioned above, a cornerstone blog is more than 800 words. For a cornerstone, we recommend at least 1,000 words. This is because a cornerstone blog is a deep dive into a topic so it will include more detail that you normally wouldn’t include on a service page or even in a standard blog. With a cornerstone, you will be able to go into more detail and include more information that you normally wouldn’t be able to due to your word limit.

In these 1,000 words, you will be including many SEO keywords to let Google know that you are writing about a topic that you are very knowledgeable about, but you are also including all the information you are wanting to share with your readers who are clients and potential clients. It helps with your SEO and increases your chances of ranking for these keywords on Google.

Service Pages

For your service pages, since these are not a place to go into a ton of detail, they are generally about 700-750 words or less. However, no less than 500 words because then that is too short. Your service page is a place where you are writing about a particular service that your practice offers. This can be anxiety treatment, EMDR, or even workshops. This page is to tell your clients, potential clients, and especially ideal clients, what this service is; what it entails; your approach to it; and how to go about scheduling an appointment. 

Therefore, it doesn’t have to be a super lengthy page. However, some services are less heard of than others and may take a little more explaining. This is why service pages have more of a range than blogs when it comes to length. Now, if you still feel like you need to delve more into the service is your providing, that is where your blogs can come in handy!

Will Anyone Read All of This?

Now, you may be wondering, “Will anyone read all of this I’ve written? It seems really long…” and that’s okay! That’s a natural question to wonder and ask yourself. However, the answer is: Maybe! Some readers may read your whole blog, cornerstone, or service page and that is wonderful. But, most of the time, what we see is people browsing through the headers to see what is written and looking for what they want to know. 

For example, a reader may go onto your service page and browse through your headers only to see what the signs and symptoms of PTSD are. And that is okay! Your service page, or blog, is still drawing in readers and potential clients along with providing valuable information to them AND Google. 

This does bring me to the point of why headings and subheadings are important in your blogs and service pages. They can help your readers know what the sections of your page are about and help them find the information they are looking for. If you want to know more, here is a blog we have written about it! 

Ways to Make Your Blogs and Service Pages Shorter

Okay, so you added A LOT of information to your blog or service page. That’s awesome! However, if it’s too long it can be a bit daunting or even difficult for readers to understand or even navigate. That’s why there are efficient ways to make your blogs and service pages shorter in appearance or in length and not sacrifice any of that valuable information!

Accordion Panels

One way to include a lot of information on a blog or service page on your practice’s website is to use accordion panels. Accordion panels are a type of web design that allows you to open and close panels to show or hide information. It’s often used for website menus, FAQ pages, and more. However, it can be a useful tool when you are wanting to have a lot of information on one page. It makes the information more digestible and makes it less overwhelming when navigating through your page.

Blog Series

Perhaps, you started writing your blog only to realize you wrote almost two cornerstones worth of content. You know that’s too long for one blog but you’re not sure what to do. Here is where the blog series comes into play! Blog series is a great way to break up chunks of content into multiple pages. This way your readers can still navigate through what content they would like to read but it is spread over multiple pages rather than condense into one overwhelming page or a blog that is lacking all the information needed. 

Blog series are also a great way to create content for your blog that shows you are knowledgeable not only to clients but also Google about this subject. Series also help you not have to worry about what you need to write over the next couple of weeks. It’s a win, win!

Internal Links

Lastly, when you do blog series or you want to allude to other information that you cannot fit into a page, internal links will be your friend. You can link your other blogs to one another so that readers can easily find them. However, using internal links can overwhelm readers at times if your blog or service page is full of them. So, use them strategically.

About the Author:

Lynsey is an SEO Content Specialist at Simplified SEO Consulting. At Simplified, Lynsey enjoys writing all kinds of content for clients and their practices to use as resources. Her goal is to always produce quality content for her clients to use for their blogs and service pages. She knows that writing quality, original content is important not only to her clients, but to their practice and the clients that go there too! Especially, when the content is being used as a resource for mental health or even to help her client’s SEO. She is passionate about providing copywriting services for psychiatrists and therapists.

Schedule your next consultation if you’re ready to see how Simplified can serve you!