Every few years, new research reveals the average amount of time spent writing a blog post and it’s hovering around four hours.
When I sit down to write a new post for this blog, I rarely write it cold. Usually, I will come up with an idea and let it “simmer” in my head for a while before starting to write. Sometimes, I might let it marinate for a couple of days. So by the time I sit down at the keyboard to complete the post, that last part goes by fairly quickly. That doesn’t change the fact, however, that the time spent writing a blog post, for me, is much longer.
Orbit Media has been tracking a slew of blogging stats over the years, and for a decade, they tracked the average time spent writing a blog post. The average time in 2023, their survey found, was three hours and 51 minutes. That was only the second time in a decade the average time actually dropped.
The peak time, their survey determined, came in 2022. That year, bloggers spend four hours and 10 minutes, on average, crafting each post.
I don’t know that I could give an exact figure in my case. Some posts are a lot easier to write than hours. It depends on how fired up I happen to be about the topic or the specific issue. Then again, even posts I’m really fired up about might still take a day or two of pondering to find the right structure for the post itself.
For me, the writing is usually the fastest part. I would hope that would be true! Writing is a major part of my real job, after all. So I would definitely hope I’d learned to be fairly competent at the keyboard!
How much time is actually enough?
One thing I do know: I don’t always spend that long on every single post. For some, the time might be longer. But for others, it’s definitely shorter than that.
I don’t think a blogger should feel bad about composing a post in an hour if the post is a good one.
But that does bring up an interesting question: How long is long enough?
This is one of those quirky topics that I think bloggers might get a bit too caught up in. The biggest topic I see bloggers fret over is how often they should publish. In fact, I hear that question more than any.
There’s nothing wrong with asking. The trouble is, there’s no one single answer that every blogger will agree with. One of the sayings I remind myself and other bloggers about is abbreviated this way: YMMV. It stands for your mileage may vary.
To put it another way, what works for me may not work for you…and vice versa.
There’s no correct answer for how much time is needed for a good blog post. That is to say, I don’t think there’s a single answer.
But more than that, I think if you’re focusing on a clock, you may be missing the point. For me, a good blog post is one that makes a point, educates me, entertains me or informs me. Ideally, it makes me think.
Some people can write a post that accomplishes at least one of those things in four hours. Some might need eight. But some other bloggers might be able to do that in a half-hour. (More power to them.)
If you spend your time worrying about how long it’s taking, you may be creating a post that misses the mark.
I think you — and more importantly, your audience — would be much more satisfied if you start off with an idea, build your argument and follow through with it. If that takes you a long time, great. If you can do it fairly quickly, great.
The time doesn’t really matter at all. It’s an interesting statistic, yes. But it’s not one that means a great deal when you get right down to it.
Write as long as you need to write to make good content. Then let the good content shine. Your audience won’t really care how long it took you to produce. (They’ll likely have no idea, anyway.)
But they will care if you waste their time. And they’re likely not to come back if they feel that’s what you’re doing!
