How Long Does it Take to Write a 1,000 Word Article?

[alexssimolss]

As a new freelance writer, ever wonder if you are a slow writer?

I know when I first started freelance writing I took a long time to write my first legit paid post of around 700 words.

Since this was my first freelance writing job, I wanted to triple check it and take my time writing in a more journalistic nature since this was for an online newspaper. But, this took me hours and days of writing, re-writing and re-writing some more.

How can I make a living as a writer if it takes me 25 hours to write an article or blog post?

How long does it take to write a 1000 word article?

Even though I am fortunate to have time during the day to focus on my writing and other online endeavors, I want to make sure that I maximize that time I have for clients and my own projects.

However, there has to be a balance. You want to make sure you focus on creating quality work instead of how many articles you can pump out when you freelance write.

Remember, as a freelance writer, you want to enjoy what you write about and LOVE writing!

For this reason, I want to help you understand the length of time it typically takes to write a 1000 word article as well as how to maximize your time by structuring your posts and speeding up the writing process.

The Typical Timeframe of Writing a 1000 Word Article
How long it takes you to write a 1000 word article is going to depend on how experienced you are at writing.

Writing experience includes being able to gather research on a topic, structure the article and actually sit down and type it out.

Another thing to consider is the quality of the article. Being able to pump out multiple articles in a short span of time may work great for your freelance writing gigs, but it may reflect poorly in the quality.

According to Stream SEO, writing a 1000 word article could take on average 1-2 hours.

For a beginner, it could take 3-4 hours.

This is what happened for me during my writing process. When I first landed those writing jobs for blog writing, it would take me 5 or 6 hours to write 1300 words.

Now? I can whip out a 1,000 word article in 45 minutes – longer if it’s a topic I’m not too familiar with in my digital marketing niche (ex: Facebook ads or Instagram Reels).

Again, this all depends on your writing speed and process. The more experience you gain writing, the quicker you’ll be able to complete a 1000 word article.

Just remember the importance of quality over quantity.

You don’t want to stuff unnecessary information into an article just to reach a word count – you want to make sure the information you include is relevant and valuable.

This is important whether you have a freelance writing job or writing content for your own blog.

The Standard Process for Writing Articles
The more experienced you are with writing, the less you’ll have to refer to a “process” to help you complete an article – it will come to you naturally.

However, when you’re just starting out (or looking to improve your writing skills), it’s helpful to have a guideline so that you can write quality articles efficiently and within a reasonable timeframe.

Here is an outline of the article writing process:

1 Choose a Writing Topic
This may seem like an obvious first step, but the topic you choose can impact the length of your article – if your client gives you free rein (which many of my SEO and long-form clients do).

For instance, 1000 words equals about 7.5 minutes of talking.

So, if you feel you could talk about your topic for around 7.5 minutes or more, you are likely going to be able to write 1000 words about it.

If you feel like your topic is deserving of more time, you’re either going to end up writing a longer article (which is fine, long-form content is popular right now) or you’re going to have to pare down the topic and write about a specific aspect of it.

Which, by the way, is a great way to come up with multiple article ideas!



2 Research
Research is key to writing a good article, whether you plan on educating your reader or sharing a personal story.

Doing research means that you are providing the best and most accurate information to your readers, which in turn creates trust and loyalty for your freelance job.

This can sometimes be the most time-consuming aspect of writing an article but, the more you do it, the easier you will find it to seek out information relevant to your topic.

For me I typically:

Use an SEO tool – like Ubersuggest – to explore keywords and content ideas
Go on social media to see what is popular – for example, Pinterest
Use Google to find more ideas on my topic
3 Create an Outline
Before you dive into the actual writing, you should determine an outline for your article. This will not only help you keep your content organized and readable but it will also help you organize your writing as well.

As you write your article, you’ll know exactly what piece of information to move onto next.

Otherwise, you could be writing all over the place and end up creating something confusing and incohesive (which you’ll have to spend time editing to sort it out).

Your outline should include the headings you intend to use to break up your content. This is a great opportunity to include keywords in your article for better SEO for those clients.

For me, the outline is created as I’m doing my research, which streamlines my process and I can get started writing quicker.

4 Write and Edit
When you write an article, you should always start with an introduction, followed by your information and finish off with a conclusion.

You can watch your word count as you write or you can simply write it all out and address the word count when you edit.

Just be careful not to stuff your article full of words just to reach a word goal.

People who read blogs don’t invest a lot of time in consuming articles, so they are looking for valuable information.

You can show the value in your writing for clients by structuring your blog writing with more white space.

As you can see from the post you are reading right now, I write a lot of single sentences as a paragraph. I also add subtopics, bullet lists and images to break up the content more.

When push comes to shove, and you’re short of your word goal mark, you can always do further research to see if there is an aspect of your topic that you overlooked or you can just accept that your article is going to be shorter than you anticipated.

Most clients give you 5-10 days to write an article and that is plenty of time to research your topic, write your draft and add more to it before you edit your blog post.

After your article is written, you should always take a few minutes to read it over. Look for grammar and spelling mistakes as well as issues with word flow.

5 Title and SEO
The last steps before you post your article is to come up with a catchy title as well as optimize it for search engines.

While not directly related to the actual writing of your article, it is a step that still contributes to the time it takes to complete your 1000 word article.

You can check out my post here on improving your site’s SEO for more information on search engine optimization!

Oh, and when you’re done this step, post your article or submit it to your client.

[greesdermos]

Research is key to writing a good article, whether you plan on educating your reader or sharing a personal story. Doing research means that you are providing the best and most accurate information to your readers, which in turn creates trust and loyalty for your freelance job. But researching needs time, so if you ask how long to write an article i will say you like this. Everything depends on the time you need for that researching.