How Long Should a Post be? Optimal Post Length
According to Darren Rowse at Problogger.net, there are a number of way to determine the optimal length for a blog post:
- Reader Attention Span - It is pretty well documented that the typical web reader has a short attention span when it comes to reading content online. The average blog readers stay 96 seconds per blog (I’ve seen other more scientific tests that show similar results). What ever the number - it’s generally not long. As a result many bloggers purposely keep their content length down to a level that is readable in short grabs.
- SEO - There is a fairly strong opinion among those considered experts in Search Engine Optimization that both extremely short and extremely long web pages are not ranked as highly as pages that are of a reasonable length. Of course no one really knows how many words are ideal - but the general opinion seems to be that a page of at least 250 words are probably a reasonable length. Similarly, many advise keeping pages under 1000 words.
- Quantity of Posts - One theory that goes around is that shorter posts allow you to write more posts and that more posts are better for generating readership with RSS and in Search Engines. While I don’t know their strategy personally, some believe this is what sites like Engadget and Gizmodo do with their high number of short posts which make up the majority of their content.
- Topic/Genre - The type of post that you’re writing will often determine it’s length. For example when writing a review of a product you’ll generally write a longer post than when you write a news related post where you link to something someone else has written.
- Comprehensive Coverage of the Topic - Ultimately this has to be the main criteria that bloggers go with. You should write enough to comprehensively cover your topic and then stop. Long posts for the sake of them are not a wise move - but so are short ones that don’t cover the topic well.
Darren is a top blogger about blogging, especially when it comes to blog writing. I would personally suggest that when in doubt, be concise. You don’t want to lose your readers with long posts. If you must write a longer post, use headlines to separate different sections or use a bullet list (like this post). Read more about bullet lists and sections.
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Tags: Blog Basics, Post Length, SEO