Blogosphere Reality – Size Does Matter

Short and to the point will give your article an advantage rather than long and in-depth coverage of an issue. That’s the reality of the Blogosphere.

The length of your article will have crucial influence on whether it will be read till the end. When writing an article always keep in mind that the person reading it has read, and is to read numerous articles besides yours, especially if it is a RSS subscriber.

SEO considerations

When I am writing an article I try to keep it shorter than your average 500 words. But, since there is an understanding / rumor that articles less than 250 words would be problematic for indexing purposes, I would stay in the 300-400 range to express my idea.

This gives me enough space for a properly structured intro to a broader issue, or a good, attention grabbing gist of a certain point of view.

Average length of stay

An average of 96 second stay (ProBlogger.com) further supports my opinion. My blog’s statistics show approximately the same.

OK, you could say that the content drives the length of stay. But I truly believe that it is not the case. Your reader will always have an agenda and a schedule. Only if your article is of exceptional value will he stay for a long period of time to read it, or bookmark the article for later reference.

Conclusion

You may not like the described reality, especially if you are fresh out of your academic studies and used to substantiate you ideas, or have a management position where you are usually required to write long reports. But, when blogging, as with any other major change, you will have accept the needed adjustments in order to fit in.

Hey, you could always use references to external sources and links to your other articles to compensate. That’s the good side of this reality.

- Alex

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