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People think about size all the time. Or maybe, we should call it word count.
Whether we’re talking article, sales letter or blog post, people ask: How long should it be?
I’ve got the ultimate answer to that question.
Think about length in another way. Imagine that you’re building a bridge across a river.
How many meters or miles should that bridge be?
The answer is: Long enough to bridge the gap between the two sides.
That goes for a blog post as well. You need exactly as many words as it takes to go from the introduction to the conclusion.
You know, this is always a lot easier to remember when I’m posting short to medium posts. When I get done and look back and see that I’ve written out a longer than intended post… THAT’S when I start questioning if maybe it should be broken into smaller posts.
True, Debi, sometimes it’s better to break a blog post into several posts.
For online writing, however, you’re also dealing with constraints on attention, screen size and monitor readability. I read somewhere that between 300 and 500 words is an optimum size for online writing. If your points needs more words, simply define your work into 500-word chunks that you can then spread among several entries.
Six and seven years ago, that was what I told my readers and students, too, Leo. 300-400 words, even.
Since then, I’ve changed my mind. What matters is not the number of words. I used to have the shortest concentration span of all 😀 When I read the newspaper or a magazine, I would read the headline, the text below the pictures and the cartoons.
When I read blogs, I only read the short blog posts.
But then I discovered that on some occasions I read long blog posts.
That was when they were interesting, and split up with pictures, headlines, bullet points, etc. Something to give my eyes and my mind a break.
I actually am new to blogging. That’s the reason why I’ve been surfing the internet untill I found you. I just trust that we could work together to make it great.
Congrats!!! You were a winner in the 100 word post! Delightful. I love your title for the post too!
Yay!!! Go, Britt, go!!!
Thanks, Joanne 🙂 I was really happy to discover that 🙂
It’s so nice of Joey Kissimee to create such challenges and even offer a price.