I've been preparing a presentation on how to write a blog post and as a result I once again reviewed Jacob Nielsen's great post, Long vs. short articles as content strategy.
Jacob provides some research and an explanation that your length of post should be determined by your goals.
Goal: If you have many readers, focus on short and scannable content. This is a good strategy for advertising-driven sites or sites that sell impulse buys.
Goal: If your customers really need a solution. Focus on comprehensive coverage. That's a good strategy if you sell highly targeted solutions to complicated problems.
Lastly, I believe that even if a post is long you should consider the following factors in writing a blog post:
Jacob provides some research and an explanation that your length of post should be determined by your goals.
Goal: If you have many readers, focus on short and scannable content. This is a good strategy for advertising-driven sites or sites that sell impulse buys.
Goal: If your customers really need a solution. Focus on comprehensive coverage. That's a good strategy if you sell highly targeted solutions to complicated problems.
Lastly, I believe that even if a post is long you should consider the following factors in writing a blog post:
- Language needs to be conversational
- Structure posts, shorter paragraphs with headings
- Use bullet points to break up the text
- Consider splitting up a long article into a series of posts
- Write for the RSS feed
