How long should a post be?

[zitoitalahold]

If you are doing article writing then 500 word is best

but if you writing blog post then 300 -350 word is ok

[plasticsurgeryinhouston]

My posts are as long as I need them to be to get my point across.

[dibbs98]

surely its all relative, if you write 5000 words about your day today, it might be difficult to hold their attention - 500 might suffice, but if its an in depth review of something on a niche blog perhaps the readers WANT that extra attention to detail that more words will provide.

[ChickenFreak]

Originally Posted by dibbs98

surely its all relative, if you write 5000 words about your day today, it might be difficult to hold their attention - 500 might suffice, but if its an in depth review of something on a niche blog perhaps the readers WANT that extra attention to detail that more words will provide.

I agree that it's relative, and that there are an infinite number of perfectly good reasons for very long posts.

But I think that it's useful to have some yardstick for what's short, what's fairly standard, and what's quite long, so that you when you write a "quite long" post you pause for at least a moment to consider whether one of those perfectly good reasons is present, and also whether you might need to tweak the post's formatting a bit to make it easier for readers to navigate through the length.

[liquidgraph]

I personally enjoy concise posts, which usually means <400 words for most topics. Then again, if you've got something meaty to say, just say it and don't focus on something as artificial a word count. If it helps, I've found search engines like longer pages (1000+ words).

[dibbs98]

Originally Posted by liquidgraph

I personally enjoy concise posts, which usually means <400 words for most topics. Then again, if you've got something meaty to say, just say it and don't focus on something as artificial a word count. If it helps, I've found search engines like longer pages (1000+ words).

i guess a search engine could find more keywords from a longer post

[Chrono]

I dont really recommend long posts unless required, longer posts look boring and readers seem to get diverted away easily.
I myself cannot bear reading posts more than a page longer

[Scribnia]

I think everyone has a certain length that's better for them. Over time, as I've written more, I've found a consistent length that works for my and my readers.

I'm a huge fan of brevity. The only time I'll let posts go longer is if it's a research based post that needs a lot of supporting facts and data. When trying to start a discussion, I'll keep the post as short as possible.

Remember that attention spans are fleeting, but if you can write engaging content, then length really isn't much of a factor. It's also about how you format and phrase your content. Tons of straight text will always deter readers. Breaking your content down into sections, using titles and numbers, smaller paragraphs, different font types and settings, pictures...essentially anything to break up the text a bit, will serve you well.

[Gennie32]

ha it is not the size that matters but it is the content that matters. if the content is worth reading people dont get bored reading even 1000000 words

[bwakeling]

I always go with 300 words minimum, 700 words max.