I have wondered the question that is the title of this post for some time. How many words are needed to make a good post? I try to make my authors at LostInTechnology have around 500 words in each post.
However, I only came to that number, because a site I had previously written for used that as their guideline. I have written guest posts for other bloggers that were declined, because they were too short. And those guest posts were over 700 words.
On the other side of things, some bloggers mostly post short posts. The best example of this is Seth Godin. His posts are mostly short and to the point. They always provide great and thought provoking information, but the short posts never seem to dig deep enough.
For this blog, I have found myself posting short rambles (like this one) that I hope are making people think about whatever topics I may be covering. The main reason for the short posts is time. A full time job and another blog to run keeps me super busy, so I don’t always have time to sit down and write a masterpiece.
I would like a little crowd participation on this one (see how I still keep it social). I think there is a time and place for both short and long posts. It also depends on the audience. What do you think about post lengths? What makes one better than the other?
No related posts.
July 21st, 2009 at 8:07 am
I think 500 words is about the right length for our readers. Anything much longer and you run the risk of scaring them off by the length of the article.
July 21st, 2009 at 3:18 pm
I think it all depends on the type of blog that you are running. That being said I think 250 words should be the minimum and 500 words should be the maximum number simply because blogs can be a bit boring. Even great blogs that you may follow and have great content get boring after a certain amount of words. I also think that inserting relevant pictures helps tremendously as long as you don’t over do it.
On the other hand, I run two blogs and work full-time also, and it is very time consuming. From that perspective I guess it is our job as bloggers to make sure we post informational articles no matter how tired we are on a regular basis. By the way, regular basis does not necessarily mean every day, in my opinion.
July 21st, 2009 at 5:39 pm
It’s great to hear some good feedback. What do you think of my post link on my posts on UpYourSocial so far?
July 21st, 2009 at 6:18 pm
Hi, Kyle: I think that according to the aim of Lost in Technology posts should have between 250 and 500 words. But the problem is that sometimes you need more words to develop a topic in detail, so if the post requires more words, we can split the post into different sections.That is what I sometimes do in my blog.
Regards,
Nelba
July 21st, 2009 at 7:09 pm
I think in general UpYourSocial is like any other new blog struggling to find the right content. However, knowing how good of a job you do with Lost In Technology, I don’t doubt that we will see that soon. As you already know, it is hard work running a blog and coming up with new content continuously. I do like when you post your Google Reader links, and I remember one of the first articles on Twitter was really good.
Lastly, even this specific post I think is the right in word count and content, because of the topic that you chose to write about. There is simply no reason to get into a lengthy, boring discussions on certain topics.
July 21st, 2009 at 7:12 pm
I have been working to get the kinks out of the Google Reader shared items, and I think I have it. It should post every Saturday from now on…hopefully.
Here’s the link to it, if you are interested.
http://www.googletutor.com/2008/11/18/new-wordpress-plugin-for-google-reader-shared-items/
July 21st, 2009 at 8:13 pm
Wow. I never knew there was a tool for this. I will look into it and very possibly use it for my J.M.A. Daily blog. Cool. Thanks.