Part 2 of 3 part series about writing good blogs: In the first part of this 3-part series about writing good blog posts, we touched on headlines and how people scan them, and about using personal stories in your posts to get more interest. Note: several people in some respected companies have researched this stuff in depth, so this isn't just guesswork.
In this blog post we cover:
- how long should a blog post be? and
- making your blog post social media-friendly
How long should your blog post be?
While the perfect blog post could beany length, from everything we've read, the ideal blog post should be no longer than 1,500 words long. Why 1,500 words? Because that translates to a 7-minute read time, which is pretty much the maximum amount of time the average person will dedicate to reading something of interest.
Also that seems to be the sweet spot for sharing an article as well. Maybe that is the right length to hold someone's interest, as well as disseminate a good amount of information.
We've often read that a business video shouldn't be longer than 8-minutes, because that's the attention-span most people have for videos... though we suspect these days it's a lot less.
And this is something every Columbus web design firm, as well as every web design firm with an interest in SEO, has their eye on.
The Nielsen Norman research Group conducted research on just how people read websites, and by association, blog posts. Their finding showed about 80% of people always scan a page, while only about 15% actually read an article word-by-word. Of course, it depends on the audience and the subject matter, but it's safe to assume most people, you included, don't have lots of time to read articles because we also have 99 other things to do.
Web pages should have scan-able text for quick reading
Use these methods making your post easier to read:
- highlight keywords (with hypertext links, typeface variations and/or color)
- meaningful sub-headings
- bulleted lists
- one idea per paragraph (users will skip over any additional ideas if they're not caught by the first few words in the paragraph)
Use good images
Like the one we created above and below. Of course, if you can't create your own, you can always buy good stock images, though they'll never be as good or as specific to your post as the info graphics a graphic designer can do.
Images break up the copy and give it a visual interpretation that can make your content easier to decipher. And we've all heard that visuals help make content more interesting. Speaking of making content easier to decipher, we've recently put this graphic together to show that exact concept: helping to decipher complex information.
Create social media-friendly content
People want to share content which shows they have access to good information. That makes them more credible. It shows they do their research and are connected to others who do their homework.
By having meaningful tweet-able content, it helps people share your stuff more easily. For example, bulleted items are a great way to do that. By summarizing your article with bullet points, like:
- Research proves you can keep your reader's attention with a max blog length no longer than 1,500 words
- We're all members of the Short Attention Span Society: write your posts so they can be read in less than seven minutes
- Images break up the copy and give it a visual interpretation that can make your content easier to decipher.
- 80% of your audience will scan a page, while only about 15% actually read your article... if you're lucky
And as always, make it easy for someone to reach you
We're 98% water. And like water, we take the path of least resistance, so if we have to expend more energy than we have to, we tend not to.
So make it easy for your prospects to reach you. Don't make them use more of their valuable time than they have to.
Make it easy for someone to contact you should they want to continue the conversation. Like we just did.
Good luck blogging and show your audience, you possess the knowledge they're looking for.
