Long Articles vs. Short Articles

300-400 works for me.

I believe the main thing to focus on is creating the right "art" in the sentences that will "tickle" the readers interest to find out more information by clicking our links.

Guess it can be called "artickle" huh?

I have problems with just putting out 200 words. Feels more like a paragraph and not an article.

After the big Ezinearticles crackdown, I submitted 10 articles between 600-800 words to see if I'd get any extra benefit. The result was that they did a lot worse from a CTR standpoint than my usual 350 word articles. They also didn't seem to get any more Google love than my shorter articles.

And these were articles with a 1% keyword density, keyword in the headline, bolded keyword in sub headings, etc.

The only positive was that the people who clicked to my landing page seemed more likely to buy.

Yep I have to agree the sweet spot for me is 300 - 500 words. Most people tune out after that, it's the "Are We There Yet" syndrome.

I recently read the October Ezine Articles Blog post by Chris Knight, that Ken Leatherman mentioned in this thread.

The post was titled Derivative Content Be Gone. The ideal word count identified there as 400 to 800 words.

If someone is really interested in an article and it is a good article, they will read the entire thing.

My wife can open up people magazine and read a 4 page article on some celebrity. If I were to try reading the same article, I would lose interest after the first paragraph.

This sounds very similar to when people talk about short copy vs long copy. It's not that the copy is too long, it's that it's too boring.

Granted, you have to follow rules of the article directories where the article is posted, but the content is the main thing.

If the articles are being written just to get people to click your resource box, my first reaction is that your focus is not on making a real informative article, but just putting something up to get traffic. People will lose interest in the article or not find it useful and leave midway through.

You objective is to make someone click on your link, right? You can be promoting a product, service, website or whatever you want.

So there are 3 kinds of people that read your article:

The One Looking for Quick Information - This kind of person will get scared when sees a big article. They won´t boder reading it.

The Undecided - This is the type of person will gladly read all you have to say. If you have a shor article (300-500 words) then they can read that in 2 minutes. But if your article as about 700+ words, then you need to keep your reader motivated the all way through the end. Do you think you can do that? I can´t, yet. I have been writing article for only a month, so i am not a great expert at it yet. I also noticed that i got more cliks on smaller articles than big ones.

Information Eater - This is the type of person that will read everything you have to say. They want to know everything before buying whatever they are looking to. Downside is that there are very few people like this.

I am not saying that a a smaller article is better than a bigger one, what i am saying is that if your a "newbie" at it, smaller ones will produce you better results.

But if you are good at this and can motivate the reader through ot all article, than the few clicks that you get on those ones will almost convert themselves.

P.S. When i say clicks, i mean clicks on your link. If you post articles on Ezine Articles you will see your Click Trought Rate (CTR)

Hi,

If I am outsourcing they are usually around 400 words. If I write them myself, I have trouble staying under 800 words. It just does not seem complete otherwise. Truthfully though, I don't actually "type" the articles myself but rather I use Dragon Easy Speak dictation software which types for me so I can just talk which is why my own articles are much longer.

I have not seen a huge difference in the long vs. short as far as readership. The stats seem to both be about the same. Hope that helps.

Barry