by Halli
37 replies
What is a good length for an article? Is it better to have a long article on your site or in something like Ezine? What do you feel works best? 500 words or 1000 words or something shorter?
#article #length
  • Profile picture of the author jaxrefinance
    I generally write a 500 - 600 word article for ezine... not too long that the reader will not get to your resource box and not too short where you do not offer decent content.
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  • Profile picture of the author howinfo
    In our article directory 95% of the articles are around 500 words. There is only few articles that have been more than thousand words. So I would say 400 -500 hundred word article seems to be the most popular length.

    We haven't had any articles less than 300 words and I do not think most article directories accept anything less than that.
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  • Profile picture of the author tpw
    I target 700-1200 words in my articles in an attempt to open the possibility that newsletter publishers will also consider my articles for publication.

    Any size article is good for the webmaster, but newsletter publishers have a template to fit their articles and the 700-1200 words is ideal for the newsletter template...

    Conversely, if you write outside of this range, you will never be considered for publication in a newsletter, because you simply don't fit the format...

    Newsletters are the holders of captive audiences...

    You can choose to write only for websites, or you can choose to write for both to increase your odds of reaching the right people... I opt for the second...
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  • Profile picture of the author David Jackson
    Originally Posted by Halli View Post

    What is a good length for an article? Is it better to have a long article on your site or in something like Ezine? What do you feel works best? 500 words or 1000 words or something shorter?
    There really is no correct answer to your question. I've had alot of success with longer articles (1000 words or more). Conversely, I know article marketers who are doing exceptionally well writing shorter articles (500 words or less).

    It also depends on where you plan on submitting your articles. I submit my articles to SiteProNews, and they prefer longer articles (750 words or more). Some websites and/or newsletters prefer shorter articles. So I guess the answer to your question is it depends.

    David Jackson
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  • Hi Halli,

    a good question.

    As an example the first article I wrote for Ezine was 1250 words - I thought it was too long and probably was but I couldn't make it two articles so I left as is.

    Well that article was accepted in 2 days, gave me expert status, and put on the high traffic home page. This may be because it was my first effort and they figured it was worth while.

    But I do notice in the information Ezine send out, 600 words seems to be a figure they use quite alot in their examples, so that may be a figure to work off?

    OK that's only Ezine but may be an indication.

    Hope this helps.
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  • Profile picture of the author ebizman87
    Originally Posted by Halli View Post

    What is a good length for an article? Is it better to have a long article on your site or in something like Ezine? What do you feel works best? 500 words or 1000 words or something shorter?
    There're some great pointers to answer your questions in the following thread

    http://www.warriorforum.com/main-int...words-not.html
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  • Profile picture of the author ernestlohan
    I had many friends who are article writers and they wrote articles everyday for 450-600 words.
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  • Profile picture of the author Zabrina
    Most of the articles I write for other people are in the 400-1200 word range. 400, 500, and 1000 are the most common lengths. Since they keep reordering, I'm assuming it works for them.
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  • Profile picture of the author NikkiS
    Around 750 words seems to work best for me. Anything under 500 seems like an intro paragraph and if I've got more than 750 words to say on a topic I can usually turn it into two separate articles.
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    • Profile picture of the author aandersen
      I think it depends on which game your playing.

      If you just want backlinks then I would write 500 word articles. this will cover the minimum word count requirement at almost all article directories and blog networks. you can then take that 500 article and submit it like craze to anywhere that will accept it.

      If click through rate is the only thing that matters to you then go for the shortest possible article that you can get away with. EZA will take 250 and even a bad writer can consistently get a high CTR with a 250 word article because the resource box will be above the fold. On the other hand, if you are trying to bank off the Most Recent, Most Published, and Most Viewed list on EZA you will need at least 400 words. This is still a pretty short article and easy to write overly vague articles that scream for the reader to click the resource box.

      If you are hoping to get your articles picked up and republished then you will need to write them a bit longer. I have been finding that the 1000ish word mark has been working well for me. While this may get you less initial clicks, this will often lead to many more clicks in the long run because once your articles are out there the clicks keep comming and comming. if your articles get published on authority sites you will get badass backlinks that you could not get otherwise. these types of articles also seem to atract a higher quality of traffic than the little 250 word teaser articles.

      so you decide. write for backlinks, writer for clicks, or write for readers and publishers
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  • Profile picture of the author ajmorgans
    Normally, I stay around 250-300 words max for article directories. (They still rank well)
    The thing about it is... people don't do a lot of reading and they probably
    don't get to all you have written for them. I keep things simple
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    • Profile picture of the author ajbarnes777
      Honestly, I could have sworn earlier on that shorter articles (250-300ish) were the only way to ever get any results (CTR, sales, etc.). However, once EZA implemented their new quality rules and pretty much forced everyone to start writing longer articles, I can safely say that I am VERY happy I made the switch over to 400-600 word articles! Surprisingly, my CTR hasn't suffered much, and this is what REALLY made me happy... my sales have actually tripled!
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      • Profile picture of the author x3xsolxdierx3x
        I agree with the poster who mentioned writing shorter articles for backlinks. Your main (money) article should be longer, while your backlinking articles don't need to be nearly as long.
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        • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
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          Originally Posted by x3xsolxdierx3x View Post

          I agree with the poster who mentioned writing shorter articles for backlinks. Your main (money) article should be longer, while your backlinking articles don't need to be nearly as long.
          ^^^ This.

          In fact, you don't necessarily need an article attached at all, just to get a backlink. And there's certainly no particular point in having a long one, if it's for "backlinks only", because it's going to be seen only by search engines, not by people. So most of the "usual arguments" about article length are completely irrelevant to those situations.

          But the valuable backlinks you get from articles are from context-relevant authority sites, of course (just like any other valuable backlinks). And you're certainly not going to get (m)any of those with short articles, because of the reality that almost nobody wants to syndicate short articles.

          My articles are typically 900 - 1,200 words - sometimes a little more.

          Over the year that my articles went from 400 to 1,100-ish words, my CTR gradually declined and my sales gradually increased. And they continue to, mostly because my longer articles (unlike my shorter ones) get taken from article directories and widely re-published. Other people are doing some of my off-page SEO for me, in other words, and in front of targeted audiences, too. This is where the real money is, in article marketing. In all my niches, apparently.

          Some people think that "shorter is better" because "most readers have a short attention-span". I think this a huge fallacy. I'm sure it's true, but it isn't actually relevant because they're not the ones who buy: they're the larger numbers of readers I don't mind losing for the sake of attracting a few more buyers by giving them more in-depth content. That's what all my sales figures are telling me, anyway.

          I think all those 250/300-word articles one sees in poor directories are knocked out by marketers who have bought in to the nonsense about it being advantageous to have your resource-box "above the fold". These are mostly people who haven't tested properly, but just believe what they're told by others who know no better. They're typically measuring "clicks", not income. They characteristically assume that anything that increases their CTR is going to be good for business. (This is a deeply mistaken assumption!).

          Some reasonably longstanding, closely monitored, well tested experience over more than a year in 8 different niches has shown me that if I use something like a 1,000-word article instead of two 500-word articles, I'll consistently make considerably more income from my work, even though the total number of backlinks I'm putting out there myself is initially smaller.

          For some purposes, size really does matter.
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  • Profile picture of the author traceye
    Most of my articles (that I submit to article directories) are between 300-500 words but that isn't for any other reason than that's usually all I feel like writing on that topic.

    I have written lengthy blog posts though (1000+) and they rank well (more scope for getting in lots of nice long tails and keywords).

    I don't think either are any best/worst lengths though - just write however much you need to say to get your point made and that should be enough.
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  • Profile picture of the author Owen Morgan
    Hey,

    I've just written 50 unique articles, each around 300 words, each of them linking back to my squeezer page. I agree with x3xsolxdierx3x. If your targeting back links, the shorter the better. But of course it needs to be at least 250 words to be accepted by some article directories.

    Cheers,
    Owen
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  • Profile picture of the author x3xsolxdierx3x
    Another thing to consider is: If they have a 'short-attention' span, and can't tolerate staying on your article for a few seconds, will they have a long enough attention span to actually tolerate the sales letter that you direct them to? (if, of course, you are sending them to a sales LETTER, so to speak, as opposed to a video sales page)

    If someone is willing to read a longer article, in a way that could actually subtly 'test' them and their degree of engagement and willingness to purchase from wherever you send them. Thoughts on this?

    (Alexa, I actually was going to quote your post, but it was so long)
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  • Profile picture of the author Gator1
    I think also the most popular is 400-700 but I also feel it is the content that is a factor. If you have a step by step procedure like how to rebuild and enging and it is 1000 by the time your done then thats good but if your telling someone how to brush your dog correctly then it may be a little long and the reader may lose interest. So again I feel it's about the content.
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  • Definitely not more than 500-600 words, article needs a catchy intriguing headline, and fresh interesting content, not rehashed a hundred times.
    Really small percentage of people will want to read a long article, it is boring most of the times and reading on PC isn't most enjoyable thing. Books are for reading, not pc.
    Some article directories don't accept articles under 350 and even 450 words (but 450 is really rare, I think I've seen this only once).
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    • Profile picture of the author thebitbotdotcom
      I try to write naturally around 500-1000 words...plenty of content juice.
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  • Profile picture of the author NicoleBeckett
    Like David mentioned, there really isn't a "right" answer to this question. Articles are designed to leave readers feeling like they learned something new, and were impressed enough by your info and knowledge to click on your link. Can you do that in 250-300 words? Probably not.

    However, articles also shouldn't drag on either. Remember, internet searchers have tiny attention spans, so the second they feel like something's dragging, they're going to hit the back button.

    What are you writing about? Some topics really don't lend themselves to being longer than 500-600 words, while others can be compelling and informative for 1,000 words. The key is to honestly assess your article - would you stick around to read the whole thing? Did it give enough information so that the reader will feel like he learned something? If the answer to either of those 2 questions is 'no', you'll need to tweak the length.
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  • Profile picture of the author Scott Voss
    I am a fan of right at 400 words for an aritcle and about 1200 words for a report.

    That formula has worked well for both results and time or money spent on generating the content.
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  • Profile picture of the author contactscape
    Depends entirely on the nature of your content.

    For short newsbytes, 300 words or less is favourable. For informational pieces that speak of new developments in your niche, 400-500 is ideal, for longer narratives that are "step-by-step" sorts, close to 700 hits the spot with me.

    At the end of the day, you need to make sure your articles are optimized for keywords that you would like to rank for organically. It all boils down to keywords. A poorly optimized article of 700 words is useless compared to a well optimized article of 200 words, to give you an example.

    All the best,
    Ange

    Originally Posted by Halli View Post

    What is a good length for an article? Is it better to have a long article on your site or in something like Ezine? What do you feel works best? 500 words or 1000 words or something shorter?
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    • Profile picture of the author connorbringas
      like the prior poster said, you could write 1000 words or 400..doesnt matter it depends on the quality of your content. I just have a personal opinion since I only write articles that are between 400-500 words. They work for me pretty well. But I have personally written 1300 words and had 1000 views..with pretty good clicks. So it really just depends.
      If you can sum up your info on 400 words do it, and write quick and to the point.
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      • Profile picture of the author JohnMcCabe
        I guess the short version, for the focus-impaired, is that an article should be as long as it takes to accomplish its objective, and not one word longer...
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  • Profile picture of the author itzpaul
    500 words for article directories is about right. If you want a great post on your own blog it's best to do around 1,000 words. But article directories, you only need the minimum.
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  • Profile picture of the author Super Affiliate
    If you just want to have your reader click the link at the bottom, 250-300 words would be perfect. But if you want to submit it to EZA, the best is 450-500 in order to be listed in the Most Viewed, Most Published sections. For search engines, the more the better obviously.
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  • Profile picture of the author sweetblue
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    • Profile picture of the author connorbringas
      Originally Posted by sweetblue View Post

      when you talking article to submit. it's actually relative. theres no default rule. but more words you write more keyword can you produce.
      This is definitely true. You want your content to flow, but also include as many keywords as possible
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  • Profile picture of the author Halli
    So about 700 words would be a good middle way I think.Considering the replies I got
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  • Profile picture of the author ArticlesThatRock
    I think 400-500 words is a good length for an article, and 250-350 words is a good length for a blog post. Of course, the content is much more important than the length.
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