A 500 word article will always outperform a 1000 word article

Haha! Sorry.

I was wondering if anyone would catch my little bit of sarcastic humor.

Terra

I still don't understand how you're doing it.

Are you using 2 articles on the same topic with one being a compressed version?

And if you did have 2 articles on different sites, wouldn't the different audiences have a bearing on the outcome?

Could it be possible that you write longer articles on the topics you're passionate about, therefore it's the quality rather than the length?

When you think about everything that makes a great article, it seems crazy to say that size matters.

I never asked anyone to please me. You should do what your clients ask for.

People obviously have different opinions, but I think they suffer because they don't take anything else into consideration.

Take the person who said a short article won't leave the reader emotionally charged. Imagine someone wrote a 2000 word article about what should be included in a great sales page. It could be the best article in the world and leave them emotionally charged.

The guy's twin brother writes a 400 word article telling someone to make a small tweak in their sales page to get more sales. The reader does it and doubles his conversion rate. Which article do you think is going to get someone more emotionally charged? I know which one I'd choose.

Sometimes small wins will leave someone more emotionally charged well after they've finished reading.

I don't mind 1,000 word articles if they are well written and not just full of filler content. Sometimes, however, a 500 word article is enough. It all depends on the topic, etc. I definitely do not agree with their statement though.

You are not missing much...

To tell the truth, Kansas sucks!! LOL

Kansas is the only reason that Oklahoma and Texas don't fall into the Gulf of Mexico. :p

Terra you've said it in what I think to be nothing short of a brilliant comment. I feel, the advice of short articles and "long articles at least as much as 500 words" come from people who cannot think beyond SEO (and SEO is also easier for longer articles in my opinion), and go to people who are not never deep enough in taking the time to understand what the customers in their market need to know. So yes, it is attention deficit disorder, suffered by the writer of the article. And this is what I guess we call "cookie-cutter" articles for all real life purposes.

You bet. While I practically always write my own articles, once it had so happened that I had outsourced a deal to another Warrior who had designed a site for me with Thesis, written the home page article (1,200-odd words from what I remember) and had SEO'd it till he reached the top of the second page (and I think the deal was the first page within a timeline, which he could not manage in spite of 2 extended months). The point here is that the niche was something (a physical product) that I have been selling since 2009, and that 1,200-or-so length article had simply seemed to be insufficient for me in terms of content. Not the length, but the material inside it. Any SEO person would be delighted with the length, but I knew that it was not enough for buyers. I had to expand many sections of it (and this time I did it myself) before I was happy with it. I think it came to 1,800-2,000 odd words, from what I remember.

^^ Interesting perspective... Especially, the last line.

^^ But you know what? EZA accepts all kinds of articles, and their articles get published. And there's no way to track how many sales are because of EZA, unless you are publishing nowhere else (which is impractical formost cases). So its easy for them to get away with it...

Interesting. I am going to test this slogan soon enough with my WF signature link.

The problem here is always.

500 beats 1,000 and 1,000 beats 500, it depends.

Stras

I'm just trying to wind you up now 'cause I know you're game for a debate, BUT...

Since when were short articles nothing but lines of facts?

Can a longer article have more personality and character? Surely the way it's presented is the personality and character, so they both have the same.

Maybe if you tested them against shorter creative pieces you would get different results.:p

How is the view from your pedestal?

1) Someone spamming crap articles so they can sell a proper book written by someone who has experience in their niche.

2) Someone using well-written articles to sell a product written by a freelancer who's maybe spent a few days researching the topic before using other people's great information and regurgitating it.

What would you consider to be the most ethical way to make money?

I'm not trying to say what you do is in any way wrong, but try not to be condescending to others who are trying to earn a living but can't write as well as you.

Yes, I have proof. What do you consider "proof"? Screen shots?
Because I don't buy those, and I'm sure you don't either. Ugh...
I'm just not going to get entangled in those games anymore.

Doubt me, sure. A healthy dose of skepticism is certainly healthy.
Do you really doubt Paul Meyers & myob?

Or, to paraphrase Allen, "testing is the only guru"
Test it and have your own evidence



Hmm... I reread my "entire post" a few times and didn't see
myself say anything like that? "Complete disregard" for
every other method? (Nor did I say anything at all about putting
articles on other sites? But I assume you are considering that
to be syndication, and I would guess that some people actually
do that...)

Alas, it is not the first time I have failed to communicate my point
in a clear and concise manner, and it probably won't be the last.
Allow me a chance to clarify?


The original question in this thread is about whether or not a
500 word article "out performs" a 1000 word article as EZA
claims it does.

Answer: No, it does not, because:
1. Article syndication is superior to article search engine marketing.
2. Publishers prefer 1000 word articles, and they get circulated a lot more.

...Therefore, 1000 word articles out perform 500 word articles. The End.

That was my point, all the meat and no potatoes.
Hope this clears things up a bit.

***

Now, a lot of other people in the thread have gone off and talked
again and again about how it's quality that is important, not word count.
I even read one person's comment which said that he didn't see anyone
talking about it.

But... That was never the point. It just wasn't. The question was not
whether a short article could be high quality. Nor was it about whether
a longer article is read more or not. We all know quality is important,
this is 2012 and that is kind of a great big "DUH!"


It was about whether or not a shorter article performs better.

And the results are in. Time and time again, syndication out-performs
article directory marketing and article spam marketing. And publishers
prefer longer articles, usually 1000 words or more.


...I just don't know why people are having such a difficult time with
what seems to me to be a very, very simple concept?

To be fair, Jamie, you really do make a great and repeated habit here of challenging for income proof people who praise article syndication, and nobody else - and of casting public aspersions about their veracity.

If you genuinely believe that all the people here, over the last 2 - 3 years, who'd previously been struggling mostly with SEO-based approaches to traffic generation but have started becoming successful through article syndication are confabulating, exaggerating or generally "making it up", that's one thing ... but when you introduce and so consistently maintain such an apparently personal and challenging tone in your posts here, I suspect that sometimes you really don't quite appreciate how you come across.

I've kept out of this part of the discussion almost entirely, and am not "trying to ease my way into it" here, but it's very noticeable (and not only to me) that you have a real bee in your bonnet about trying to detract from article syndication at every opportunity you can contrive. Quite why it's such a sensitive issue to you I've never understood, even when corresponding privately with you about it.