Answer: Both long
and short.
What? That doesn’t make sense. It will if you read on ….
Over the last few months I have read article after article,
forum post after forum post and training course after training course on this
topic. Some recommend blogs posts of at least 800 words, others over 1000.
Nearly all use the term “quality content” without really defining what that is.
Everyone agrees that “fluff” is to be avoided, but few will tell you what
“fluff” is.
One content watchdog helpfully described quality content as
“you’ll know it when you see it”.
Last week I struggled to get my head around a blog article
on, quite prophetically, becoming a freelance writer. I knew what I wanted to convey, but the structure and
words eluded me.
So, it ended up taking me more than a day to complete and it
is much longer than my typical blog posts. I wondered how I could improve my
writing productivity and learn to “churn them out” more quickly.
So, I read everything I could lay my hands on, including this post about productivity written by a
writer suffering from ADHD and another on writing “epic shit”. Then I referred back to some training on traffic
generation under today’s rules.
The conclusion from synthesising all of this – you need to
write a mix of both short and long blog posts.
Why You Need both Short And Long Posts
Let me explain.
Why You Need Short Posts
Search engines take into account how active a blog is. Have
you noticed how traffic drops off if you don’t post anything for some time?
Not every post can be a trove of magnetic content. But, that
doesn’t mean that you can’t take a valuable snippet and turn it into a short,
valuable post that is useful to visitors.
The best tip from the ADHD blogger is to separate blog post
preparation from writing the post itself. I have come across this idea before,
in Mark Levy’s book, Accidental Genius.
It makes the point that, by researching and preparing the ideas behind the
content beforehand, you will allow yourself greater freedom in the writing
itself.
That way you can produce short, valuable posts quickly.
And, Why You Also Need Epic Posts
All the experts agree, though, that the long-term success of
your blog is determined by your ability to produce “epic” posts at regular
intervals.
What is an epic post? The top 10 search results for most
keywords run to over 2000 words. This does not mean that you should set out to
write as verbosely as possible. It means that you need to find the occasional
topic that is so “meaty” and thought-provoking that to do justice to it
requires a longer article.
Epic articles blow people away with their usefulness, change
lives (or at least prompt people to change course) and build a raving audience.
If it takes you over a day to write an epic post, it is time
well spent.
I must admit that I am a lot more encouraged than I was
after taking over a day to complete the freelance writing post. And, I don’t
worry so much about writing productivity.
It is the end result that matters.
