Blog Article Writing: Long vs. Short
Should you write longer, more detailed articles for your blog on a less regular basis, or should you write lots of shorter articles on a very regular basis?
This question seems to pop up on the blogosphere a little, and it is actually an important one to think about for people who want to build traffic to their own blogs.
The answer? It depends!
There are basically three strategies you can employ on this one.
Long Posts Less Regularly
Writing long, detailed posts is usually a pretty good option for several reasons (these are what Yaro Starak refers to as “Pillar Articles”). Perhaps one of the most successful of this type of site would be Steve Pavlina’s blog.
As a general rule, longer posts tend to be more in depth and contain more valuable content than shorter posts. Giving yourself space to get your point accross to your audience will usually make your audience appreciate your efforts more and allow them a more detailed understanding of the topic at hand. Detailed articles also tend to give more value to your audience, this is especially true if your blog contains evergreen content.
You will also find that in depth articles on a topic are far better at attracting those important incoming links from other bloggers. This is as a result of the fact that people perceive longer articles to be more valuable. It is difficult to paraphrase an entire detailed article on another blog, so the next best option is for other bloggers to link to your posts - an advantage not shared by shorter posts which can be easily summarised if another blog is talking about you.
For the purposes of search engine optimization, longer articles tend to attract far more search engine love than shorter articles. I have no concrete proof on this other than observation over time, but longer posts of mine seem to do better for drawing traffic.
Shorter Posts More Regularly
The next option that a lot of blogs use, is to post a lot of short articles on a more regular basis - usually at least several times per day.
This strategy has a few advantages too. For starters, it doesn;t require the degree of research and organisation that writing longer articles does and doesn’t take the same toll on a writer. Put simply, writing this type of short article blog is easier.
If done correctly, you can build an audience of people who come to your blog for breaking news. It is also a good strategy to ensure that the search engine spiders come to your site on a regular basis and hopefully index your stories. If you manage to get well ranked for a breaking news story very soon after that story breaks, then you can actually get a lot of traffic from the search engines.
Of course, unless you manage to break some news or be one of the first to get well ranked in the search engines for a new hot topic, then it might be difficult to naturally attract those important incoming links (at least it will be more difficult for you than for a blog with in depth articles).
The problem with this type of blog, is that if you take a break from posting, you will lose your audience much more quickly than a blog that has in depth articles. If people come to expect breaking news and you don’t give it to them, they will go elsewhere.
A successful example if this type of site would be Engadget.
The Mixture
Mixing both in depth articles with shorter newsy type articles is also an option for blogs. This strategy is used very successfully by Darren Rowse over at ProBlogger.
The advantage of this strategy is that you don’t have to get out a great quality, in depth article on a daily basis which takes a little pressure off you as a writer. You can keep your readers (and the search engine spiders) coming back with just some short updated newsy pieces from yoru niche. In depth articles take a little more time and research.
To be honest, I think this is probably the most versatile and sustainable strategy for most blogs. Most people who are committed to blogging ae able to get at least one or two newsy articles out without too much fuss - it just requires keeping up with your bloglines account. But if you are passionate about a subject then producing an in depth piece a couple of times a week will come naturally. As such, mixing up the different types of post that you write is usually a good option.
Conclusions
The type of posting strategy that you go with will vary with what you are trying to achieve on your blog.
Blogging with short articles on a daily basis can get your audience returning often for new news.
Blogging less regularly with in depth articles will get people linking to you and discussing your content.
A mixture of both offers a little of both worlds.
Ultimately the choice is yours.
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