You’ve been hearing for years now that when it comes to web content, Brevity is King!
That really is still the case, and it’s even more and more important as much of your content will be read on a mobile phone. No one is going to want to sit down and read your next novel on their iPhone or Droid.
But wait, is Bigger actually Better? (even when it comes to producing content?)
I’ve recently been hearing buzz around the water cooler that longer posts are getting more traction and really drawing in more readers. I’ve heard that longer posts are really helping to develop a strong, devoted following, hungry for more words.
What? Could this actually be true?
But Wait! Before you get all excited…
…and want to go back to posting those long, long posts of nothing but block after block of your current stream of consciousness without coming up for a breath… keep this in mind…
The longer a post is, the more effort needs to go into it.
If you do go back to just putting out block after block of text reflecting your thought streams and rants, you’ll still get the same results as you got before. CLICK, onto something easier to read. Your customer has moved on.
If your topic really does deserve a large word count, then here are some things that will help ensure your message gets read…
- more editing – You need to pull out everything that isn’t crucial.
- don’t keep repeating the same thought. Figure out the most effective, homerun way to say it once.
- more story telling – it better be pretty darn engaging (and by darn, I mean #@*$!^&)
- more whitespace
- more subheadings
- more lists and bullet points
- think of breaking it up into a series
Now, if you’ve been studying content marketing for any amount of time, you’ll recognize that every item in that list should be applied when writing ANY SIZE blog post, short or long. And I applaud your recognition of that! Way to go!!!
But when it comes to writing posts of considerable length, those methods should be applied exponentially. The longer the post, the more you need to work at it.
But, if you can create Epic (long) posts that are wonderful, and more importantly, highly effective at drawing in more readers, it could be very well worth your time.
