What's your limit for blog entry words?

[RDude]

There are some folks who feel that long posts do well, then there are some like myself who do better with about 150-250 words.

For you, what approximate amount of words works best as far as sales ratios go?

[Gaystoryman]

Myself, I prefer a mix. I like the odd shorty in there, about 200 words. I also love the long one's, but then, hey that's what writers do. lol

I think a mix of 150 to 200, of 350 to 500, and the odd longer one, gives the blog more personality, makes it look more natural. I really don't pay much attention to the number of words, just to what is being said.

my pennies thought

[gaydemon]

I never really know.. Personally I can't stand "walls of text".. I skip a lot and only scan longer texts. But that's just me.

I guess the benefit of longer texts over shorter is SEO. More text, more to be indexed and found. Or so the theory goes. But im sure too much text can definitly be off putting.

[RDude]

I never really know.. Personally I can't stand "walls of text".. I skip a lot and only scan longer texts. But that's just me.

I guess the benefit of longer texts over shorter is SEO. More text, more to be indexed and found. Or so the theory goes. But im sure too much text can definitly be off putting.

Yes, I agree with this too. I've written longer posts and not gotten as good results as I did with 200 words or less.

[tim]

For SEO, I was reading that a page should have an absolute minimum of 250 words and that 1000 would be much better. However, I figure this doesn't matter in something like a blog because there will be several posts on one page, amounting to much more than 250 words. For example, 150 per post times 5 posts is 750 already.

[tigermom]

With porn blogs, I limit it to 200-300 words. I pay my writer per word, so fewer words means more blog posts :)

With my mainstream blogs, it depends. I like to mix things up, but my rule of thumb is if it's over 1000 words, it's too long and should be divided into more than one post.

[RDude]

Thanks for the feedback folks. It's very helpful.

I try to assign 5 posts per page on my porn blogs. I do this for faster page load times. However, I think I might bump it up to 7-8 posts per page. The more text, the better, but I don't write more than 200 words per post for the most part.

[Gaystoryman]

Interesting Jeff, as I go the opposite route.

One reason is the enormous white space created on the front page, if there are too many posts. I consider it lost advertising space, but to add more content then becomes a scrolling drag on the individual pages.

In short, I like to have a balance, so that there may be a few added ads on the individual pages, there isn't a total loss on the main page. I kind of have the notion, that it makes a site cheezy, if the ads are more than the content, so i tend to try and balance the front, to equal the individual post pages. One reason I tend to look more for 'magazine style' themes. Lets me get a lot of added content on the front page, versus post after post standard.

my pennies worth whistle

[basschick]

if this is correct, it means that the individual blog pages won't be optimized. can anyone confirm this 250 to 1000 words thing?


For SEO, I was reading that a page should have an absolute minimum of 250 words and that 1000 would be much better. However, I figure this doesn't matter in something like a blog because there will be several posts on one page, amounting to much more than 250 words. For example, 150 per post times 5 posts is 750 already.

[RDude]

if this is correct, it means that the individual blog pages won't be optimized.

That would make sense. From what I know, individual blog pages get picked up consistently from the search engines. In particular Google.

I think the more text, the better for the robots in the long run. I don't know anything about minimum or maximum amounts though.

[tim]

if this is correct, it means that the individual blog pages won't be optimized. can anyone confirm this 250 to 1000 words thing?

I read it recently and will try to find the source. I read a lot of things and cannot always recall where, but will give it a try. To the best of my memory it was the opinion of a SE geek, not necessarily something he quoted from Google.

[tim]

OK. Looked through thousands of bookmarks for that source, and cannot find it. I probably deleted it in my bookmarks.

So I did some Googling and perhaps the following links may give some insight, but not a definitive answer. It seems that at least one author is suggesting that in part, the actual number of words per page is not as important as how that number compares with your competitors' pages.

http://www.seodesignsolutions.com/blog/search-engine-optimization/seo-and-word-count/

http://marketingtechblog.com/blogging/words-per-blog-post-for-seo/

[tim]

But that is SEO, not about the original inquiry on sales.

[dzinerbear]

Here's an article that deals with word length: http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2004/10/25/word-count-and-search-engine-optimization

Scroll into the second section.

Michael

[tim]

I like that article. It's about as direct and practical as you can be on such a vague, debatable topic.


Here's an article that deals with word length: http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2004/10/25/word-count-and-search-engine-optimization

Scroll into the second section.

Michael

[MissV]

Here's an article that deals with word length: http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2004/10/25/word-count-and-search-engine-optimization

Scroll into the second section.

Michael

Hey Michael, thanks for that link - I also ended up reading lots of other articles of hers, as I've been looking for opinions about
alternative text for images, etc.

Does anyone put keywords in their image alt text? Just curious if anyone finds it useful to do that.

[RDude]

An interesting read. Thanks Dzinerbear.

MissV - I use keywords for alt text on images and yes, I do find it helps. It certainly can't hurt any.