Haha - that's an idea. Starting each blog post with a poll or question to the readers that gets a debate going. I like it
I don't mind some lists. Depends on who is writing them. But now everybody uses them, and they write them without much thought.
As much as possible, I try to make sure that my posts are short but have all necessary contents my readers should know. for that matter, my readers wont be bored on reading lengthy post with one same ideas.
That's good to hear vnsmith. I understand that from time to time you have to make a blog post that is slightly longer to get all the details out.
I've written short posts, I've written some longer ones. I don't believe in making an article short just for the sake of it, not making it longer unnaturally. If I have a lot of stuff to say, yes, the article will be longer. If it's just a tidbit of information, it will be short. I care about carrying my point across more than some rules others invented. You need to share ideas and information, not count your words.
I think you should definitely write for people rather than search engines. If you write for search engines, you may get more visitors in the short term, but they definitely won't stick around once they see that your site is no good. However, if you write for people, then they may end up following your blog, recommending it to other people, linking to it, or they might leave a comment and add to your content. In the long term it's the way to go. I don't think it really matters if the posts are short or long, so long as they are concise and well written. I know there are a lot of these 'top 10 posts', but I'm usually tempted to click in these, so I think they are a good idea now and then.
I also believe that shorter blog posts are more better, because of that I write all my blog posts between 200-400 words.
What long and short? It should be interesting and giving the desired information to reader. You will find both types of comments on blog post. some would like to have it enlarged, while some prefer to have it shorter. It is not possible to satisfy everybody everytime. It is better the writer should decided about its length, content and everything related to it.
More people have less time and less people have more time. Short length posts will attract people having less time but it doesn't mean that visitors with more time will not go through your post.
You own a blog... why not communicate and ask your readers what they want instead of all this guess work. You may find that they like long detailed blog posts about the niche that you are in but you'll never know untill you start researching who your readers really are.