How Long is Too Long for Travel Pages?

I have several travel sites. Three of them are "guides". I'm starting a new one and working on the content myself .. as it seems damn near impossible to find content writers who know enough in-depth information to write useful articles about my destinations.

As I was fumbling along today, I "finished" a sub-topic and decided to check the word count. I was somewhat surprised to see my paltry result .. a count of less than 300 words!

Okay, granted .. I hadn't added in some of the details, like the names locations of the bus station, airport, accommodations, etc. That got me to wondering about the best length for a "page".

Nowadays, I tend to not like mixing subtopics, preferring teaser paragraphs with "more here" links on a topic page .. with subtopics standing alone on their own page.

So I'm wondering what the travel content experts here think is the best length for holding a readers interest and making them "turn the page".

 

I find that the optimum length for a page on any subject is down to time rather than word count. Your reader needs to be able to ascertain whether the page is about what they want in about 5 seconds. Then if it is, they'll spend a couple of minutes reading it before they act.

People's attention spans are getting shorter and shorter...

Sorry, lost interest already ;-)

 

There's no magic number. 10 words could be too much if your copy is stale. On the other hand, 5,000 words could be just fine if the copy was bright, energetic, unique and gripping.

I'm not saying shoot for 5,000 words. Just realize that what will make your readers do whatever you want them to do is your actual copy. As someone who has been educated in travel writing, I can tell you that unless your writer has been to the location, the copy will be lacking.

There is a lot of data online for research, but it's just not the same. That's why hotels, cities, events, businesses, newspapers, magazines and so forth send travel writers on free trips around the world rather than asking for an article written from research via Wikipedia.

 

Maybe I should be actively trying to get readers to do something, but I generally take the passive approach. I guess I believe that users who get good information will come back, click ads and book hotels.

As for word count, I'm more concerned about the "per page" size.

Which is why I have to write so much of my own content. I write about what I see and experience when I travel .. and I live here.

I actually use the web a bit from time to time, but it's more in the form of nuts and bolts details like, "Now what the heck was the name of that beach and the guest house down by Surat Thani?"

I just figure that a reader has a finite attention span regardless of how my narrative sparkles.

 

In Travel Writing, when I say do something, I'm not necessarily talking about a visible call to action. I'm talking about an underneath selling job that gets the reader so excited about the place that they have to get more information NOW. Even if they are not going to buy, you can get them excited enough to click around and make you some money.

Good writing is never passive. Go beyond simple facts and boring words. Paint your reader a picture in his or her mind and lead them on a journey. Wet their appetite so that whatever you are talking about seems like somewhere they must go or something they must experience.

You live in your area, so that's something in your favor. Exploit it. Back to the content issue. Go out and buy a USA newspaper like the NY Times, LA Times or whatever. Open up the travel section. Better yet, hit their websites and go look at their travel pieces. That will give you a great idea on the right length. You'll find that travel articles fall into about 5 different categories and sometimes the length is determined by that.

Good Luck!

 

300 words is not going to cut it, what can you possibly say in 300 words that will draw a reader in and possible keep them at your site. On top of that it doesn't give you much room for SEO... I agree with the other poster that there is no magic number, but you want good content or Search Engines and readers will ignore it. 300 word articles just to get people to your site to click on adsense or your ads just doesn't work.

 

well, if you're going to publish these through article amrketing, i would say 400-600 words always works for any type of article. not too long and not too short in my opinion.

 

You would be surprised what you can accomplish in 300-400 words when your writing in concise. You certainly won't fit a journey piece into that space. However a review, special-interest or special event article could work within those confines.

I didn't think about content marketing, because I assumed this was site content (see thread title). However, if the article is for content marketing, anything less than 400 words might not be work well. I generally shoot for 400-500. Also, your promotional articles can be fluffy writing if desired. The goal there is to get links and clicks to your site and not to fully satisfy readers.

300 word articles can be fine for SEO & making money purposes. But, I'm basing that on my own experience.

 

My experience has been the exact opposite... Longer articles with more related content has always done better then short content pieces. To the point where I no longer have short articles on any of my content sites. Of course if the article get its point across in 300 words then that’s fine, but having a hundred 300 word articles always produces bad results for me these days. My theory is that SE's are smart enough to figure out SPAM or Adwords sites and REAL content.

 

I was referring to my "approach to business" rather than my writing style.

 

I introduced the reader to an eco-destination in Chiang Rai Thailand where more than 100 species of water birds stopover in their annual migration.

In another, I suggested the Chinese Community of Doi Maesalong.

If you write for the reader, not for word count, and activate your sentences with verbs rather than killing them with adjectives .. you can tell quite a lot in 300 words.

Umm.. I believe far too much SEO hype is focused on the text. If something "reads" like it has been SEOed, the writer has failed his task, IMO.

How many times do you need to "say" Doi Mae Salong in Chiang Rai Province (besides meta tags) for the SEs to find it?

 

You need to get better SERPs placement. I did a search for "Doi Mae Salong in Chiang Rai Province" and I can't find your site in the 2 pages that get returned by Google. You should also include the meta tag "keywords" on your pages. Keep your titles short and use your keywords in them, repeat them in the description, bold the keyword on your page, use them in the URL etc. Your Alexa ranking is pretty low. You need to reach more people. That means you need to optimise your pages (SEO). Travel pages are hard to get placed in the SERPs. Competition is extremely high.

 

Search for "expat retirement" gets placed #10 on Google. Very nice indeed. According to Overture the word "expat" got searched for 3302 times in July. So don't expect to much traffic.

 

Seems to me that contradicts your "SEO" and "big is better" arguments?

 

Hello kwathabeng,

Those articles are yet to be completely finished (nuts and bolts details) and the site has not been submitted to the SEs. I only placed a page online a few days ago to get the "sandbox" clock running.

My "expat" site is pretty new as well, and yes, it is a pretty narrow niche.

 

Whoops. Sorry. It's a common term in writing.

The whole "bigger is better" theory is off. First, what is real content? Are we talking about quality? Are we talking about word count? I hope you didn't mean quality. I'm not saying smaller is better, but a 300 word article can pack serious punch if written properly.

 

Yes, I probably should have said I tend to take a passive approach rather than "call to action", but try to make sure active voice dominates my narrative.

Bigger=Longer in my argument .. and I lean toward lean prose .. and short .. 300-400 words. If it really needs to be longer, that need will shout out at you from the page.

When trying to suggest travel activities/attractions, at some point you have to stop telling about it. And superlatives get boring very fast. Once I have said what I believe is enough, I add in some "nuts and bolts" then move on.

Several factors that are almost never addressed in discussions like these are:

• Text column width .. experts say 3-3.5" is about right. I tend to do 3.5-4

• 12 px font size. Line spacing .. again, 1.5 is often suggested as minimum readability

• Toss in 20-30% white space

• One study recommended no more than 4 screens and that was for high-interest motivated readers, not casual readers. I like 2 screens max.

300 words plus some bulleted list details and 2 screens are gone.

The above may not be right, but it is how I do things.

I wonder how many writers of articles look at how their work sits on a page.

 

If you can tell an article was written for keywords, it wasn't written very well and might as well be SPAM.

 

How do you figure? I'm talking about real content.... not an article that reads like one big keyword piece.

 

ConstantContent:

And I said:

And CC said:

If good writing is short, it tends to convey information that is lean on keywords simply by the fact that it is short and the writer is trying to pack as much actual information into the piece as possible.

I will reiterate a previous quote, "How many times do you need to "say" Doi Mae Salong in Chiang Rai Province (besides meta tags) for the SEs to find it?"

So if SE's are smart enough to diffentiate SPAM and "real" content, then the short extremely readable article not only appeals to the reader, but works well for the SERPs.

IOW, you don't have to write for "LONG" to make the article SE friendly. The meta tags and header tags do a great deal of that.

CC said:

So was I .. and so am I. I'm not sure how what I said above .. in any of my posts .. could have suggested SPAM.