Why still the buyers demand a wrong size of article length only 300-500 words ?

1000 words are too much. Also, these articles are a lot difficult to read. Consider an article which explains a specific issue and usually the explanation is at the end. All the rest is introduction. A well done 300 words article is great and much better than a 1000 words article where you spend too much time to find the answers you need. You just click and go away.

 

If you have the attention span of a goldfish, perhaps.

There is plenty of room for long (and short) content online. There's the school of thought that states that longer marketing material is better, for example, and you can't easily answer a complicated political, religious or financial question in 300 words.

The biggest problem with SEO is that it makes everyone look for a "one size fits all" solution to producing a useful site that ranks well... and the fact is that there isn't one.

 

That's reasonable, but world is full of fishes anyway, I was referring to articles with specific issues, as example technical articles.

It's clear that political and religious questions are very complex and 300 words are not enough. Anyway, can we really solve a religious problem in 500, 1000, or 1500 words? I prefer forums for that with their neverending debates.

 

As for me it's a pity that those experts articles become rare (not their absolute number, I believe it's pretty much the same), I mean they are just lost among 500-600 word rewrite about nothing, and one thing for sure -- they get often pushed out from first SERPs, so you need to be really motivated to find them

 

It's all subjective, if you have a site that appeals to "low-attention span" readers than you're obviously going to want smaller pieces of content.

The more technical sites that deal with technology (in great detail I mean) are the ones who benefit from large pieces of writing; I've written 4,000+ word pieces for clients whom operate a hosting company.

TC

 

Well, you discussed a lot, and got many useful things as well. But not it 'enough is enough. Some of you might have question where is the
base of my such thread, should clarify you FYI. Yes, I know readers pay their time per average read is one and half minutes only. But, I think you will not ignore the Neil Patel's conclusion on the issue he made showing enough data, mentioned in the last ref below:

(1) According to Kevan Lee in his article entitled "The Ideal Length of Everything Online, Backed by Research", concluded : " The ideal length of a blog post is 7 minutes, 1,600 words". He published it on 16 May 2014 in Buffer, Social Media Today and in the Next Web , you might have missed it to take a look.

(2) Referring Lee, an article "The Ideal Length of every Tweet, Facebook Post and Headline" By Mark Polly on 8th April 2014, in perficientDOTcom stated: " According to WordPress my post is 367 words long right now. Mr. Lee says that my post is too short! The ideal post length – according to Medium – is 7 minutes. That is, people pay attention for about 7 minutes. Anything longer and they stop reading. It turns out that 7 minutes is about 1,600 words long, or about 4 times the size of this blog post."

(3) According to Helen Mere in her article entitiled " Size Matters! Ideal Length of Online Content" on 20 May 2014 in blog yourdigitalstoryDOTcom, also clonclued same: Every website, business and web page is unique. The general rule of thumb for blog is 1600 words, which is approx. 7 minutes (Medium.com). You normally have about 7 minutes before you lose the readers interest, however if you use images with your posts you can shorten your posts to a 1000 words.

(4) Adrian Dayton in his blog Social Media Adition Blog: adriandaytonDoTcom, recommended following the Lee's story: "In summary, my ecommendation to lawyers wanting to become bloggers used to be that generally 500 words and an image or two were ideal; The new recommendation is 1,600 words. If you have images, then you can shorten this to 1,000 words..."

(5) Regarding recent Buffer Article by Lee (“The ideal length of a blog post is 7 minutes, 1,600 words), several bloggers have titled the issue like " The ideal length for everything on the Internet". But the best of the best articles ever I got on the issue is from Neil Patel, published on 30 March, 2014, titling "How Long Should Each Blog Post Be? A Data Driven Answer." He concluded by "I want to warn against getting hung up on content length. There’s no magic formula on word count that’s going to put your rankings through the roof. At the same time, I’ve shown you the
data that proves that longer content gets better ranking, higher indexing, and more sharing. If you’re looking for numbers, a post that is above 1,500 words seems to be in the zone of ideal length. I’d shoot for that if I were you."

If you didn't yet read the write-up of Neil, pls take a tour there, and then let it remark further rethinking the issue on the context of simantic indexing nature of the Search Engine as well.
Thank you all.

 

Quality content on an ugly site will out perform a fantastic looking web site every time.
Also I hate SEO and isn't viable for business purposes. Who in their right mind will build their business on the foundation of search engine optimization only? It is just impossible to stay on page one... eventually you will fall and along with it your $$$$ will too.

 

eh, saying you "hate" SEO..... ok anyway, SEO is important, but of course you have to focus on different ways to obtain web traffic. Word of mouth is one, and is based on the quality of your site and how much loyal is your fan base. Then social traffic and paid traffic (PPC advertisement). You should focus on all of them at the same time, while you receive organic traffic and optimize your website for ranking.

 

Instead of using seo, which I do. Only I use it like a writer not an seo expert: h1,h2,h3, decorate keywords, and use tags. But the future of the web is not in search only. A writer must rely on his/her most powerful weapon our networks of influence.

 

Most news (remember news?) articles are in the 400-750 range. My guess is people have been conditioned to read articles of this length for hundreds of years. Even if you have the most mind-blowing content it needs to be presented in a format people are used to consuming.

 

anyway, I still think the best are shorter articles. Long articles are boring and I prefer to read more short articles than a single long one. I've got friends thinking this way and I remember also Clickbank suggesting short articles for a marketing platform (not sure, anyway). Also, you could say, who cares? I think anyone of us have different ideas on this. But on one thing we are sure: very short articles are penalised (considered low quality content). As example a 50 words writing with a link advertised. It's clearly an "excuse" to advertise with no useful info.

 

Not necessarily so. Many web hosts (including ourselves) do feel the need to present their clients with a KnowledgeBase section. While very similar to a Tutorial section, the KB consists mostly of very short articles, straight to the point with solving a particular issue. Some of those articles would also include a link to another KB article that may complement the content of the shown one (interlinking). And visitors do seem to use them quite a lot, even non-clients (when a generic issue is solved). So, while your statement is essentially true, do consider that there are valid deviations of the standards

 

Content doesn't have anything with the size. All required quality and informative contents which engage users. Yes but in depth contents are also have their importance to attract the visitors and provide them complete info.

 

Is hard write 1000 words +++ length article and hold readers on. I guess its imposible make so long and really ATTRACTIVE article. Maybe when you choose really unique topic. But still a lots of readers left your site after 200-400 words.

Anyway, question is, why are "tweets" on Twitter so short? They know, what´s best

 

Fill your website with tweet-long content then and see how Google likes it

 

As with other things in life, it's not the size that matters but what you do with it!!
By this I mean if you can get the point across clearly in 300 words are the other 700 words going to be just 'fluff'?
I have articles on my site ranging from 500 to 700+ words, the way I see it if I have something worthwhile to say then I am going to say it, if not then I won't.
I use the same philosophy when writing articles for clients and it is in my T's&C's, I WILL NOT add or remove words from a piece of writing just to meet a word count unless it does not detract from the flow of the piece in general.

 

yes, the flow is really important. It's the grasp, what keeps readers hooked to your text. Add to this the relevance, and importance of the content, if it's answering the question that brought the reader to your page and for sure that visitor will become one of your best fans.