10 Shortcuts for Getting Their Attention in Record Time

[janeth]

I do a lot of reading online. I’d venture to guess that I read more than the average person. But I hate all these 2,000 page articles. All these SEO’s writing these complicated long ass articles in hopes of getting a link and a little Google love.

Then someone post a little cartoon and everyone on the Internet links to it. Shorten your article and use the photos and content to tell a story.

Everything on that page should help me to understand what it is you are trying to convey in less than 2 seconds.

Since this is all about long content being bad let's see if we can come up with some really good ideas to bring our points across in different and unique ways.

[morestar]

I have to admit, I'm getting a little annoyed when noticing this too, the article that's not really even full of keywords, but is just clearly filler talk.

In the past I've been guilty of this too but now totally appreciate an exact and to-the-point article.

Mind you there are tons of articles that are a little long but worth their weight in gold - you can tell the intent was to report and add valuable insight rather than to compete for a keyword or two.

[keyon]

I hate all these 2,000 page articles. All these SEO’s writing these complicated long ass articles in hopes of getting a link and a little Google love.

Just another example of how flawed search engine technology can be in measuring the real "quality" of content on the Web. As a former student of technical writing, I can say without hesitation that effective communication has nothing to do with the number of words on a page. Most of the 2k word articles you refer to could probably be condensed down to one paragraph -- without really losing any of the meaning from the original document. In fact, the shortened version would probably be more clear, more concise, more helpful to the reader anyway. Makes me think of my days back in school when teachers would set minimum page requirements on their writing assignments. Pure silliness. (If someone has the writing talent to say everything that needs to be said in two sentences, they shouldn't fail the course).

Anyway, it seems like it's all the same silliness with SEO. Of course, everyone has to pander to Google, so I guess you do what you have to do.

[antihero13]

Long articles are fine. Just break them up into smaller pages and allow the user to cycle through them. Also, have something in the first 2-3 paragraphs that ropes me in and makes me want to read on. Then keep it intriguing, descriptive and/or informative as the article continues. Don't leave anything unexplained or undescribed.

Making articles shorter really doesn't help the webmaster. If you get your point across quickly the user may just leave your site at that instant, raising your bounce rate considerably. I know when I search for things online once I find the information I'm looking for on a webpage most times I leave immediately, never coming back or remembering the site in most cases. Don't give the milk away too quickly; make people stick around so they'll buy the cow.

This is not to say you should purposely elongate articles or load them up with keywords. Just write in a style that makes people want to continue reading and make the words you do use matter. Or at the very least have something else on your webpage that might catch the visitor's eye. By all means chop up long articles and put them on separate pages.