Think About It: Less is More in Writing Blog Posts

One of the deep, dark holes many new bloggers fall into is trying to write everything they know about a subject into one, long, boring, text-heavy, 1,200-word-tome of a blog post.

Ridiculous!

Who's gonna read your long-winded post?  Yeah, I hear that if the content kicks brain cells, it'll get read. I hear that all the time, but I don't buy it.  Because nobody (okay, very few) are going to take the time to read your lecture-on-blog.  We're skimmers and scanners.

Think about it: Would you take time to read it? Thought not (whoa nellie...slow down on your skimming here, this is important to you). There are reasons besides your precious time to keep things short and pithy:

1. Writing Shorter is Easier to Remember - Because we are skimmers and scanners (especially reading online), a short post with plenty of Eye Rests will be more memorable. I'm more likely to remember your points if they aren't buried deep in your thesis
2. Writing Shorter Invites More Comments - By writing posts that are not the end-all, be-all of your subject, your ambiguity invites others to comment. Invite others into the conversation by not writing every word on the subject.
3. Writing Shorter Enables You To Build Page Depth - If you post about something once, you've created a single page. However, if you post about it several times over a period of weeks or months, you build page depth. Page depth will make you look more like an expert than a long post
4. Writing Shorter Gets Read and Spread - Think about it - A lot of your readers are bloggers. Bloggers look for content. Good bloggers will always have their reader in mind. I'm more likely to point my readers to a concise post than a rambling dissertation.

Think About It: Less is More. Use Eye Rests. Rinse. Repeat.

Photo on Flickr by carf

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