The ideal length of a blog or post is something that is very important. If your post is too long you will lose the reader's interest and if your post is too short then your post might be viewed as a post of lesser quality.
The average reader...
has a very short attention span. If your post catches their eye and they decide to click open your post then the first thing they will do is skim through your post quickly to look if this might be something they are interested in.
The reader will start quickly reading the first paragraph, then glance over the middle and finally scroll down to the end. So it is important to make these parts of your post stand out.
Because of the short attention span of the average reader it is important to not use very long paragraphs and use dividers or pictures.
The reader will mentally note the length of the post, anything too long will feel like it is too much effort to read and anything too short will be thought of a post of lesser quality. Like all things in life you will have to hit that sweet spot.
The sweet spot
A seductive introduction/first paragraph and eye catching pictures will persuade readers to take notice of your post, if they find that your post has the "ideal" length for their reading pleasure, well that is hook, line and sinker.
A lot of research has been done on the ideal length of a blog and the outcome is that readers prefer articles that will take them about 6 - 7 minutes to read, this equals posts of about 1600 - 1700 words (max).
Be sure to use pictures and paragraphs so that you don't lose the attention of your reader. A good structure of your post will keep things fresh and your readers' attention focused on what you are trying to convey.
Steemit
Steemit differs from other social media sites however, there is a lot of content on the site and reading and curating posts takes a lot of time. Let's say that you want to spend your 10 100% votes on good content, reading 10 minute long posts would take you a long time (even assuming that you find the quality articles in one go). Since curating and creating content is what most Steemians do on Steemit I think that for Steemians the reading "sweet spot" is lower than for other blog sites.
If look at the length of some of my high earning posts I find that they average around the 1000 words. This is an average reading time of 3 - 3.5 minutes per post.
@xervantes/why-the-dreamcast-was-ahead-of-its-time
@xervantes/home-theater-pc-basics
@xervantes/the-history-of-gaming-consoles
I also looked at other authors like @sweetsssj and low and behold her latest post is also around 1000 words long. Other high earning authors posts vary from 500 - 1000+ words.
The Takeaway
Make sure that you pimp your post with an inviting title blog picture
Make that first paragraph/introduction so that readers are drawn into your story.
Organize your post evenly, with good spacing and pictures.
Ideally use about 1000 words (3.5 minutes of reading material).
End with a summary or conclusion of your write up.
My take on this is that with the use of pictures and videos 1000 word posts tend to look longer than they actually are, because of this the post will have "high quality content" appearance. The reader will have the pleasant surprise of spending only 3 - 3.5 minutes reading through your riveting story.
Click here if you want to check the length of your post.
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