The Long And Short Of It
November 14th, 2008
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Photo by Robyn Gallagher
I’m thinking that I haven’t had a good angry rant in a while…
In 3 Successful Bloggers Share their Blog Tips, Darren Rowse shows us a 2.5 minute video he shot at Blog World Expo 08. He asked Jeremy Schoemaker, Steve Pavlina, and Andy Wibbels what blog tips they’d give to bloggers just starting out.
Jeremy spoke for 11 seconds. His tip was “Write content for people and not for search engines.”
Andy spoke for 12 seconds. His tip was “Pick a topic and stay with it. That is why people have success, and it’s one of the hardest things to do, but pick a topic, stick with it, and own the topic.”
Steve spoke for 99 seconds. His tip was that one way to create “great content” is to do a personal experiment, something that no one else would do, and blog about it. He then described his polyphasic sleep and raw foods trials.
I thought Steve’s input was by far the best. It’s a tip you don’t hear all the time, and he went into some detail. You might not want to use that tip, but at least he had something significant to say. (I also thought it was interesting because I happened to be doing my Myers-Briggs trials at that time.)
I’m not criticizing Jeremy or Andy for just giving a quick tip. They were just there enjoying the convention and hadn’t planned anything to say. If it were me, I might have only spoken for a few seconds as well. But a sound bite doesn’t make for a very useful video.
“Write content for people and not for search engines.” Good tip, but we’ve heard it a million times before.
“Pick a topic, stick with it, and own the topic.” This could have used some more explanation. Does he mean you need to have a very focused niche? Does he mean not to combine unrelated topics on the same blog? Does he mean that you’re stuck with whatever topic you originally picked, even if you decide you made a mistake? I have no idea if I agree with him, because I’m not sure what he meant.
Again, I have nothing against them for saying those things. What I want to talk about is the reaction to the video. Here are some comments people left:
“Thanks so much for sharing this! Another title for this video can be: ‘Show me how you talk and I’ll tell you if I’ll read it or not!’
Steve, buddy… to the point man! To the point!!!!
I’ll certainly visit the other two blogs.”
“Steve short and sweet please
it was a great video, I really liked Jeremy’s tip”
“Steve Pavlina likes to talk.
‘Own the topic.’ is a cool point.”
“As usual, Steve Pavlina presented a lengthy blah blah blah!”
Is this what the microwave generation has come to? A minute and a half is way too long for a video, but a one-sentence cliche is terrific? What will the next generation be saying?
A sentence? I don’t have time to read a whole sentence!
**unsubscribes**
Some things take some time to get across. A movie is supposed to be about 2 hours. A 5 minute movie would be pointless. Oh wait, I forgot, even a 2.5 minute video is too long for some people. Maybe The 1 Second Film would be more to your liking.
I can imagine Thomas Jefferson reading his draft of the Declaration of Independence to the Committee of Five: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and…” At which point Benjamin Franklin shouted “GET TO THE POINT!” Or do you think he realized that some things are worth taking some time for?
I used to have a hard time believing that statistic that 42% of all college graduates never read another book after college. It doesn’t seem so unbelievable now. But if you don’t have the patience to read a whole book, check out Book-A-Minute. They ultra condense classics, science fiction, and children’s stories so you can read books in just a few seconds, sometimes less than one second.
Don’t get me wrong, short is sometimes fine. I’ve written a number of little postlets myself. Sometimes you can get everything across in 250 words. Some people have even created great blogs from consistently short posts, when it fits their style and the subject matter. But some things are a little more complicated, and a short post might not do it justice.
The Introverts Strike Back was 2,000 words because that’s what it had to be. I’d rather write one strong 2,000 word post than ten 200 word posts that don’t really say anything. My interview with Akemi Gaines on Akashic record reading was 5,000 words because that’s what it had to be. I split it into two posts so it didn’t take too long to read either half. When I wrote about the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, I wrote 25,000 words because that’s what it had to be. This was way too much for a post, so I made it an ebook. So the format sometimes needs to change to fit the length better, but I don’t understand this extreme sensitivity to length.
Maybe you like short posts, so you seek out blogs that keep their posts around 200 words. But do you know what’s even shorter than 200 words? 0 words! Why read blogs at all? It’s faster not to. Then you’ll have more time to…um, do nothing?
Oh, I’m sorry, should I not be assuming you made it this far? It’s been nearly 1 kiloword to this point. If this is too long for you, you can follow me on Twitter instead. They limit you to 140 characters, about 2 or 3 sentences. No doubt some Web 4.0 startup is hard at work, trying to devise a platform that compresses language even more. I guess I could have summed up this post with “long=ok.”
November 14th, 2008 at 3:20 am
Do you remember Mad Libs? Bookstores used to have shelves Mad Libs versions, some lasting a page and others lasting several. But the joy of Mad Libs was in the story always being different.
Likewise, it matters not whether a definition is in 10 seconds or 120.
To me, the importance is when I learn something as a result.
Ari Herzog´s last blog post..Why My Face is On My Business Card
November 14th, 2008 at 6:47 am
Good rant! I confess to watching the word count creep higher and higher and thinking, well there goes any neighborhood that might have developed over this one. The fact is, it takes me many words to say stuff, and not all of them are empty space fillers.
One of my favorites is Bill Whittle (http://www.ejectejecteject.com). The gloriousness that is Bill could never be, if he allowed himself to care about word counts. He cares too much about his subject matter instead.
There’s a place for short, to be sure. But length, when so finely crafted, makes you want to stick around and even drive the same stretch of road again.
Betsy Wuebker´s last blog post..STAND UP AND TRUST YOURSELF
November 14th, 2008 at 9:02 am
What I find fascinating is the huge difference in how these guys understand what it really means to make their short statements a reality, compared to the new blogger. Yes, you hear these things a million times, but there is a point where the lights come on and you have an “a-ha” moment, and you get it.
Hearing it repeatedly does not make you get it.
Having said that, I agree with you that Pavlina’s advice is the most actionable, especially for a new blogger.
Michael Martine – Remarkablogger´s last blog post..Top Ten Things to Not Do on an Internet Marketing Blog
November 14th, 2008 at 9:10 am
This is why I prefer Steve Pavlina.com to Zen Habits. The latter is updated much more frequently but if I’m going to sit down to really read something I’d much rather it be rather an in-depth post on something rather original.
Richard Johnson´s last blog post..Day 11 – Blog Promotion 30 Day Trial
November 14th, 2008 at 9:31 am
“Pick a topic, stick with it, and own the topic.” What does he mean? Common sense says he means don’t wander all over the place. Stay on topic. Any stuff you throw in on other topics or on life or blogging will just dilute the stuff that the customer is there to see. Learn everything about that topic so that you “own” it, dominating the competition. However, if you find you’ve picked the wrong topic, then obviously, start a new blog or change the one you’ve got.
Common sense would also add that your topic needs to be narrow enough so that there isn’t a universe of stuff you have to learn about it and broad enough so that there is a large segment of the population that it will interest.
I always like to take a look at how the person is making money in the present. For example, Robert Kiyosaki is making money from giving seminars, appearing on TV and selling books, not from real estate. Two of the guys mentioned above are making money from advising new bloggers. When the boom in new bloggers who think they can get rich from blogging ends, their customer base will shrink drastically while their competition will become greatr and greater.
Of course, you have to remember that these guys are totally focused on the blog that makes money and how to market that blog. I’ve ignored their advice completely, because I didn’t start blogging to make money, and because it doesn’t fit my nature.
Dot´s last blog post..Featured Readers
November 14th, 2008 at 11:07 am
While I thought Steve’s comments were the most valuable, I thought 90% of his statement was a grand pitch for his blog. In any case, I generally don’t follow blogs that post multiple 200 word articles. Perhaps I’m too verbose, but in order to go into any sort of depth, I think you need to use a lot of words. If you can express your topic in 200 words, then perhaps the topic isn’t deep enough to worth mentioning. Excellent post!
Steve C @ MyWifeQuitHerJob.com´s last blog post..How To Build Wealth By Spending Money Wisely
November 14th, 2008 at 11:27 am
I think partially it depends on writing skills, as well (true for blogs, magazines, books, etc.) Many writers are just too painful to read and I’d rather they just get to the point as quickly as possible (Kiyosaki springs to mind). Other writers are simply a pleasure to read and I don’t mind reading anything on any topic from them. One trick that many, many bloggers miss is realizing which one they are. I know bloggers who offer some valuable articles that bam-bam-bam offer up information and don’t wander. I know others who wander around, take thousands of words to reach the point and are still entertaining to read. But I know bloggers who take far too long to make points, and others who should stretch out their content even further because it’s interesting to read.
It’s a tough balance, and you’re right that we are increasingly conditioned to rush through information. It may not be a bad thing, really – it may just be “the ways things are.” Headline scanning, channel flipping and Twitter don’t make that information worse, just faster. People who love the art of the written word will always be there, but they will be reading an increasingly tiny percentage of “new media.”
Steve’s a good case of someone who teeters on the edge of good writing and often slips into overkill, but in general I agree that he’s a lot more informative than many, many writers out there. Great post!
Steve´s last blog post..what desperation looks like
November 14th, 2008 at 11:44 am
Hi Hunter – Write for people, not search engines is so misleading. It makes me want to scream when folk say it. The search engines are looking for relevancy. If you’re writing about fried green tomatoes – you’d need to mention them a few times for them to be relevant to people and search engines, or nobody would know what you were talking about.
November 14th, 2008 at 1:07 pm
I was just thinking about optimal blog post length, so this is so timely. (Don’t you know I can just attract what I need to read?)
I think Anita Campbell once said the typical optimal blog length is 800 words. Reading on the computer screen is hard on the eye, and our attention is short. But I find many bloggers (especially personal development bloggers?) write far longer posts.
I like what Steve (Brip Blap) says. It’s related to the personality and writing style. I love Seth Godin. Short and sweet. I also like Naomi and your blog.
Now my question is: Which type am I? The hardest thing to know is myself. . .
Akemi – Yes to Me´s last blog post..Gratitude For Time For Myself , Gratitude Friday, Edition 17
November 14th, 2008 at 1:28 pm
Totally my feelings!!!
I do both long and short posts – when I write longer ones but still want to make all kinds of people get something from the post, I try to make it an easy read – although that is probably totally against the philosophy of the post (as in, there is no way the message can be captured in a few bullet points …)
I like long powerful posts though – but in my case they take forever to write
thinkmaya´s last blog post..Are you a storyteller? What is your story?
November 14th, 2008 at 1:48 pm
The length of my posts goes from anything around 400 to 1200 words. Unless I made it to be a featured article and write in excess of over 2000+ words like the one over here:
10 Things: Absolute Coolness That You Can Believe In To Make Your Blog Super Awesome!
Your’s is a good rant. Haha. I might wanna try coming up with one sentence posts shortly.
Daniel Richard´s last blog post..My Goal Is To Create A Totally Awesome Blog Without An About Me Page!
November 14th, 2008 at 5:20 pm
Hi Hunter: I watched the video you refer to when Problogger first published it and I thought the same thing you did: only Steve Pavlina took the time to really give viewers something concrete. I didn’t stop to read the comments but I’m amazed at the ones you highlight here. My blog posts are usually over a 1000 words long, so I guess I cater to the non-microwave audience
Marelisa´s last blog post..Six Ways to Do Less and Achieve More
November 14th, 2008 at 8:18 pm
Recently, I’m back to experimenting with shorter posts. It’s difficult to quantify actual results but my gut feel is that it does not matter even if the post is shorter. What matters most is if the post is creating an impact and a hit with the audience.
So now I write a mix of both; some long and some short. The longer ones are obviously meant to educate. However, knowing that each post need not be a lengthy thesis helps as I’ve become busier recently with trying to learn other healing modalities. With shorter posts, I also tend to go with more jokes. Publishing humor is tricky but I find that I need that little sparks of laughter while I surf the web and I’m assuming that my readers will want the same too!
Evelyn Lim´s last blog post..My Vision Board Tops Amazon’s Bestseller List?
November 14th, 2008 at 9:13 pm
I’m kind of reaching the saturation point of taking in the advice of us all these experts.
It’s remind me of that old lawyer joke… “What do you call 500 blogging experts at the bottom of the ocean? A good start..”
Some of these guys (and gals) seem bright, and some even have a sense of humor. But as a group, they don’t measure up to the professor whose generous name drop of your blog led me here.
re. Blogs should be of one subject… I understand what they mean. Maybe it’s a fine rule for Blogs but not necessarily for bloggers.
Myself, I just merged my 3 blogs into one. Blogger.com now has an export and import feature for posts. I had tried to separate my posts by making separate blogs, but it is too hard to juggle. One blog (to manage) is enough for anyone. Audiences find posts via keyword searches, Technorati, tags.. not by Blog name.
I like what Dot had to say. How are people making their money? Hunter, you mentioned multi-level marketing earlier as distinct from blogging for money. Could not someone argue that all these How to get Rich blogs / eBooks resemble a pyramid scheme?
Which of your posts do you enjoy writing, Hunter:: stuff such as the Myers-Briggs trial, or promotions for how-to-get-rich eBooks? I prefer your personal reflections and experiences.
Matt H´s last blog post..Talking Richard Wagoner Blues
November 14th, 2008 at 9:46 pm
I think that Andy meant that you need consistency to win. It is a rare quality to posess, but extremely important. I have struggled with consistency alot in my career, but now I feel like I am being consistent, and my personal success is increasing in direct relation to my consistency. One of my favorite quotes is:
Success is a result of consistant and persistant action in a single direction.
Conrad Hees´s last blog post..WTF Happened to Please and Thank You?
November 15th, 2008 at 1:29 am
@ Ari, I remember Mad Libs. I guess I had them in the mid 80s. In “The Office,” Angela came up with this one by supplying boring words:
“The tall man entered the nice building to visit a very nice man. Sit down Mr. Smith, could I interest you in any good cat food?”
It’s a lot better when you pick good words!
@ Betsy, now that WordPress displays the word count, I find myself keeping an eye on it, but just for curiosity, not because I depend on it to tell me when I’m done. Sometimes it takes me many words to say stuff too!
@ Michael, very good point, there’s a difference between hearing something and really getting it.
@ Richard, I might have guessed you were a Pavlina fan from your CommentLuv snippet mentioning a 30-day trial. He’s definitely in depth. Some people like it and some don’t, but for the ones who do, he doesn’t disappoint.
@ Dot, I agree that wandering all over the place is bad. It seems kind of obvious now, but back when Darren Rowse started, he didn’t have the benefit of being able to follow in someone’s footsteps. He combined blogging, photography, religion, and more on one blog, and found that it was much better to separate them!
On the other hand, is Andy saying that Steve Pavlina can’t blog about something as broad as personal development, that he should stick to a specific topic like raw foods? I don’t know if that’s what he means, but for me, I know that I couldn’t stick to any one narrow topic.
@ Steve C, I guess Steve’s comments were pitching his blog, but I didn’t see that as inappropriate since he was on topic. Depth usually means lots of words, definitely. Sometimes I’ll write about something that’s not very deep, but that’s not my usual preference.
@ Steve (Brip Blap), I agree that some people are made for short posts and some are made for long posts. I actually think Seth Godin’s short posts are better than his longer ones. The way things are, huh? I’ve never flipped channels, so maybe I won’t like this direction we’re heading in.
@ Cath, I guess it is misleading. What you’ve described there, is perfectly fine, and I don’t think that’s what people mean by “writing for search engines.” However, feel free to scream if you like!
@ Akemi, that’s a great power to be able to attract posts! I guess you can attract your answer about what kind of writer you are. How do you react to hearing that 800 words is the optimal length? Could you stick to that length, or would it interfere with expressing your thoughts?
@ thinkmaya, I’ve noticed that posts take much longer to write as they get longer, so it’s not just you. I think making longer posts easier to read is a good idea, and you can do that with some simple formatting.
@ Daniel, I have a range for mine too. I never know what the word count will be until I write it!
@ Marelisa, there were some pro-Steve comments too, but it was the negative ones that really caught my attention. Yes, your posts are non-microwave, but that’s who you want to target anyway, right?
@ Evelyn, I agree that the impact of the post is what matters most. I think having some shorter posts is a good way to free up more time to learn stuff, and you have some great jokes!
@ Matt,
“Could not someone argue that all these How to get Rich blogs / eBooks resemble a pyramid scheme?”
I think the desire for easy money is common among most of the people who get involved with making money online and those who join pyramid schemes. In fact, most people who try to make money from anything other than a job tend to expect big money for little effort.
I had compared multi-level marketing to affiliate programs before. They’re very similar. And what makes them legitimate and not pyramid schemes is that there’s a real product being sold at a fair price. If there was an ebook about making money from blogging that was worth $20, but it sold for $1000, and the idea was that you need to get a bunch of people to overpay for it in order to get all these affiliate commissions, then I think that would be very similar to a pyramid scheme.
“Which of your posts do you enjoy writing, Hunter:: stuff such as the Myers-Briggs trial, or promotions for how-to-get-rich eBooks? I prefer your personal reflections and experiences.”
I don’t think I’ve ever promoted a how-to-get-rich ebook, at least not as I understand that expression. A “how-to-get-rich ebook” sounds like it promotes unrealistic expectations of big money for little effort, and that it doesn’t provide quality information. I wouldn’t promote something like that, but I do promote helpful ebooks, and I like writing both kinds of posts.
@ Conrad, I hadn’t considered that, but now that I think about it, that could be what he meant. Consistency is critical because everything worth achieving takes way longer than we want it to.
November 15th, 2008 at 11:31 am
Love the rant, Hunter.
Both long and short work for me providing the content is interesting and well expressed. Both take talent and effort to be effective. Something that is too short and leaves out the ‘meat’ or something is too long and it takes effort to find the ‘meat’ are equally frustrating. It takes some doing to know where to draw the line…or extend it.
Laurie | Express Yourself to Success´s last blog post..Kiwi!
November 15th, 2008 at 11:33 pm
Hi Hunter. I try to keep my posts as short as possible but they usually end up running an average of 600 words. My last one was way over 1,000 and I spent some time editing it to cut out what I could allow myself to let go of. It was a challenge, but I ended up keeping it under 1,000 words. Considering there are a few points I was trying to make, and some history I had to give, I think 1,000 words is great.
I think it depends on the subject of the post as opposed to the length. Some posts really catch my attention and I don’t even notice how long they are. It also depends on how busy I am that day, how many other blogs I’ve read that day and the length of their posts. Sometimes I’ll read a longer post, but because I’m short on time I won’t comment.
Davina´s last blog post..Video — Preparation Inspires Self-Confidence
November 16th, 2008 at 1:30 pm
I have always had a problem with this. My mind is divided into two sections: science and art. The science part of my mind tells me to write lengthy posts which describe everything in detail (that’s what made me major in education)…the art side says condense everything into the least amount of beautiful words that make sense. An example of this way of thinking is onesentence.org, which is lovely.
November 16th, 2008 at 9:41 pm
@ Laurie, I sometimes find myself thinking that a particular post I read needed to be longer or shorter. I wonder how often two people will have different opinions for the same post.
@ Davina, at Pick the Brain, the minimum post length is 600 words. I don’t know why they picked that number; I guess they think it works for the topic. It could be that you really need 600 words for your posts. When I write a long post, I try to wait a while before posting again, since I know people are busy. And I often decide not to leave a comment in order to save time when reading.
@ Jen, it must be tough to be conflicted about this. What do your readers seem to like, short posts or long ones?
November 17th, 2008 at 2:08 pm
I agree–people are getting ridiculous. I can also believe that college stat (unfortunately). The problem with a lot of college is that it’s now just a money game: sure I value the education I’m getting, but I’m so completely bogged down with gen eds that I can’t focus on the important stuff. As a result, I’m forced to skim my gen ed readings for key words, highlight them, and hope that the tests don’t involve critical thinking.
Luckily, classes in my major MAKE me analyze, but I wonder about the kids with other majors who just have to regurgitate information. I wonder what the college experience is doing to their attention spans, if mine is so affected. By the time they’re out of college, they’ve probably forgotten the importance of actually _reading_. Not skimming, but _reading_. If I weren’t forced to analyze literature, I probably wouldn’t have the attention span for this blog post either!
On the upside, those people who don’t have the patience to read make the rest of us look like geniuses.
November 17th, 2008 at 3:56 pm
@ RL,
“On the upside, those people who don’t have the patience to read make the rest of us look like geniuses.”
LOL. Well, I guess that’s an upside! And I guess it must be impossible to skim if you have to analyze literature. I didn’t have to, so I didn’t read much in college. Probably a lot of people are in that boat.
November 21st, 2008 at 11:05 pm
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