Have you noticed a trend toward longer blog posts?
As the blogosphere evolves, the quality of blogs improves and the effort put into
individual posts increases.
Perhaps it’s due to bloggers competing for reader’s attention, tweets and links. Perhaps it’s an effort to please Google with a longer time on page.
Whatever it is… top bloggers are spending longer crafting their posts.
Neil dispels the myths that either short
or long form are the only way to go and he shuts down the notion that people online don't actually read content.
It’s a great article backed by data that shows this trend isn’t new. But I’ve noticed (and perhaps you have too) that bloggers I follow are starting to write longer posts than they used
to.
There Are Exceptions Of Course
Neil points out that not everyone should follow the same rules. A perfect example
of a brilliant leader who does things his own way is Seth Godin.
As we all know Seth is a genius and he doles out little nuggets of wisdom in short blog posts… that never have
images.
Seth is a best-selling author, a thought leader and basically a guru who everyone will always follow. He can shun Twitter and never put a photo in a blog post, but that doesn’t mean we should.
Different methods work for different people and different audiences. If you’ve found a formula that works for you, then stick with it.
I often think of how Chris Brogan say he spends about 20
minutes on a blog post. I am always shocked by that… Chris is incredibly smart and can write FAST. Again, he is a leader in our industry, but I don’t think we should try to write like him.
“You can’t blog like me. It takes me 20 minutes to write a post that might take you a week. But you COULD learn to blog like you. And then it might take you 20 minutes.”
Well… I don’t think many bloggers will create rockstar posts in just 20 minutes, but I do agree that we need to learn to blog with our own style.
So while, Seth and Chris may be examples of top bloggers who often write short posts, there are many examples of bloggers spending huge amounts of time per blog post.
Rocking Long Form Blog Content
For an extreme example, look at Brian Dean of BackLinko. I've heard him say in an interview that he often spends 20 hours on a post. Visit his site and you'll see why. His content is phenomenal.
Another fabulous writer who invests time in each post and headline is Jon Morrow.
