Does Size Matter?

Last week I took some time to explore Google Analytics in further details and learnt a lot about my blog and its readers. First I was surprised by the number of unique visitors, which exceeds the class size by far.. and 600+ page views. Guinea Pig is very grateful for its loyal readers!

Well, in one day Guinea Pig published a long post (although it's difficult for him to type as you may see in the profile picture) and put a very popular Youtube Video. The result? 24 new unique visitors, 56 page views with a record time on site of 10:27. So, the million dollar question is: Did it happen because of the video or the larger post?

A consultant would say "It depends" and actually he will be right. There is no "one-size-fits-all" for blog posts' size and from what I 've been reading online, it will depend a lot on the type of blog, content, readers expectations and so on.

Some hugely popular blogs post 1500 words less often while equally popular blogs post several 200-300 word posts in a day. It’s about matching the content/reader/writer in a way that works. In fact some blogs are wildly successful with 150-word posts [negotiable?]. Again, sometimes, less is more.

Conversely, long posts (over 1000 words) should be used sparingly and formatted carefully. It’s proven fact that it’s hard on the human eye to read long articles online. Contrast on a computer screen is lower than for print pages. Your eyes get tired faster. It’s harder to concentrate. Long expanses of text should be broken up with short paragraphs, bullet points and images

In the end, some blogs' size will not matter at all! Value in these blogs comes in all shapes and sizes, but only in 3 flavors:

• Massively informative
• Hugely entertaining
• Deeply insightful/inspirational or provocative

Week 5 notes soon available.

Should I finish the post with a question to boost comments or a video? The video answers our question....