A Strange Fact About Blogs

It appears that longer blog posts get more readers, and shorter comments get more readers.

This is rather odd, and I'm still not quite sure I believe it. These "factoids" seem to exhibit characteristics of the echo chamber—that is, of people simply repeating information that is common and widespread on the web, thereby reinforcing what doesn't deserve to be reinforced.

Posts
Various studies (a number of them quite old now—I looked into this years ago) have prescribed lengths of 1,500 all the way up to 3,000 words as optimal for a blog post; a generally recommended target is in the 2,000–2,500-word range.

That seems long to me, but I've made an effort to "write longer" for years now. (Because if that's what the customers want....) However, yesterday's post was only 390 words; "A Most Honorable Photographer" was ~640 (a bit of formatting messed up the exact count); and "Football Today" was ~1,800 words. I sometimes say, "I do go on," and you might think me rather long-winded yourself, but I have my work cut out to reach 2,500 words. Which I believe I do only rarely.

Comments
I had trouble yesterday picking Featured Comments, because so many of the comments were so good. I don't think I would like to deprive myself of some of the longer comments, such as Zyni's (382 words) or Jordi P.'s (617 words), both of which I liked. I wouldn't want to discourage anyone from saying everything they want to say. Knowing that long comments sometimes cause a tl;dr ("too long, didn't read") response, though, I'm reluctant to feature too many long comments. But sometimes I do anyway. To mix things up if nothing else. However, it appears that the most-read comments are in the 100–300-word range. As a general rule, if you "think succinct" (as a onetime writing teacher of mine used to say), your views might get more of a hearing.

As for me and my end, maybe I just need to pick bigger subjects. But that's all for this one—even though this is only 350 words.

Mike

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Featured Comments from:

Comments

[JD]

As Blaise Pascal said (approximately, in translation), “ I have made this [letter] longer than usual because I have not had time to make it shorter.”
Shorter is fine if you have said what you wanted to say.

[Lisa S. Gorrell]

The length doesn't matter as long as the story is interesting. But it reminds me of college days and blue book tests. It seemed students got better grades if the blue book was filled up. I always had a hard time filling it up. I said what needed and that was that. (My own blog posts are short, too).

[Patrick Medd]

It is just possible that more people who read this blog are interested in photography than are interested in football, hence more comments on an interesting question in contemporary photography like ‘why shoot colour film in 2024’. This comment is now 52 words, so fewer than optimal to get featured I’m afraid!

[Jeff]

Thanks

[Simon]

I think some topics 'deserve' a longer article while others can be covered adequately in fewer words.

I'm a fan of brevity so would not thank someone for writing to a word count but equally would not want them to skimp on explanation of a point because it "it looks too long".

I appreciate your effort with Featured Comments as, while other comments can be very interesting, I often find the ones you highlight to be sufficient; but if the topic piques my interest I will scroll through all comments in order to see what else was said.

I try not to visit every day but dip in a couple of times a week in order to see the breadth of comments (and your responses).

That's 125 words, so more than enough from me!

[James Bullard]

A 1500-2500 word blog post is in the TLDR range. Most blog posts are not sufficiently interesting or insightful to hold my attention that long nor do I write posts that long. It feels like 'padding' to me. Say what you have to say, spit it out, and don't dance around the bushes in an effort to write longer posts.

[Dan]

Brvty=wit

[Jez Cunningham]

Like.

[Anton Wilhelm Stolzing]

Emperor Joseph II to Mozart on, I think, it was Le Nozze di Figaro: “Too beautiful for our ears, my dear Mozart, and an awful lot of notes.” To which Mozart replied: “Exactly as many as are necessary, Your Majesty.”
We might conclude: Just use as many words as are necessary, and you will be fine. After all, Mozart's operas still are eminent successes, or even the biggest successes nowadays.