Last week I introduced my new series called “Ask Mavis”… I must say, I was quite disappointed and surprised by the response I got – well  no questions at all.
I was looking forward to having a chat with you and it turned out that you didn’t have things to talk about.
One of the keys to successful blogging is to build a community – a place where like-minded individuals hang around, share ideas and express their opinion.
Bloggers can encourage activity on their blogs by replying to comments and emails and by asking their readers questions.
That is exactly what I want to achieve with my blog – I would like to interact with my readers more, hence I have created this new series, “Ask Mavis”.
Your involvement would be greatly appreciated 
So, I’m looking forward to your questions or any blog post ideas that you would like me to write about.
Now, this week, I have a question to throw at you:
How Long Should Your Blog Posts Be?
Here is my take on this topic…
I know that it’s often said that you should write 300-500 words for your blog posts, but I’m of the opinion that the length of your blog posts doesn’t really matter. What’s important is the actual content.
This depends on your personality, niche and style of writing. If you love writing, then your posts are likely to be long. If your topics need to be delivered in a lengthy manner then your posts will be long.
The key is to deliver value and make your posts interesting especially if they are very loooong. The last thing that you want to do is to bore your readers to death.
A good way to keep your readers glued to your long posts, is to spruce up your content – use images, graphs, infographics, formatting, sub-headings, bullet-points etc. Long paragraphs are likely to put your readers off – they are not appealing to the eye!
If you have been following me for a while, you would know that most of my posts are super long. Why? I like sharing detailed information on most topics. Good or bad?
Well, my long posts are the ones which attract more traffic and comments and get shared more than the short ones. My longest and most popular post I have ever written was 4260 words and it got 101 Facebook shares! Funny that – 101 shares for a 101 tips post! 
Be sure to check it out here if you haven’t already done so: 101 Surefire Ways To Attract Targeted and Endless Prospects.
And my other long posts are also getting respectable comments and shares.
So, I can safely say that the length of your posts doesn’t really matter, as long as your content is enlightening, entertaining and engaging!
However, a post of 150 words with no video, no podcast, no tutorials, no link to another post, will just not cut it.
I also think it’s cool to have a balance between short and long posts.
I’m done now – I don’t want to make this post long. What’s your opinion? Let’s get this discussion going below…
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Mavis Nong is the creator and author of this blog.
She is passionate about helping others create success online.
{ 37 comments… read them below or add one }
It is very interesting to use images in your text and I think we can make our contents more valuable if we use heading ,bullets and different fonts.
I couldn’t agree with you more, Basam.
Mavis, I think you hit the nail on the head. The content is definitely key. I like to write, however I have a bad habit of repeating myself in a different way each time, so personally I do better with a post about 800 words and have to read it a few times to see if it does the trick in my own mind.
I have read some of your longer posts and noticed you definitely have the knack of pulling it together to keep me reading.
Now for a question to ‘Ask Mavis”… how do you get the handwritten signature below your posts? Thanks
Jayne
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Hey Jayne,
Adding signature isn’t a hard thing. It’s very simple, just get a signature image and add it to your theme file
.
~Dev
Devesh invites you to check..Not Getting Comments to Your Blog Here are Some Things to Do!
Thanks, Dev. I used http://www.mylivesignature.com/ for mine.
Thanks for the encouragement, Jayne. I believe your question has been answered
All the best,
Mavis
Very Interesting Post Mavis. Love the new series ‘Ask Mavis’.
300-400 words posts do well but 1000+ words articles are much better.
One of the awesome blogger who write long posts is Glen Allsop. His every sinlge article get 100+ comments and good shares on social media sites.
Anyways, Thanks for sharing this great post mavis.
~Dev
Devesh invites you to check..Not Getting Comments to Your Blog Here are Some Things to Do!
Thanks, Dev. Long posts are great if they are educational and engaging.
I appreciate your visit and comment.
All the best,
Mavis
Mavis,
I agree with you. When I got started that was something I read somewhere and I think it stunted my growth a bit as a writer it did not feel natural most of the times, trying to write everything under 500 words or less.
It’s basically communication and we all communicate differently. I’ve just recently started to just let my writing flow and it seems it’s well received so far.
Thanks for sharing,
Roger
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That’s true – it’s about what you’re comfortable with and what your readers like. Keeping it all natural is the way to go!
I appreciate your visit and comment, Roger.
All the best,
Mavis
Hey Mavis,
Interesting post you have here:)You’re right,if love to write for sure you’ll overcome 500 words.It’s important to give your best in the blogpost,something valuable that can make a real difference.
Thanks for sharing:)
Thank you, Radu. It’s all about the quality of your content rather than the number of words
I appreciate your visit and comment.
All the best,
Mavis
Hi Mavis,
glad that you face the issue squarely and that you don’t try to sweep it under the rug. You asked a question, nobody responded – and you follow through like a true leader, despite a little bit of disappointment. Awesome.
I fully agree that the length of a blog post shouldn’t be an issue – it’s the value we deliver. The value of a post isn’t necessarily related to its length, especially when we include video.
For some reason, I tend to write rather lenghthy blog posts…
Thanks for sharing your insights.
Take care
Oliver
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Thanks for the encouragement, Oliver
I enjoyed reading your posts – my source of inspiration!
I appreciate your visit and input.
All the best,
Mavis
I believe you’re just an exception when you get more traffic and comments from long posts. It’s probably the way you write, i don’t know for sure. But people tire and lose patience fast, i can’t imagine someone would ever completely read a 4260 words article unless they’re specifically looking for that unique information they can’t find anywhere else.
For example, i’d read a movie review if i’m interested in a certain movie, but i won’t read any random review i see on a blog just because i visit that blog 2-3 times a day. If it has 2-300 words, ok, why not try and see what that’s about, but if i have to scroll 3 pages down…
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Hi Mavis,
I agree that the length of the post doesn’t matter as much as the content. If the post is something I’ve read a number of times, I probably will skim it and go on. That’s not to say these posts are not good. For many people, it will be something they need to read, and it doesn’t matter how long or short it is. I’d like to see that superlong post of yours that you mentioned. Must have been a great one. Thanks for sharing the link to the signature site. I’ll definitely have a look at it.
Lou Barba
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Hi Lou,
If content is interesting, people will keep reading.
Let me know what you thought of my superlong post
Thanks for the visit and comment.
All the best,
Mavis
Hi Mavis,
Most of the people online suffer from “ADHD”
and actually scan rather than read.
I totally agree with your point that length
is no issue if the content is delivered in
small bite size chunks that are more tailored
for our tired scanning eyes.
But more words make for more content make for more value…?
Plus, good copy-writing skills with awesome
content will always make a post that will
blow away the readers…like you do well!
~Robert
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Hi Robert,
Awesome content always blows readers away regardless of the length.
Thanks for the visit and encouragement.
All the best,
Mavis
I totally agree with you here Mavis. Most of my blog posts are the average 300-500 words and just for fun I wanted to see if I could get more traffic with longer more informative blog posts. Well to be honest I didn’t really see much of a difference.
So in conclusion I think it is all about your content and making your blog posts “pretty” so people will want to keep reading.
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I couldn’t agree with you more, Erin. It’s all about your content.
Thanks for dropping in and for sharing your experience.
All the best,
Mavis
Although I make sure that my posts are atleast 350 words long, if I find them interesting to read, I normally do not care about the length. My basic rule of the length is that if the reading of post satisfies me, it will satisfy the majority. Of course, you can not satisfy everyone ever.
Thanks for the share Mavis
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That’s true, Tushar. People have different preferences
All the best,
Mavis
I totally agree with you Mavis when you say that it doesn’t matter the length of the content as long as it’s interesting. I know with myself if I find the post interesting I will read it all the way through, but if I find it boring I might speed read through it.
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Hi Maketta! Welcome to my blog!
That’s true, if the content is interesting and value-packed it will be popular regardless of the length.
Thanks for the visit and comment. Hope to see more of you here, Maketta.
All the best,
Mavis
OMG Mavis,your longest post contains 4260 words?I’m going to search for it and read it.Sure it will be interesting
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I’m sure you’ll like it, Wan
Welcome to my blog!
All the best,
Mavis
This is something I’m puzzled about, too Mavis. My latest post is around 1,000 words and has only a few reactions so far. I did wonder if it was too long so for the follow up I will write a shorter post and see what happens.
Usually I stick to around 500 words.
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Let us know how the shorter post turns out, Linda
All the best,
Mavis
Hi Mavis,
I don’t really care how long a post is as long as it holds my interest.
Your posts for example might be long but they are interesting and useful. I think that’s what people want.
Of course it can depend on the post. Posts that are delivering news or a notification of some kind can be short but it doesn’t mean it’s any less effective. You might not get as many comments but are comments really that important ‘every’ time.
I do think that writing conversationally makes a difference. Writing textbook style tends to lose people. Writing with personality, humor and a little ‘attitude’ will hold interest a lot longer.
Thanks Mavis,
Liz
Hi Liz,
Everyone seems to agree that content is what matters – as long as it’s interesting and informative, people will keep reading.
I agree, writing as you speak makes a difference. Reflecting your personality and voice in your writing is the way to go,
Thanks for stopping by and for adding value to this discussion.
All the best,
Mavis
I have a WordPress blog and what I need is to rotate my blog posts over and over with a preset time interval. And also I’d like to shuffle my posts. Would RSS feeds pick up the rotated blog posts as new ones? Does someone have this PHP code? Thanks…….
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I’m not sure if I understand your question, Ecommerce…
1. I think you’re talking about rotating your blog posts, something
like slider or featured posts?
2. To create a rotating post in rss feeds, you can use this php code.
http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=7354#post77379
Let me know if this is what you’re looking for or not.
Welcome to my blog!
All the best,
Mavis
thanks Mavis.
i agree ,the important thing for being a successful blogger is to create a place where like-minded individuals hang around, share ideas and express their opinion.thanks for your this stunning post
You’re welcome, Bilal. See you there on Wednesday!
Mavis
Hi Mavis,
I agree that the length of one’s posts does not matter.
What matters more is what is contained in the posts.
If you can impart value in very few words, then I think this is a great skill to have because it is true that people don’t have time to read 100 long posts in a day. Sometimes however a longer post is warranted as you explain above.
Personally I would like to be able to master writing shorter posts to save me time and others but it is not something I am particularly good at yet!
~Marcus
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True, Marcus. Your content will determine the length of your posts.
I always enjoy reading your posts, value-packed!
Thanks for coming by and for leaving a comment.
All the best,
Mavis
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