Blog Posts: Longer or Shorter?
Which do you prefer in blogging posts? As a blogger, it really depends on the topic and the mood which I am in. There is no real prescribed number of words in a blog post but it would be wonderful if you know your limit.
As I mentioned, I prefer either one in blogging but of course there is a limit which I prefer to practice in every blog post. Just posting one to two sentences is not my practice or even going beyond 500 words. If ever I have a post like that, I divide it into sub-posts. Anyway, here are some of my blogging styles which I practice and I’ve observed in the blogging world:
a. The Explaining blog post - Blogs are very open to bullet points when explaining. The paragraph style does work for some posts but more often than not, readers are often “drowning” if they see lots of words in a blog entry. Keeping it simple and concise would actually do the trick.
b. Full of emotions blog entry - Emotions play a big part in every blog entry hence there are times where we are really feeling what we are writing. There is nothing wrong with this approach especially if that would be a personal blog but if this would be a niche blogging, well you better think again.
c. The “excerpt” blog post - This is the kind of blog post where you feature certain sentences from an article or another blog and incorporate your own opinion about it. This is okay as long as you don’t copy the whole thing and of course include the link/url in your blog entry.
These are just some of my techniques in determining if I would be doing a short yet concise blog post or a long entry which could be divided into different sub-entries.
What do you prefer when writing a blog entry? 
Patrick Curl @ There's a Blog in my Soup | April 7th, 2008 at 7:19 pm #
I can’t say I prefer any of the types, I use each one on my blog - when trying to create linkbaitable posts, I of course use the first option, with pictures, bullets and the whole nine-yards.
The second option is good when I’m just feeling the need to rant, or I’m having writers block, and still want to make sure to get a post out for the day.
The third option I use a lot to link out to blog posts, in order to get pingbacks / trackbacks, as well as share some quick interesting info from the blogs that I subscribe to in my reader…
Louis Liem | April 9th, 2008 at 2:08 am #
Whan I do tutorials, I tend to use a bulleted style post and some graphics. When it comes to a review or personal opinions, I mixed short paragraphs, pictures and excerpts.
I also read them myself before and a few days after the publishing. This way I can spot some mistake and improve them for the next posts.