Netsense Intelligence

Well, it took a bit of time but I was finally able to get Part 4 of this 5 part series on winning the battle for visitor superiority posted. To recap, we’ve covered the article title, the article summary and the article keywords. In this section I will begin to cover the actual content contained within the article body itself. I expect that this section will be covered over several postings with today being the first.

When it comes to crafting a quality article that will keep your reader engaged there are a few general rules I like to follow:

1 – You need to make sure that your article content matches the title of your article or provides the information that is promised in your article title. This is something that Ezinearticles.com and many other directories take rather seriously with EZA being the toughest enforcer of this general rule of thumb.

2 – You need to make sure your article matches the mood of your article title. If you recall, we talked about several different article titles in Part 1 of this series. They included the “How To”, the “Numbered Sequence”, the “Panning for Gold”, the “Shock and Awe”, the “Do You Know What I Know”, the “WTF” and the “in Your Face’ article titles.

So with that many different flavors for a title to choose from it would only make sense that you craft your article around the specific title version you have selected for your article. This is extremely important because a “Shock and Awe” article will not work with a “How To” titled article and it stands to reason that a “WTF” titled article will be a complete letdown for the reader if the article is a mundane article with little to know excitement or shock value contained in the article body.

3 – Article length is another subject that comes up quite often and depending on which author or article marketer you listen to there will be a few minor differences in their suggested length. For me personally, I like to stick within these parameters: a minimum word count of 350 words and a maximum count of about 500 words. I use these minimum and maximum word counts as a guide so there is always a possibility I may go over 500 words but rarely do I ever drop below 350 words.

I’ve recently noticed that many authors are now knocking out articles at an alarming rate with the articles having just above 250 words. Although shorter articles are quicker and perhaps easier to write I personally don’t believe this is a good practice to start following. Many of the shorter articles that I have seen barely began to provide any information that would have led me to want to click on the resource box to the author’s website.

Speaking of resource boxes, I was recently asked the question of whether or not I felt that writing a short 250 word article combined with a 300 word resource box was a good idea. My response was that I felt it was a bad idea and that this was something I would avoid doing for several reasons:

1 – 250 words barely allows you the opportunity to get your keyword phrase in the article along with any additional complementing keywords.

2 – How much can really be said in a 250 word article that will keep the reader engaged to read the resource box?

3 – Most people can barely create a compelling resource box that will get a click through to their website. Adding additional words will only make this process worse instead of actually helping the author.

4 – Ezinearticles.com won’t allow it. Here is what they have to say in their own words on the EZA website – “We would like to help you get this article approved but there is an issue which needs to be resolved first. Your resource box is longer than we recommend. Please keep the size of your resource box so that it’s no larger than 15% of your total article size and resubmit it for Editorial Review”.

Based on that information above if your article is only 250 words then they will allow a resource box that is around 37 words long. On this particular point if anyone has a different view or insider knowledge that can provide more insight then please by all means share it with the group.

My reasoning behind avoiding articles that are longer than 500 words is based around the difficulty in writing a longer article, the expected ROI for your writing and the attention span of the average reader.

Let’s start with the difficulty in writing longer articles. First and foremost, you must understand that the longer your article is the more words you will need to draw upon from your vocabulary in order to make your article appealing to the reader in order to keep them engaged from the start of the article until the end of the article and start of your resource box.

How many times have you read in this very forum postings asking for advice on how to write an article or people sharing their frustrations at writing articles. There is no doubt in my mind that someone who is just getting started with article marketing will have a much easier time writing a shorter 350 – 500 word article when compared to attempting to write 700+ word articles on a daily basis. Now, with that said, as you become more proficient in writing and your skills and knowledge improve perhaps you may want to experiment with longer articles but until such time stick to writing shorter (but not to short) articles.

Another reason why I prefer to stick with shorter articles that are 350-500 words in length is because I personally feel I get more bang for my buck (better ROI) from smaller articles. Instead of writing one 700 word article and posting it to Ezinearticles.com why not write 2 articles that are 350 words in length and submit them to the article directories allowing you the opportunity for at a minimum double the exposure from the same number of words.

Additionally, you have the opportunity to use two completely different article titles (containing your selected keyword phrase) allowing you more opportunities to rank in the search engines. Trust me; nothing stinks more than writing a lengthy article only to see it bomb in the search engines because your title sucks!!

The main reason why I personally avoid writing and submitting longer articles is based on what I call the outside competition factor. What I mean by this is the fact that we are always in a constant struggle against outside forces for the attention of our readers.

For example, if a mother finds your 700 word article while conducting a search on the Internet and starts reading it but before she can finish her baby son or daughter starts crying chances are good she will click off your article and go take care of her child. On the other hand, if your article is only 350 words there is a much better chance (higher percentage) she will have finished your article and hopefully have clicked through the link in your resource box landing on your site before being called away by her child.

What other factors can interfere with someone trying to finish your article (remember you are competing for the reader’s attention against outside factors)? How about a phone call, someone coming home from work, the doorbell ringing, friends or visitors coming over, the dog needing to go out, the stove going off, the washing machine or dryer stopping…etc . All of these outside influences can derail your reader from making it to your website if they are stuck trying to read a long article.

Finally, you have what I have termed as the human nature factor (HNF) which becomes more apparent with longer articles. Generally most people are skimmers when it comes to reading. That is they skim from headline to headline, sub-heading to sub-heading and paragraph to paragraph.

By having a shorter article you give the reader the opportunity to quickly skim your article to see if it appeals to them and you almost force them into your resource box where you snag them into your funnel to your website. The HNF is minimized in this example, but when a longer article is found by the visitor the human nature factor kicks into high gear because when someone sees a long article generally what they really want to do is perform a very quick scan (quicker than with a shorter article) and ultimately decide that this article is not for them and depart to go find a shorter article that meets their needs.

Also, you have to realize that even while readers are using their eyes to scan and then focus on specific keyword phrases within your article chances are good that their hand is using the mouse to scroll down the article because it is prepping the brain and eyes to find the next keyword phrase of interest. For that reason I prefer they quickly find my resource box instead of several more paragraphs of information which could lose their interest.

Here is another idea I group in this human nature factor and it revolves around the law of diminishing returns. If you can buy one cheeseburger for $2 or buy 3 cheeseburgers for $5 than in most cases you will buy the 3 cheeseburgers because it seems like a good deal and it is, for the seller of the cheeseburgers.

Here’s why, the reality is the first cheeseburger will taste great, the second cheeseburger will taste ok and the third cheeseburger may not taste good at all because you may be full, feel bloated or be sick of cheeseburgers. In this case there is a strong probability that one cheeseburger may have hit the spot and you would have only spent $2 and I’m more than willing to bet that 2 cheeseburgers would definitely fill you up and only cost you $4.

In both cases you save money (either $3 or $1) and you’re not sick of cheeseburgers. Unfortunately, your brain felt that purchasing 3 cheeseburgers was the best thing to do because the overall cost of each individual cheeseburger is cheaper when you purchase 3 instead of 1 or 2 even though you really can’t stomach eating more then 1 or 2 cheeseburgers. So ultimately, you end up wasting money when you felt like you were being smart and saving money.

What does this have to do with article length? Plenty, why force feed your reader 7 paragraphs of information when you can accomplish your objective (getting them to your website) using 3 to 5 paragraphs – A crude example at best I know, but I think you get the picture.

I know that the mere subject of article length is sometimes a hotly debated issue and that many might disagree with my own interpretations so please remember these thoughts are based off what I have seen and experienced over the last few years with my own article marketing efforts.

I’ll close with a few more final thoughts regarding article length:

1 – Try and cover your topic in 350 – 500 words but if you feel you must go higher than that is a judgment call you will have to make and experiment with.

2 – No matter how long your article is nobody will read the second paragraph if the first paragraph stinks so make sure you provide quality content from start to finish.

3 – The whole point of your article is to give the reader a chance to click the link in your resource box – Shorter articles give them the opportunity to make the click at a higher rate than longer articles.

4 – Retention rate is everything, don’t take a chance of losing it with an article that is a novel and instead stick to a short story.

5 – And this may be the most important point in regards to article length. I look to see what the readers are telling us in terms of what they want. What I mean by this is take a few minutes to go visit Ezinearticles.com and click on the most viewed articles in the last 90 days in your niche and see how long the articles are. In most cases I find these articles (the most viewed in the last 90 days) to be between 350 – 500 words long. On the other hand, the most published articles tend to be longer in length, just some food for thought.

More to follow……

Thanks,
Tim