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Should your content be short, long, or somewhere in between? A senior editorial manager at the Content Marketing Institute says that it matters if it helps your readers.
What is the optimal word count for content? You may be asking this question as you strive for perfection in your content strategy.
Kim Moutsos, vice president of editorial staff at the Content Marketing Institute (CMI), says that’s the wrong question. Your strategy for creating strong content shouldn’t focus on word count. The better question is how effective are they?
“The point is not that you should say this has to be shorter or it has to be long,” she says. “It has to be convincing. And if you do it convincingly, then just do it for as long as it has to be to help someone do what you want. “
Kim Moutsos says there can be significant value in presenting different types of content in different formats – for example, breaking a whitepaper into smaller blog posts or social elements, or shorter content in a larger resource like an e-book. However, she warns that dividing content should not come at the expense of reader benefit. “You don’t want to frustrate users, either,” she says. “Imagine a slide show – how irritating are those slide shows where you just want the answer and you have to wait for something to load?”
A reader-centric mindset
Moutsos says writers and editors should consider the needs of the audience and consider how detailed the readers want to be.
“Are you in the phase where ‘OK, I understand this concept at a high level; now I want to understand the bowels “She says.” Give them what they want. Create the content and path so people can end up where they need to be. “
While it may be common to find a recommended length for articles that go well with search engines – a length that varies by subject – Moutsos says that the reason these articles rank high is because of their usefulness to the community Reader lies.
“It’s not the word count that makes them rank high. They rank high because they thoroughly covered the topic for anyone who looked for and landed on this page, ”she says. “You treated it thoroughly in a way that will be useful to the reader.”
While usefulness, not length, is a critical success factor, the usefulness of your platform may not be the same as everyone else’s. In 2019, CMI analyzed its content versus the previous calendar year to test a claim by SEO training company Backlinko that longer content performed better in search and social terms.
While CMI’s longer content performed slightly better on search, social media was inconclusive. The key is to test your own site’s data.
“Your audience’s makeup and behavior is different from each of our segments. No audience is the same, ”wrote Moutsos in her analysis.
Write (and edit) more efficiently
Still, it is important to write with a focus on efficiency and clarity for both the reader and the editors to ensure that the content meets these standards. Often times, a focus on clarity leads to shorter content, even though word count is not the goal. (Many editors encourage their writers to edit and shorten unnecessary words themselves as part of the writing process – for example, this reporter’s editors.)
Moutsos recommends using tools like the Hemingway app to understand how to improve your writing. As an algorithmic tool, it’s not perfect, but Moutsos says it can help you identify areas for improvement.
“I found out where it showed me that I had very verbose, complex sentences,” she says. “It made me think about simpler and clearer spelling and I almost always found something that I thought was better.”
What tips do you have for creating more efficient and effective content? Share them in the comments section below.
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