Web Surfers Read Less and Less
This Better Be Quick: I Read Less and Less
“The online experience seems to foster…impatience.” - Jakob Nielsen
Heard of the Nielsen Ratings for TV? Jakob studies the web too. He says people give you 4.4 seconds of attention for every hundred words on your page. Wow. Guess that’s a reason to cut your posts down to size. Or is it?
Many respected writers keep blogging until they finish their thoughts on a subject. I applaud them. Some of us don’t want to read a tidbit and tune in for the rest next time. We want the whole story now. Sure, I’ve asked readers to come back for more - but usually when the subject is too broad for one article.
Always write for people first, search engines second. Flattering Google usually gets you nowhere. When people love your site, Google takes notice.
On the other hand, it doesn’t hurt to put a few choice keywords in your article. It’s a great search engine attention getting strategy.
If you do this, though, you’ll need enough text on the page to go around. If you’ve stuffed 50 keywords into an article that’s only 75 words long, Google will see your article as fake and penalize you. Most recommend a minimum of 200 words. This is a rough rule of thumb.
Getting technical, it’s called theme density. Following Google’s rules means you shouldn’t use a single-word keyword more than 5% of the time. Want to rank for a particular phrase? People say not to use it more than about 2.5% of the time.
A low-tech way to figure this out: Open your document in Microsoft Word and from the Tools menu, choose “Word Count”. Once you’ve got the total number of words, use the find feature to count the keyword in question. If you used your keyword 5 times and you only have 100 words, that’s 20%. Oops! Replace that keyword a few places or lengthen your article.
Making long posts can sometimes be a great strategy (see 101 Link Building Tips to Market Your Website).
Aaron says to build a “101 list”. People often see it as an authority document they just can’t resist linking to. Sure, it takes effort to find 101 good points about a subject. Do a good job, and you’ll probably get the link love you want.
Well, I guess you and I have used up our 18 seconds of quality time together for today. Hope you’ve learned something valuable.
1 Comment »
RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI
[...] you’ve attracted a reader. Fact: you won’t keep their attention very long. Bold some text and make some subheadings. Do you have more than 15 minutes? Go find the perfect [...]