Should An Article Have A Certain Number Of Words?
When it comes to writing articles and producing content it can be overwhelming to think about – how often will I write and submit articles, etc. As if that wasn’t stressful enough you find yourself wondering how long your articles need to be and if there’s a certain number of words required for an article.
Nothing is set in stone when it comes to how long your article should be. No one has the ‘magical’ number for how many words you should put in an article. Most people will tell you that an article averages 400 to 600 words (with a blog post being about 200 words). Again that’s not set in stone and it’s really going to depend on what you’re writing about. You’ll find that sometimes you can get your point across in 400 words and sometimes it takes 800 words.
When it comes to submitting your articles to article directories or using it for a submission in someone’s newsletter/ezine you need to check with them. Some article directories have a minimum/maximum length your article can be. Just as an article directory may have length requirements an article for a newsletter/ezine probably will have a length requirement as well.
Speaking of 800 words, in an article the next thing you need to think about is if it starts getting that long (or longer) should you break it down into a series of articles or not. If you decide to keep it as one article you should consider paginating it and adding a next page navigation so your reader doesn’t have to keep scrolling. The quickest way to lose a readers interest is an article that is really long and the reader has to keep scrolling.
So keep this in mind if you find your article taking on a lot of words and becoming quite lengthy. If you decide to break a lengthy article down into a series that’s not such a bad thing. It’s a great way to attract repeat traffic to your site. Just make sure to let your reader know the article is part of a series.
Just as I mentioned above about an article being too long and the reader losing interest because they have to keep scrolling so much the same can happen if your article is too short. Obviously they won’t be scrolling a lot if it’s a short article but if it’s too short and doesn’t contain enough detail to get your point across your reader will grow bored and click away. You can make a shorter article appear longer by using bulleted lists and highlighting important points of the article.
The most important thing to remember when writing an article is don’t stress about the length. I highly recommend that you write your article using a text pad or something that doesn’t show you how many words you have. I know from personal experience that writing an article in a word document can add stress and make you try to force length by adding a bunch of words that don’t need to be there or by repeating things that have already been said and don’t need to be said again.
One last thing I wanted to mention – quality writing does not come with a certain number of words! Don’t get yourself all bent out of shape thinking you can’t use an article if you don’t have at least 500 words or something. Use your judgment. Make sure to get your point across and that’s going to be a different amount of words for everyone as well as what topic you are writing about.
Until next time…
Tishia
This how long questions haunts every writer. Copywriters want shorter, more powerful copy. Novelists want longer, more involved books. I’m with you, though. It needs to be exactly as long as it takes to make your point, and no longer.
I hate that article directories have minimum word requirements. I understand they do it to keep spam to a minimum, but sometimes you only need 300 words to get your point across. Forcing you to add words makes for sloppy writing, in my opinion.
Thanks for the comment Cindy. That’s one of the things that stopped me in my tracks when it came to writing – I was always so worried about whether it was long enough & then I’d try to force more length/words into my articles or blog posts. I agree about the article directories.