IMHO if you need to have a 1000 word article you should have a precis / synopsis of the article with possibly a hint of what conclusion you have come to at the top of the page to catch the readers eye. The reader can then read the full story to find how you reached that conclusion.

You should then break the article down into screen-sized chunks with subheadings. Google likes one h1 tag per page with subheadings in h2 tags and subsub headings in h3 tags etc. These tags are a good place to put your keywords for the benefit of your readers as well as google.

Sgtmac said that the average view of a web page is 5 to 6 seconds. I've just checked the stats for one of my popular sites and the average time visitors spend on the site is just 4 seconds.

Allowing for the people who spend 5 or 10 minutes on the site. I would guess that I have just 2 seconds (3 tops) to persuade people that my article is the one they want.

I don't think having long articles "below the fold" is a problem. By the time they scroll down you should have got them hooked. As James mentioned nothing is more frustrating than having to go through 20 pages of ads just to find the conclusion of an article. When the reader could simply have scrolled down.

Regards

Bob

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[QUOTE=However, it is easy to go to the other extreme for some. I like about.com and read certain writers there, but I find it frustrating that there are about 3 paragraphs and 300 ads on every page and I have to read 20 pages to get what could have been on one or two.

If Bob (Donk) ever came up with a question (it would be hard to find something he doesn't know already that one of us might!) it would be adequate to give a one sentence, short hand answer. But if someone asks a question from the point of view of a beginner, a more detailed step by step answer is needed.[/QUOTE]

Right on, as it pertains to About.com. It's one of my favorite sites for learning, but as you stated, it is frought with ads and white space!

Again, as you state, sometimes it is necessary to explain a bit more in detail. I am trying myself to limit my forum answers and split them in half, if they are too long...

Thanks for the answers!!!

thanks for sharing this information.

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