Can you have too much content?

mclintst · #1 (**permalink**) 08-24-2007, 01:58 PM

I know on the internet content is "King" but can you have too much information on your site? Specifically for articles. Do you have a maximum # of words that you use in yours? Or a set number of words per paragraph?

I have topics that I could write 2-5 thousand words on easily but I don't think that people will sit there and read it all.

Just wondering what your thoughts are.

Thanks

TechieGuy · #2 (**permalink**) 08-24-2007, 07:17 PM

I don't think you can have too much content. I also find that some times it can be hard to limit the number of words. I don't think there is a standard size for paragraphs, but you may want to limit the size of your pages.

If you need to write 2-5 thousands words, the best idea would be to break the topic into several pages. This way a visitor doesn't have to wait too long before the page is finished downloading (unless they have highspeed).

Another option you can use is pictures. Visitors may read a longer article if you include pictures. Many people find visual pictures easier to understand sometimes than actual words.

On my blog I try to keep my posts between 500 and 700 words...but that is considered long for a blog post as well.

lisa · #3 (**permalink**) 08-24-2007, 07:42 PM

I agree there is never too much content, particularly if you are engaged with what your audience wants to learn about. In other words, if your site is about basic web development for beginners, obviously you are targeting newbies. But if you write pages and pages about building a site using ColdFusion, then obviously that's going to turn most of your visitors off because they aren't that advanced yet. But if your content is relevant and useful you can never have too much of a good thing.

As Techieguy says, the size of your paragraphs is key (no more than 3-4 lines). Smaller paragraphs allow for scanning. Most of the time people don't read entire articles anyway. They skim and scan for key points.

Separating your articles into sub titles is also good ( se <h2>'s, <h3>'s, etc.) to break up your articles into sections.

PosterBoy · #4 (**permalink**) 08-25-2007, 09:22 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mclintst

I have topics that I could write 2-5 thousand words on easily but I don't think that people will sit there and read it all.

Just wondering what your thoughts are.

Thanks

I know how when you're familiar with a topic it's easy to get carried away and write 2-5 thousand words. However, for your user it might help if you keep your article short and break it down by having more details on separte pages. Hotlink your summary points on the index page to the deeper details page. This way a user can read a para or two about a topic and if he wants to learn more then he can click the details page.

mesamunefire · #5 (**permalink**) 09-20-2007, 05:41 PM

the better!! and if it is frequently updated, you can make it famous too!

A great example of this is Lifehacker.com

this website (mostly for nerds like myself

) updates every 3 hours or so.

Its generated lots and lots of traffic and gets funded by people like AT&T, Google, ect. So create as much content as you want. Its great for the readers and yourself!

PeterM · #6 (**permalink**) 09-20-2007, 06:22 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mesamunefire

the better!! and if it is frequently updated, you can make it famous too!

A great example of this is Lifehacker.com

this website (mostly for nerds like myself

) updates every 3 hours or so.

Its generated lots and lots of traffic and gets funded by people like AT&T, Google, ect. So create as much content as you want. Its great for the readers and yourself!

more content the better, as long as its easy to read :-)

webdev · #7 (**permalink**) 09-20-2007, 07:34 PM

More content build more traffic but slowly. You will get traffic but the traffic you get from search engines in initial stages will be slow on building. SE traffic builds over some time as im seeing with my website.

So, to increase that traffic, you need to market your site, which is, build back links, let people know of your website and just simple spread the word.

You may ask how would i do that?

Well, for starters, use ezinearticles to write short articles and market your site links in your articles.

When ever you create new page, link that page on social bookmarking sites like digg, stumbleupon, etc.

Find related blogs to your topic and post comments there. In most blogs, you can leave a link to your site when you comment. Do this with care. Don't spam.

Join a forum relating to your topic and become a regular poster/speaking there. Use your signatures and link your site there. Again don't spam the forum and become a regular poster.

All of these things will not help you build back links to your site but also give you additional traffic. And guess what over time, google, yahoo and msn will start to notice these links to your site for different places, and will bump your site up in their index, which only means more and more SE traffic for you over time

MikeD · #8 (**permalink**) 09-20-2007, 11:02 PM

Instead of writing 2-3 thousand word article break it up into 5-7 hundred word article and publish them once a day or so. Turn it into a series of articles or tutorials.

--Mike

PosterBoy · #9 (**permalink**) 09-21-2007, 02:46 PM

I don't think you can really have 'too much' content on a site. I suppose if you're very busy with writing new articles then you could have lots of content and it might become difficult for a surfer to navigate. If that is the case then have lots of categories or sub-categories and have a navigation bar on the top or side-bar of each page so you your surfer can easily find a relevant topic.

For instance, if you're talking about animals then you may wish to categorize your pages by geography ( eg. African animals, Australian animals, etc. ). Otherwise you could have thousands and thousands of pages if you talk about 1 animal per page and it would be hard for a surfer to navigate.

For SEO try and cross-link relevant articles ( eg on your african bird page contrast these birds to australian birds and put a link to your Australian bird category page ). Always try and create a chain of natural flowing links from your main index page to your deeper pages so that search engines can crawl and index all your pages.

Place a search box on your site so that users can find specific topics quickly. If you don't want to program a search box then sign-up for Google Adsense and copy and paste the code which they provide for placing a search box on your website. In addition to making your site searchable to visitors you might even earn some extra cash from Adsense.

mclintst · #10 (**permalink**) 09-21-2007, 10:07 PM

Thank you Guys,

Tons of great advice. I am slowly working on breaking down my articles to a small word conent and focusing on the main points. I read somewhere on here "assume your readers know the basics" and that has really helped.

I'm also thinking of grouping some of the more popular topics into a sort of how to section. I.e. how to stay motivated to reach your weighloss goal...etc anyway still working on that.

I will be posting some stuff to Digg and Stumbleupon etc.. very soon once I go live with the blog as well.

Now if I can just find the time to do some writing, I am addicted to Yahoo Answers. I would like to become one of their top contributors in the diet and fitness section. I am under the same name there as I am here. I find that a lot of the questions are almost exactly same though. Oh well people have questions and hopefully I have what they are looking for

Thanks again

TechieGuy · #11 (**permalink**) 09-24-2007, 11:33 AM

I have noticed a steady increase in the number of visitors to my blog as I add more content. I currently have about 43 posts on my blog (adding 3 a week).

Today noticed that I received 8 visits from Digg even though I didn't submit anything there. I did a search on Digg and noticed a post from my blog was there with 3 diggs. I guess someone thought it interesting enough to add to Digg.

Lajocar · #12 (**permalink**) 10-01-2007, 12:49 AM

It is always good to add new posts to your blog.
If people find your info useful then they will digg or stumble it.

Too much content sould never be a problem

Gigababbler · #13 (**permalink**) 12-03-2007, 09:18 PM

Like the old saying, too much is much better than not enough.

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