You and your readers are being bombarded with information. Too often that's in the shape of long-winded emails, blog posts, and reports that say very little or assume that because digital space is (virtually) free and unlimited, so is your time.
But time and attention are valuable. If you learn to practice concision in all your writing (from emails and reports to blog posts, whitepapers, and product copy), you'll not only get your point across, you might also earn your readers' trust, gratitude, and repeat traffic. Plus, concise copy converts better.
Quick advice on writing concisely
The best advice I ever received about writing concisely came from former newspaperman (and current Moz associate) Ronell Smith. He said that in order to clearly get your point across in the fewest possible words it's essential to:
- Write a one-sentence description of the post you wish to write (this is basically the headline)
- Think of the number one thing you'd like readers to take away from the post
- Highlight at least three facts (authoritative, supportive evidence) that support this main point
- Jot down notes that help you tell the story using these facts
- Spend a few days letting the elements "breathe"
Now if I were writing the most concise blog post ever, I'd stop right there, because Ronell already said the most important things. But sometimes it's helpful to see how someone else puts advice into action. So here's how I'm putting Ronell's advice to work to write a post about concision.
Write a one-sentence description of the post
Learning how to make your point in as few words as possible will help you capture your audience's attention.
I could (and should) stop there. But I want to make a couple of points about why this is important:
- Your brain does a lot of work as it's trying to condense that amazing idea in your head down into one sentence—as much work as creating a whole first draft.
- Once you have a one-sentence description of where you're going, it's easy to toss aside all those other exciting ideas that try to plant themselves on the page and focus on what you wanted to say in the first place.
Think of the number one thing you'd like readers to take away from the post
Fewer words often makes for clearer, more impactful communication. Once I know exactly what it is that I want you to take away from this post, I can make a promise that everything will contribute to that number one goal. This is good because:
- It helps you focus on one audience. When you're writing amazing tips on keyword research, it can be really easy to want to also remind readers why keyword research is important. That's the moment when you lose the interest of people who get the whys of keyword research. They are now bored and done with you (even though you were just about to blow their minds with really revolutionary information).
- You know what to lead with. Even if you're writing a crucial email, you can bet not everyone will read every word (or paragraph). By leading with the most important part, your message is more likely to be understood.
Highlight at least three facts that support this main point
Technically, I've been cheating so far and adding in facts along the way. This step will help you:
- Build an outline of what you want to say. It's easier to write to outlines and you'll be sure to include all the points you wanted to see.
- Preview the quality of your argument. If you're writing an article about how content is king and your first fact is "because everyone says so" and the second is "readers share stuff" and you're struggling for a third fact, go back and find a stronger argument.
- Stay on topic.
Jot down notes that help you tell the story using those three facts
Hooray! You finally get to elaborate. I'll start my elaboration by telling you that I've deleted about 500 words from this post already just because I was thinking so hard about concision. Do I miss a little of my standard whimsy and storytelling style? Yes (although I'm making up for it in this paragraph).
Because you've already honed in tight on your subject, you can let your creative self a little loose now. Enjoy embellishing your evidence with relevant examples and case studies. Relish the chance to make your points more memorable and engage your audience by sharing pertinent stories.
Spend a few days letting the elements "breathe"
Once you've pulled together your main point with supporting facts and illustrated those with stories, you need to step away from your writing. If you're writing an email, you might not have a few days, but at least go to lunch or grab a coffee. Giving your writing room to breathe allows you to:
- Spot gaps. Everything makes perfect sense in your head, but a breath of fresh air might help you see where you forgot to actually write down a crucial piece of your argument.
- See redundancies. Sometimes you're so passionate about something you say it twice (although usually in slightly different ways). A second, later read can show you where you're repeating yourself.
- Be rational. Speaking of passion, sometimes we write things we'd never actually want to see out in the world. Allowing your writing to rest can help you make your point without saying anything you wouldn't want repeated. This makes you easier to listen to as well.
The rest of the story
Now that we've seen Ronell's points in action, there are a few more things I want to add.
Concision usually happens in editing
If you've been following Ronell's advice, your writing is going to be a lot clearer, shorter, and more impactful. But don't count on your first draft to be the best draft. You can usually clean up a lot of extra words (and random errors) with a second draft.
Why concision?
You're busy. Your boss is busy. Your reader is busy. We're all reading less and less of the information presented to us. But reading is still a critical way that we share information. By learning to say more with fewer words, you'll get your point across and come out on top.
Concision ain't easy
In fact, you might spend more time crafting your message. Making your point makes that time and effort worth the extra work. Take the Moz Top 10 for example: over the last six editions, the ones with the fewest number of words have had the highest click-through rates.
Shortening the Moz Top 10 often takes me an extra draft, but that kind of increase in CTR is worth one more pass.
How this works at Moz
I was shocked when Trevor and I found that the most popular Moz blog posts (usually) come in at 1,200-1,800 words. That seemed long to me (especially for the Internet), but then I realized how much advice and education are usually packed into one post.
Compare that with what we sometimes see in YouMoz, which are initial drafts of 4,000-8,000 words. I am certain that a few of those authors have that much valuable information to share about one topic. But my guess is that most of those articles are trying to do too much in one post or are repeating themselves unnecessarily. I'd also be really surprised if most readers manage to reach the end of a post that long. That's the real tragedy of overly wordy writing: No matter how brilliant you are, unless you are the most engaging writer ever, no one is reading what you're writing. And according to one study, visitors only read 18% of content beyond the 1,250 word mark.
Do you have tips for stripping the bloat from your writing? Or do you truly love (and actually read) long-form writing on the web? Write me a novel in the comments ☺
Isla,
Thanks for giving me far more credit than I deserve.
One of the biggest problems with writing for the online world is (seemingly) unlimited space. There's little need to be concerned about the number of words it takes to make a point when the constraints are few and far between.
Also, unlike traditional forms of media (read: newspapers, magazines, video, etc.) blog writing has "trained" us all to think what can be said in a few words is best said in many more words. There is no economy of words in blog writing.
It also doesn't help that article after article seems to show longer posts getting more links, shares and engagement. What those longer posts don't get, however, is read.
If we truly care about the needs of readers we should respect them (and their time) enough to deliver information in as concise a manner as possible. Why?
As marketers and strategists, we now know that it typically takes several interactions with a brand's content before users are ready to convert. With this being the case, doesn't it make sense for us to ensure they find the experience of interacting with the brand pleasant and worthy of future interactions?
Shorter, punchier content is the key in accomplishing this task.
RS
"It also doesn't help that article after article seems to show longer posts getting more links, shares and engagement. What those longer posts don't get, however, is read."
Bingo! It's what I call the "A for apparent effort" dilemma. Someone sees a huge comprehensive guide to a certain topic, takes a quick skim through, notices just how much effort must have gone into creating that thing, and then without spending more time reading it than they would any other piece, they share it. Not because it's valuable, but because it's impressive.
There's value in being impressive, to be sure, but at the end of the day we all need to be focusing on providing value for our customers and audiences, not just for ourselves, and we miss out on earning real respect and admiration.
The thing that drives me nuts is that we focus so much on how popular long-form content is without talking at all about the value it can (and should add). Y'all know I primarily read novels. I actually cannot read short stories (with a very few exceptions, other topic). But if I'm giving my time those novels had better be good and each page and word necessary. Somehow we expect length alone is a good enough metric for content :(
We've all shared an article (or two) that we haven't read all the way through. But I never share something just because it's thousands of words long.
And I love the thought of "A for apparent effort." I mean I find it maddening in practice, but I love that you've named it because it's SO prevalent.
Yes, thank you for your statements above and this helpful article. As an SEO I tend to blame the SEOs. This half-truth/myth got out about thin content and making sure content is over 300/500 words. You can always find a new blog post each morning that is close to a thousand words and the post contains little value. I personally feel like it is really difficult to write a thousands words about nothing or add value, but the churners do it everyday.
I will also agree with you about Ronell, he is the David Carradine of Content Marketing. I miss working with him and absorbing his daily knowledge.
tl:dr
(Joke, calm down everyone)
:)
I wrote a blog post about how Twitter has made me a better blogger. It's all that practice getting your message out in fewer than 140 characters.
Nice post!
I almost mentioned Twitter, Marion! Thanks for bringing that up. All writing is practice :)
That's such a good point, Twitter really helps you get your point across and figure out a call to action that works with the point you're trying to make quickly. Thanks for bringing that up!
In our post use 1000 1200 words. And I think these are very long. Thanks Isla!
Thanks for the perspective! It's always good to know what other people are writing and finding effective.
"You're busy. Your boss is busy. Your reader is busy". That's the truth. Great post.!!!
Hi Isla & Ronell,
It's a nice post and shorter than most of the posts on Moz. Points Ronell has adviced and Isla has highlighted are really very effective. I also believe that unless your post is highly engaging you should keep it short. However, if you have to keep it long, you should highlight main points and takaways so that your reader may extract information if he does not want to read complete post.
Shariq, I agree with you that "engaging" is a must, no matter what length of post you write. And Cyrus wrote a great post awhile back about helping people extract information by how you format your post.
I have read that post Isla, that is also a great post for learning formatting in posts. Infact, I also haved learned from that post.
That is great reference. A proper storytelling formation of content force user to read even a lengthy post. In fact, many people go through highlighted sentences in article first and if those are new to them they dig dipper in explanations. So not just title but subtitles and highlighted sentences are also very important.
It's interesting to me that the main focus in the comments is centered around making blog posts/articles shorter. What I got from this message was the opposite--that longer (1200-1800 words) is okay and even desirable so long as you stay on topic and use your words wisely.
Thanks for making that point, Jeremy. Although many, many blog posts could stand to be shorter, I am completely happy to read something very long where all the words and details matter (and I don't think I'm alone in that). For example, there was a long-form article about The Lion Sleeps Tonight a few years back (that I can never find again) that took me over a week to read (between work things) and I kept going back to it over and over because the (huge amount of) details were so compelling :)
Perfect words! The best post!
That's great Isla.
Can't wait to receive the moz Top-10 once more...
Interestingly, I pretty much did stop reading after the main five (and supremely excellent) tips. After I got value from those tips, I just skimmed the rest. I wonder how many other people did the same...
Excellent argument for concision (and executive summaries) :)
This article is awesome! Marketers today seem to be young, enthusiastic voices, but a lot get caught up in that storytelling, narrative style ad copy. I'm always trying to improve mine and concision is definitely key. I think a lot of people in the content creation industry are trying to get their content out there so rapidly they forget about this aspect of writing and don't allow enough time for editing! With today's instant gratification world who's to stop them.
Another observation I've made is, at least from the people I've known, those with a science background often write more concisely as it is required in those professions. Any opinions on this?
Isla, thanks so much for sharing! I love the analogy of letting the content "breathe"! Like a fine wine let it age and refine :)
I love that you brought up how different backgrounds can affect our writing styles. There's a lot scientists, academics, copywriters and creative writers can learn from each other, for sure. I suspect what you're finding with some of those young voices who over-storytell is that they've got all of the enthusiasm for writing but haven't yet learned to focus on the audience's needs.
Thanks, Charles!
Really great points in here, but was the author being ironic with her title? Seems like this should be trimmed down from "The Art of Concision: How to Effectively Make Your Point in Fewer Words" to "The Art of Concision: Make Your Point in Fewer Words" to better reflect the topic at hand.
Justine, I hear you about titles. One of the things I struggle with is the marketing aspect of titles. For example, I would have loved to call this post "The Art of Concision" but then 99% of our audience wouldn't care a bit. So instead I opted for something longer that not only points out how a reader might benefit but also is interesting enough to remember (above all the other posts on concision ever written) which is why I included the word "effective."
Unfortunately, this "get all the words someone might ever need to know to be interested in this" mindset is bleeding into nonfiction books (with titles like "Don't Get Too Comfortable: The Indignities of Coach Class, The Torments of Low Thread Count, The Never-Ending Quest for Artisanal Olive Oil, and Other First World Problems") and from there into fiction. But I'll save the rest of that rant for another day :)
yeah short and sweet , precised hits the mind.
Excelente article... people nowdays doesn´t want to reade large texts....
Lovely and helpful article, Isla. It is going to help me focus a little more. In the end, it seems all comes down to KISS - keep it short and simple. :)
Thank you, Gianna! And I like your take on the meaning of KISS :)
greatt deal god work thnxx
It's definitely true that people nowadays are reading less and less- this makes concise writing more important than it ever has been to come out on top, just like you said. Sharing these tips on concise writing are particularly helpful to me as a writer of content myself, and I can see that you have a very long series of writings to go along with this. The point you made was ironic as well- being in a hurry to continue with my daily business, I almost skipped over a vast majority of the article and only took the beginning into consideration. Dwelling on that for a few minutes made me realize I wanted to see the rest of what you had to say, and I'm personally very glad that I took the time and effort to scroll back up and give the article a nice, thorough read.
You have too many things in parentheses in this article. Parentheses are distracting. Learn to use punctuation like semi-colons, dashes and commas more effectively.
Hello,
I write posts every week and try to reach 1000 words but have trouble doing .
CArme
I personally go back and forth on this one. 300 words, 400 words --- maybe 700 words. I really prefer a sweet spot of around 375 well written, free of grammar error words. I also always try to pose and answer a question .. make the chosen topic intriguing. Finally, I love bullet points with bold characters in the first sentence to not only grab the reader's attention but also separate my thoughts so as not to jumble everything together.
One more thing, choose two hyperlinks at most! No need for a link in every paragraph
Brilliant work is done. I loved this article. Isla shared a very valuable article.
I wrote two articles based on numerology compatibility i don't know i wrote good articles or not? Please read my article and kindly let me know that i am on a good track or not?
Thanks.
thankk you very nice great deal
Loved the topic and suggestions provided. I think smaller, to the point and interactive content is also smartphone friendly. Who would like to read a overly long (2000-4000) word post on a 5 inch screen. Even at Moz sometimes I feel lost in the middle a post (may be it's my fault, I am not intelligent enough to understand).
You make a great point about mobile, Devendra. I will totally admit to scroll fatigue. And I'm sorry to hear sometimes you get lost in the middle of Moz posts. Do you feel like it's topic-specific or could we be doing a better job of editing?
I don't think it's Moz's fault. But since you are asking, I will say posts that excessively long (specially those with just plain content and without any images or headings needed to differentiate different sections) and overly technical post discussing an advanced topic in too much detail.
I would like to give you a scenario, suppose you have to discuss 10 point on some topic. And each point is around 200 words long. Please find a way to differentiate most important content from the rest in each point explained. It will be helpful for the second time readers and in a situation where point 2 or 3 is referenced in point 8,9, 10.
That's helpful feedback, Devendra, thank you! I've been working on bolding important points while doing a copy edit pass. I'll be more diligent about that and about thinking about relationships between points :)
Nice article - it makes me think of the phrase, 'if you'd given me more time I'd have written less'.
This post perfectly illustrates the overlap between traditional journalism and online blogging/marketing! Traditional journalism is all about delivering the most amount of valuable information in the most concise manner. In print journalism this is obviously because space is limited (on paper). Since this isn't the case online, bloggers can easily go overboard with elaborating their point--not practicing brevity. Online marketers and bloggers can gain immense value from taking a cue from reporters and refining the art of concision. ~Great post Isla!
Thanks, Vishal! I love seeing where all the writing worlds come together. I know I have so much to learn from journalists like Ronell :)
The headline has a split-infinitive?! :O
Ha! You're so right. For a writer, you'll find I have a surprisingly flexible set of grammar rules (and I often change up word order to slow down a sentence or re-place the emphasis). But sometimes I'm lazy, too. Nice catch, Samuel! :)
Providing an advice is great, but demonstrating how to best utilize it is even better.
As someone who's native language isn't English (although I did graduate HS in the US), I definitely agree that saying more with fewer words is quite a difficult task for many people. I have a tendency to overload my writing with too much information because I feel obligated to provide as much value as I can to my readers. I was shocked to see that readers were spending less time reading the longer posts (1500+ words) than the relatively shorter ones.
Thanks for this post Isla & Ronnel.
P.S - Anyone here knows a good online copywriting course? :-)
Hello,
They reason that when longer is the most difficult text is to read everything, and people lose concentration on what you are reading more easily.
Sometimes we tend to create more complex sentences to make the technical text and this makes people have more difficulty understanding the text.
The key is to remove unnecessary sentences and find the right words to express our ideas to reach the reader and generate interest in our reading.
Thanks for the post!
You're right, Tino, that we over-complicate many things, especially writing. Thanks for reading!
Concise have to be in every article that is written to capture the attention of lectro but may 're dead ... jjjj
I am to the point person and I sometimes really find difficulty to write long descriptions especially while writing the articles.
Staying on topic is particularly difficult when writing about SEO or marketing where everything is (or seems) interconnected. No excuses though - must concentrate on the number one thing that users need from the post. Thanks for the tips Isla (and Ronnel)!
So glad you're a convert, Simon! Sometimes it helps to write long the first time and then go back and rewrite whatever you're doing from the start. You'll feel like you got to say all the things and also be able to see where you wandered. Please check back in and let me know if sticking to one topic helps you out :)
I came to visit moz blog and find this topic upward. So, I took a glance and see why after 12 months its still in the top position. You show the guide to concise your content and help us to understand . Thanks, for writing a wonderful content.
A great orator once said: for 15 minutes speech about some topic i'll need two days of preparations. For one hour speech i'll need few hours of preparations. For two hours speech, well, i can do that immediately. Same can be applied on internet. Crafting a concise post requires time. However, writers should spend their time, in order to save readers time. And retain their attention.
Unfortunately, trying to fulfill Google's requirement for longer posts, many people have adopted something what we might call "politician's style" (talking a lot, saying nothing) in their writing.
Also, being concise doesn't mean leaving out some important information, or important questions unanswered. Writer should ask himself: does readers know enough about this, or i'm assuming they know.
The most important information should be placed along F pattern. When people scan text those information will be most likely observed.
I love that story, Stelian! And it's so true! Here's to saying just as much as you need to (no more, no less).
Isla, I love this article! Great to see you referring to the NN Group - I think it all comes down to usability. The more usable content is (or anything, really, this also applies to design, links, etc), the better it will perform.
Usability and intelligibility are both crucial. I admit to only just finding NN Group recently. Do you have any other favorite resources I could learn from?
This article on Mashable is helpful and probably the most relevant to your article: https://mashable.com/2011/09/12/website-usability-tips/ - concision is the first point on the list but this is followed by structuring content to make it easier to read, etc.
Another good one might be on UXmag explaining how content strategy and UX come together :)
Thanks for the resources! :)
Brilliant ideas are expressed in this post. I really like the tips and tricks shared to be brief and concise and how to express in fewer words.
Mirella Farhart
Concise ? ... What a hard task !! Visitors who read beyond 1.250 words needs to be highly motivated, and most internet users are like bees from flower to flower looking for pollen
Ha! If I had a nickel for every time I told my husband, "I read an article, well, actually, I read part of an article..." Maybe I'm begging for concision so we can all get more things actually finished :)
i agree with Simon as there are many things that needs to consider while writing on marketing as it is interconnected.
This post highlights a very significant reality: Less is more. Being in a digital era we have lesser attention spans. The more information, the harder for us to concentrate & process it. But the real trick is, being concise without compromising on making a point.
That is what causes an impact.
You're right, Fatima about attention spans and that you don't want to compromise your point. That's why I didn't write a post about how shorter is better.
Great post Isla totally agree with your verdict about keeping the posts short, usually readers skim through content of significantly longer posts which at most of the times are too much wordy. One more thing, I am looking forward to your post regarding concise and engaging titles in the future :) because CTR highly depends on your titles and an advice from your side can be really handy.
Thanks, Salman! I'm also experimenting with drastically shorter subject lines, so I hope I'll have something useful to share. For now it's a struggle to get me to write titles that even fit in a tweet :)
Great reminder and stats, I usually felt MOZ articles are on the longer side then most which are under 1000 words. But I guess if you compare with YouMoz that makes sense!
I'm curious, Vadim, because we're always learning over here, does Moz posts seeming on the long side feel like a "good" long or a "not-so-good" long?
love this article
Fantastic post, Isla! I can't help but think of that Mark Twain quote, “I didn't have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead.” In terms of repetition within a post, I feel that occasionally it can have some value when you're trying to be persuasive. Often people need to hear something several times (said in different ways) to really start believing it. Having said that, most of the time we're all far too verbose. Thanks for writing this post.
Thanks, Harriet! And you're right about repetition. In novel writing I've heard that people often need to hear something seven different times (I hope in different ways) in order to really take it in. But that's tricky with a blog post because it's so easy to overdo. So let's make a new rule for concision: "It's okay to repeat your main point if you're coming at it from a fresh angle that further illustrates the point." Sound better?
Writing is such a delicate balance :)
Brilliant
What a useful post!! Thanks Isla for writing it and more thanks to great Ronell for such an awesome tips.
I'd like to know, how can foreign writers (who doesn't have excellent command over English) develop the art of concision? And, is it really necessary to use "heavy" & "technical" words in order to get identified as a good writer?
P.S: I just followed Ronell on Twitter :)
It's a great question, Umar, as I find concision gets easier (in any language) the more you master the language. But I think Ronell's steps are easy to follow at any stage and the more you do, the better your concision and writing overall will get (again, in any language). Cheers to you for writing in a non-native language. I'm usually too chicken :)
About technical and heavy words, I actually use them as sparingly as possible. Anyone can throw in a buzzword, the real art is in communicating with people in a way they understand. Sometimes you have an audience who needs that buzzword because it's a shortcut to a wealth of understood information about a process or topic. Most times, if you can find a simpler way of saying the same thing, you'll find that less meaning is lost.
You're right and thanks for the feedback! :)