This short post looks at a Jakob Nielsen alertbox column entitled, How Little Do Users Read? Why a short post? Well, it would appear that we don't read long posts, so why bother? 
Nielsen examines a study from the University of Hamburg on Web Usage, specifically content consumption, and finds some interesting data.
That groovy graph tells us that as you increase the amount of text on a page, visit time does not proportionally increase. This means that either people read faster when they have more to read, or, (in a more likely scenario), they skim or skip text when there's a lot of it.
This next spiffy scatterplot tells us that if you want a majority of users to read all your content, try to make pages with fewer than 100 words (I know... It's a challenge).
What can I say? Brevity is a virtue. Maybe the 140 character count Twitter limit really is the future of information consumption. May the heavens have mercy.
p.s. In case you can't feel my sarcasm seeping through, let me just say that while I respect the study's results, I wouldn't suggest applying the strategy suggested too heavily to true "content" pages. News articles, blog posts, white papers, research articles and their ilk should be as long as they need to be and no longer. Attempting to curtail your content won't have particularly positive SEO impacts, especially if you apply it in the wrong areas.
p.p.s. So where should you apply this knowledge? In areas of your site that aren't "telling a story" or created for intrigued, invested information consumers. Places like landing pages, navigation pages, homepages and pages meant to provide access to information, products or actions. Good examples? Support, registration and FAQ pages - go easy on the reader here. They want a solution, not a diatribe.
One of the few blogs I always manage to fit into my day no matter how busy I am is - What Would Tyler Durden Do (wwtdd.com).
That blog is always short, sweet, and sarcastic. Kind of how I like my women.
Most of this non-reading phenomenon has to do with reader fatigue. And there are a lot more ways to combat that besides writing shorter posts.
Use lots of white space, organize your paragraphs like a newspaper does (a lot of times a paragraph is no more than one sentence in length), etc.
And in the end, don't fight it. Make your content scannable: lots of headings and subheadings, bold words, use pull-out quotes, etc.
I heard somewhere that a person today is exposed to more information in a single day than our ancestors were exposed to in their entire life - and I heard that little tid-bit over 10 years ago (pre wide-spread world-wide-web).
Technology has outpaced our evolution - so we need to adapt somehow.
Give your readers what they want - the good stuff, and only the good stuff. Don't make them buy the whole LP when all they want is the hit single.
edited for all sorts of typos and general caffeine-induced incomprehensiveness.
Huh. So you think Rebecca's pretty awesome too? Geez, the competition's fierce around here.
Oh wait - I forgot Rebecca's Beauborithm:
Manstery Guest + We're old bastards = pipe dream
Uh oh...it looks like that one came out the wrong way. Don't mind the thumbs down - but hope I didn't offend Rebecca. :(
I also find it useful to bold the most important parts of the sentence like they do at https://www.grokdotcom.com/ - I wonder if 100 words of bolded text equals 100 words of normal text mentioned in the study.
Excellent point - I am guilty of being a skimmer.
I will more often than not read in it's entirety something well written, broken up in several paragraphs with white space vs one paragraph with many words.
Interesting topic and good points, Rand. I believe the purpose and ambience of your site warrants the content and expected reading behavior.
A scholasticllly propelled browser looking for information on Oscar Wilde will be more patient and vigilant than someone taking a gander at celebrity gossip during their lunch break.
As stated, your information should be long enough to fulfill its purpose. Good editing, succinct sentences, headings and subheadings, etc. definitely help, but the conveyance of knowledge on your topic should take precedence.
I wonder if the Web itself has anything to do with browser behavior. For instance, if you search for 'Shakespeare,' you will be confronted with thousands of results. Selecting one result may temporarily satiate your original purpose, yet while reading, you may feel anxious knowing there are thousands of other sites to peruse.
Does the behavior of physical book readers duplicate the above behavior?
Is there a similar study regarding video content?
Thumb up for Flight of the Conchords avatar (and your comment was pretty good too).
There's a widely stated statistic (origin unknown to me) that 42% of college grads never read another book after finishing school. Sad, but not really relevant - sorry bout that.
@vingold:
Not to be off-topic since this is a SEO Blog, but I loved your comment!
As an educator I have found that having my students focus their writings on the topics,(and staying on topic!) and not on the length, the productions and qualities of their papers have improved tenfold!!
My own college age son's writings have improved drastically, when it finally clicked with him, that being concise and focused was more important and had a greater impact on the reader then just trying to "create" that 15 page paper!
Nice post Rand. :)
I'm betting that's proportional to your angst at having to read those writing assignments. Educators who assign arbitrarily long papers must be sadomasochists.
@David LaFerney:
Actually I teach Special Ed. and work with students with Learning Disabilites. I am thrilled to have them writing the quality of writing they are writing INSTEAD of the rambling they used to do!
I have worked hard to instill quality vs. quantity! As well as staying focused on the topic they are writing about, that happens to be a difficult task for alot of writers!
I majored in journalism. Best writing award goes to Pete Hamill. Subject, Verb, Object. I like punchy compelling sentences. Funny thing is, I would probably read 2,000 well written words rather than 200 bombastic ones. With writing, delivery is key. I agree with vingold (and the great example from "A River Runs Through It"). If you can say it in 3 words, don't take 8. I think this is interesting in lieu of the texting age that stretches out before us. It will be interesting to see how today's elementary school kids’ behaviors will inform their impending professional communication.
I've always been a fan of concise writing but what drives me crazy is trying to reconcile this with the huge, rambling landing pages that sometimes seem to convert so well. I hate those pages, and every fiber of my being as a usability professional rejects them, and yet sometimes they work. I think part of that is target audience, and part of it is about writing that draws people down a certain path. People will read something that reinforces their beliefs or desires, or even if they skim it, are somehow inclined to think that the length of the text somehow equates with quality (20 testimonials must be better than 1).
I don't know; I'm just making things up at this point.
I know those long landing pages full of copy are gimmicky and have some psychological edge to get me to say yes - but I fall for them about 7 times out of 10.
About 2/3rds down the page I'm chomping at the bit and I'm like:
"Hell yeah I want to learn the ONE Internet Marketing Super Power Secret that will allow me to make $10,000 in my first week with very little effort on my part! Gimme gimme gimme!"
And even as I am putting my credit card number in - I know without a doubt in my body I'm basically paying $19.95, or $29.95 for an e-book that is only going to tell me how to put a Squidoo page together to point some links toward an affiliate program.
But I do it anyway. And I feel so dirty afterwards.
My favorites are the long copy landing pages that are trying to sell me an e-book on how to put long copy landing pages together.
It's like they're starting to self-multiply.
I don't remember my history all that well, but I'm pretty sure this is how the Skynet computer in the Terminator series got started.
I finally donated my copy of "Earn Money Reading Books" to some book drive, so that I wouldn't have to bear the shame of seeing it on my shelf all the time. It's amazing how powerful wanting to believe something can be.
Those pages are kind of like the cartoons on TV commercials. Somehow, seeing the Gilette Octoganator's 8 blades individually cut each facial hair makes it seem plausible, even though it's a complete and utter fabrication. I think the upshot is that we're all basically morons :)
I agree - Brevity is a virtue - but I also agree it has its place. I think what's most important when writing to publish is to edit out any words that don't add value - usually 50% or more if you're good at editing. Most of us (myself included), are too lazy to do that.
Although the first graph expectedly scatters a bit, it seems relatively linear to me.
In any case, interesting data. I believe sites like Twitter and Celebrity blogs do well with content brevity, while technology, political, news and business sites generally require a healthier dose.
Nice post Rand.
Keeping stuff short is al well and good, but I've found a number of sites that have short blog entries a real put off. I'm more of the opinion; if you can't be bothered to write a post with some well structured detail, then don't bother.
I liked this post, a nice level of detail, but not very long. Brilliant.
You're right that a site with loads of very short entries can turn people off. I've always found that a range of lengths is the best method. Very short posts get readers and get read. Longer posts convert better (in whatever way). The method, I think, is to use the short posts to get readers in the door and to establish credibility, then work them up to longer posts.
I agree. I personally find sites with plenty of content to be more of an authority figure on a certain topic, compared to others with concise to-the-point captions.
I'd like to see a lot of content, addressed to the masses, but clever SEO-ing with bolded keywords and cleverly highlighted information will help me with stopping at the appropriate place when I skim. Something for everyone.
Best writing advice I ever heard came from Tom Skerrit and it was given to his non-Brad Pitt son in the movie "A River Runs Through It".
The son had just brought his father a paper or sermon he had worked hard on.
The dad, played by Mr. Skerritt, looked at it and said "this is very good - now go back and cut it in half".
A scene or two later the son returns with the reduced paper and the father says "this is very good - now go back and cut it in half".
Best writing advice ever. Keep cutting it in half until you can cut no more.
This is one of the biggest areas where our current education system is failing our kids.
How many of us were compelled to write a paper of x-number of words in length?
That doesn't encourage brevity and good concise writing.
I'd rather reward the kid who got his point across in as few words as possible.
Mandatory essays of a certain length is old industrial age thinking - production quantity over production quality. It needs to go.
I once read where a student had to answer a question for a college admissions essay: "Why do you want to go to XYZ University?"
Her entire admissions essay: "To learn."
She was accepted in large part because of that answer, good for her and good for the university for letting her in!
That's a clever response to a college application question.
I spent many a night not too long ago trying to figure out how to hit a 15-page minimum when I'd already said my piece in 12 pages. Waste of time, really.
On the other hand, I can imagine being a professor and telling your class "there is no page minimum - just make a good argument." There would undoubtedly be those students who'd turn in four crappy pages and be dumbfounded when they fail. I think the page minimum scares people into thinking, "shit, I'd better have something to say - I can't bull sh*t for 15 pages."
I agree that concision is a virtue. So I'll shut up now.
I believe another piece of excellent advice from Mr. Skerrit's character in that movie was "If it was half as long it would be twice as good."
This was a great post, by the way. A lot better than Mr. Nielsen's original, I think :)
Interesting graphs - for longer posts, it's important to break up the content with targeted and descriptive sub-headings. This way a skimmer can get a clearer idea of what the whole post is about, and decide if they want to spend the time reading everything, or just certain segments...
Interesting data, but the thought that a diatribe could be defined as a page consisting of more than 100 words makes me dizzy.
Sure, if you're just trying to get somebody to choose one bicycle seat or another, that's probably fine, but for a lot of pages you're not really making your point if you're keeping it that short.
And keep in mind that more text equals more indexable content, which in turn equals more long-tail results.
I'm not suggesting you put a novel on each page, but I really think that in most cases, limiting yourself to a hundred words is pretty extreme.
If you disagree, just look at the comments here. Many of them are apparently "diatribes". This one is practically War and Peace, clocking in at 131 words.
And we solidly thank you for leaving such Tolstoy-esque comments :)
I agree that the data suggests a rather extreme strategy. but it's also nice to keep in mind as you write (at least, it is for me).
I think there is another factor at work here that causes the "time on page does not grow proportionately with words on page" effect.
Lots of times, if I see an article that looks pretty long, and I don't already trust the source, or really really need the information, I'm out of there. Before even taking the time to skim anything. Decision made purely upon length of article.
...not that that means you should go for the 100 word articles. It's just another argument in favor of making your articles as long as they need to be, and no longer.
"It's just another argument in favor of making your articles as long as they need to be, and no longer."
To paraphrase Strunk and White :)
On the first graph, I think there is a more interesting observation to be made: as the word count goes up, the plot becomes more divergent. Some people "stick" even longer, and some people drop out more quickly than the "average." Perhaps this is due to the relevancy of the content to the visitor? It would be interesting to interview them about why they dropped off, or why they stuck around.
I totally, totally agree with keeping it short! On my blog (I won't post the link 'cause it is only in Greek), I have found that when I post a long post, my stats aren't as good as when I post a short post. I am guessing readers will read and maybe share a short interesting post, but ignore a long one. If time is short for readers (which is usually the case) then, they don't want to read through huge articles that are more than 800-1000 words.Personally, I only read long articles on Sunday and this is something I now realize I do subconsciously. I just don't have the time to invest to read huge articles...Keeping it short, doesn't mean "scalping" an article! You don't want to keep important info from readers! Well you shouldn't. What I believe the right recipe is, is to just post an article with all the information needed to make your point, leaving out all the extra spicy words, that don't really add anything to the text besides extra words.Anyway good content is what someone needs for good SEO, not a bloated, overgrown article that will tire and scare potential readers. I think writing for the user is more important than writing for Search Engines.
Interesting post.
Long stories don't attract much.
Strange then that an eyetracking research done by the Poynter group says that less is not always more. see searchwritten.com/content/web-writing-less-more-or-maybe-not. Usually, web readers don't read much, but when the content is good, they WILL read. Only not 100% of an article (poynter group says: 77% of an article!) But the fact remains that readers that actually READ are hard to find. So SEOs, beware with too many keywords ;)
I respect Jakob's column; a lot of amazing things have come out of there. And, I have done a lot of great things with that information as well. However, my primary field of study is Literature and Creative Writing, and I have to say, this piece of information breaks my heart a little.
Many writers know that there are very few great books left to be written, mainly because the world attention span is that of Twitter. Anything you can't digest in 30 seconds or less, must to be involved to bother with. Everyone is looking for the double-espresso with methamphetamine on the side.
I can appreciate brevity; it has the redemptive quality to make language more interesting and beautiful. But in this case, brevity is simply a cop-out for a "dumbed-down" world. Period.
This is one trend that we should be fighting instead of embracing. And, as far as SEO is concerned, there is a real tension between the two concepts: Brevity and Keywords. I wonder which one will win out?
I'm a short reader, but on this site I will read the long ones. I guess it depends on how interested you are in the information.
Playing devil's advocate here, doesn't the statement:
"Attempting to curtail your content won't have particularly positive SEO impacts"
suggest that SEO and writing for visitors aren't always aligned? Who is our real customer - the visitor or the spider?
No, they aren't always aligned. It's an unpleasant truth of the system we find ourselves in that the things that get initial traffic/visitors are not always the things that give those users what they want or need. People tend to call SEO out on this all the time, but it's not particular to Search Engine Marketing; rather, that's what marketing is. SEO and visitorbait are the window displays of the search marketing world. You've got to get them in the doors first. It is not, I think, any different from Hammacher Schlemmer putting a personal submarine on the cover of their catalogs. They aren't going to sell more than a couple of those, they know that. That's just what gets you to open the catalog so that you'll buy a tierack or towel-heater or whatever.
Yes, the user/visitor/reader has to come first, but marketing doesn't always have to track that precisely to be effective.
I know of one SEO blog that consists of long rambling (nearly unbearable) diatribes that tapdance around the theme without saying much of value (to me anyway) - in 1000 or more words /post. I'm guessing at the word count, but long.
Last time I checked it ranked really well for some fairly competitve searches. Go figure.
So now what to do? I have a new site that I just finished adding more words to with the hopes of improving the message delivery and improving the site's SEO friendliness. While I want people to signup, perhaps those that can't be bothered to read aren't the people that I want and I would be wasting time with them anyway. While I loved the story about the college essay answer that was "To learn", I am not ready to recommend that my daughter try that on her essays, or that I just put "Sign up and pay" on my site. I read, lots of people that I know read, and I guess that I am hoping that those that will become my eventual customers will also read at least enough. But I do have some pictures as well, just in case.
It all depends, Jean. As I stated above, consider the context, use good sense.
You can't treat lolcat sites the same way you would treat a star wars wiki. :D
Perhaps I am really out of it, or just a dog person, but I had to look up lolcat on wikipedia to figure that one out. I have blocked my father-in-law from sending me endless emails with lolcat type stuff. Thanks for the vote for common sense - I am going to keep assuming my eventual customers will read.
When I come across a page with a lot of text, I skim first. If it looks interesting, I'll go back and read more thoroughly.
The smaller the font and the longer the paragraphs, the more interesting it has to be for me to read.
IOW, if I have to work to read something, it better pay off.
Keep it short and simple and they will come.
There's some funny points about this discussion, Rand, thanks for bringing it to the table.
As usual, Uncle Jakob makes me laugh with his ideas.
First, I completely disagree with the idea of considering *site* visit time as a consequence of the size of its texts. Different people read different content at different speeds. That's a fact and its completely undeniable. You can't compare a huge nerd blazing through slashdot to some old lady reading a recipe.
You got to stick to the old triad of good usability by Louis Rosenfeld: Users, Content, Context
It all depends on the page you are writing, on the audience you're targeting, and the type of content you are producing. It all depends on the friggin' context.
As Rand noted, you don't need to fill sausages. You got to stick to the message, of course. But you should take these advices with a grain of salt.
Based on this, Wikis are a failure. A good page, rich of content and information, should be bad and have its content pulverized and scattered thru lots of small little pages that quick delivers the massage.
This totally goes in direct confrontation with good and healthy SEO.
But this is Jakob Nielsen, the guy who never tends to look at anything on the bright side. He has lots of material pointing fingers to bad examples, he's always saying what's wrong. But he never says what's right.
So we must write to appeal to different personas: Some are Techy inclined, some are more humanistic, etc. Each has different needs of information. So if we sell cars some readers will require more techincal information, some others will require environtmentally related information, some will be more inclined for the looks of the car etc. We just need to put it in context, and I agree if you are selling products keep it simple and short, give buyers the information they want.
This is another argument for splitting large texts into more small ones. If you have a large text with, say 1000+ words, there's a good chance you can split it in two subjects; this means you have an extra page on the subject where you can rank for in the search engines and based on the study mentioned above you have a better chance people will read it.
Interesting read, thanks Rand.
Thanks for sharing this.
You won't see me make 100 word posts anytime soon.
Your true fans will read to the end - and those are the people you most want to reach. People that skim can't be that interested in your content, so how much value are they to you anyway.
There's no excuse for not formating your content to make it easy to consume though.
To be honest Bruce Clay has dumb long posts on his blog. I admit he is great expert, no doubt, but lately he has real army of "content writers" that trow massive amount of information at web pages that are totally useless. I was reading one big article about AB testing and after going trough tons of text I found nothing interesting, like "page generator" get tons of keywords and fill the missing words :(
Thanks for the critique. :)
Actually, the "dumb long posts" you're referring to are actually the liveblogs from the conferences we attend. That post on Multivariate Testing was from the MT panel that just occurred at eMetrics a few days ago.
The liveblogging entries are meant to give readers a detailed, near real-time account of what was said during the conference session. We get down every word, format it the best we can, and then push it out there within a few minutes of the panel ending so that readers can hear about what just happened and who said what.
We realize that not everyone is into our liveblogging coverage, which is why we offer a non-liveblogging feed. If you're not a fan of the long posts, I'd recommend using that one:
https://www.bruceclay.com/blog/newsonly.xml
Happy Thursday!
Lisa :)
Your ability to get down everything people say during sessions is phenomonal (I've watched you write) and if people don't appreciate it, as you've pointed out, there are easy ways from them to skip the conference coverage.
Also, I've read a fair few of your conference liveblogs and they're hardly dumb. The thumbs down above indicate that I'm not the only one who disagrees with that sentiment.
Thanks Jane. Nice to know the three days I just spent running around at eMetrics weren't a COMPLETE wash. :)
Doh! Lisa Barone FTW. Well put. As for your liveblogging - invaluable for the person that couldn't make it to the event. Good stuff - and much appreciated.
Imagine being able to get an instant update on an event across the country or world - on someone else's nickel? What a novel thought. Some will appreciate yet others still will complain. Go figure...