Is word count important when writing posts? Would you always enjoy reading a post overly written? Have you thought about how readers feel when they have to scroll at length in a single post?
Let’s face it. When the words start flowing it’s not always easy to control our fingers on the keyboard. We find it difficult to chop a single word. And we end up with texts full of adjectives, adverbs and unnecessary words which hardly add any value and are not easily digestible. They make reading boring.
Well, it’s a fact that people read much slower from the screen than from a print out. It is therefore important to pay attention to word count. Writing in a clear, concise and straightforward manner will go a long way in developing and maintaining good readership.
I won’t pretend to be a mentor here. I just want to share some useful tips I found at The Writers’ Perspective. In her post Blogs: How to Keep your Word Count Down, Maria Schneider stresses on the need to avoid wordiness. “Keep it short,” she says. “Be ruthless. Cut down your wordiness. It will make your post more concise and readable and that’s essential to good blogging. Good writing = Good blogging.”
In her follow-up post Cutting words in your posts: Part 2 Maria gives a concrete example of how you can write ‘cleaner and tighter” by editing your post.
I know you should be asking yourself: “How short?” While there’s no hard and fast rule, “300 words a post is a good target,” recommends Maria in her 20 Tips for Good Blogging.
I hope these make sense to any would-be blogger or anyone interested in revisiting their blog and improving their style.
So, keep writing and mind your word count when you write your next post. I’ll be more careful myself.
Mauritian residing in Rodrigues, Amanoola Khayrattee (pen name Alfa King) is contributing writer and journalist to La Gazette Mag de l’océan indien and This Week News Mauritius.
Retired, former meteorological cadre, trade unionist and OSH consultant, Amanoola has written for in-house union and other journals, publications and magazines. He runs two blogs since 2007: “Alfa King Memories”, and “Le Journal d’Alfa King”. When he is not reading or writing, he is on a 10+ km daily hike in anticipation of his monthly trails.
Amanoola may be reached at [email protected].
Definetly Alfa.
And cool resource pointers, some nice infos!
Looking forward for another exciting article of yours 😉
Best Wishes,
– Wakish –
Am pleased you find interesting things over here. More to follow. Just keep watch.
Yes, exactly. The two things for a great blog post, agreed. It took me quite a while on some of my blogs to realize that the longer-winded I was, talking about things that just get me revved up don’t work well for everyone else. Provide some meaningful information presented in your own way – and that’s what blogging is all about. Your spin or take on things. Keep it short. Keep it clear. And add some photos. 🙂 Mike
Absolutely! Folks need to remember who they’re writing for, especially in the online environment where there is so much competition for a reader’s attention. Excellent observations.
At any rate, just wanted to pop over and thank you for participating in the Inkthinker Query Challenge. I’m glad to have you on board as we head into the second month!
Kristen
http://www.inkthinkerblog.com