A Good Piece of Content Is Like A Skirt

Seems the world is obsessed with size. Every where I go people ask me how long should it be. A good piece of content should be as long as you need it to be. I often used the John Mayer line, say what you need to say. But yesterday I heard a far better explanation. The lady I was meeting with said a piece of content should be like the length of a skirt. Long enough to cover things, but short enough to keep ’em wanting more. And that is the perfect summation.

It can be argued that writing content for your website can be one of the hardest things to do, but the most important thing you can do. Now fortunately for me, writing content and having an opinion are perfectly in my wheel house. But I’m always amazed by businesses that tell me they don’t know what to write or to say. Once I get them to open up and start telling me they have world to offer.

I think the problem most have is what makes a good piece of content. I often have this discussion with our editorial department. I always try to write with a personality. And I dare to say that anything I write, most people know its me. But once I dispensed with the idea of how long something had to be or stopped being put off that i had to write something so long (as if 500 words is really a long thing), I found my writing started to flow much better. I stopped inserting flowery words just to bolster count and often now I find my self at well over 1,000 words before I even look down and see how many words we have.

Also we would try to assign keywords out, and now I find myself more topic oriented, meaning what do I want to talk about. This article for example has literally no keyword value to it. Its a conceptual post that talks more about how to create content and how long content should be rather than using a word like content marketing and focusing on it.

I do think the move away from a pat 500 word model was a good move to make. It allows pages to be better developed. This article and page will be sort of short because I’ve basically said all i need to say on this subject. Other than Say what you need to say. If you do it right, your page will have value and your readers will appreciate you!