perfect case in point!

I generally agree with you – it’s apparent that people’s reading habits have changed thanks to the Internet, however, there are exceptions. Depending on the complexity of the topic, you’ll have a hard time delving deep into a subject and staying within a thousand words for instance. I am also inclined to think that length should not be a criterion of whether a piece is of low or high quality. As Mark explained, content should be useful and/or interesting to your audience and give a unique point of view. If those conditions are met and the piece turns out to be longer, leave it be!

Harris, no doubt getting more keywords in motivates some to write longer content. But if doing so makes the content of the quality suffer (and the reader suffer as well!) then is it worth it? I think not. I can usually sniff out content written more for SEO than for people, and it’s never something that would impress me with the brand that published it.

For sure, Michael, and congratulations on your success. Yes, that rush never gets old (even if I do)! One of the great things about this industry is that even though it’s hard and very serious work, it’s also like a game, and it’s not hard to see if your winning or losing.

And that’s the thing, right Neil? “Your mileage may vary” as they say. What I was really trying to shoot down in this post was the notion that there is some magic or “secret sauce” to content length that could be applied across the board. Totally depends on your goals and your audience.