Hub Length

1. 68

   Peter Hogganposted 15 years ago

   I am writing a hub that is at 1200 words at present. I would imagine that it will end up around 2000+ words. I want to post as a single hub so that all the comments are all in the same place but appreciate this is pretty long for a hub. Do you think that such a long hub will stop it being read?

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2. 63

   Mishaposted 15 years ago

   Depends on how interesting it is.
   
   Providing it is an interesting reading, try to break it into smaller chunks with pics/videos and amazon/ebay capsules.

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3. 61

   mdvaldostaposted 15 years ago

   If it's a very focused topic, then maybe it's appropriate to leave it in one hub. I think it really depends on how specific your hub is to it's subject.

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4. 63

   Julie-Ann Amosposted 15 years ago

   Most of my hubs are 1200 words or more and although many will say people don't read them my times per page view stats say they do... and one of my longest gets the most views AND longest view times...

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5. 63

   hubby7posted 15 years ago

   Hi Huggan, I am tempted to say that you should write the post it as a series of short, small, digestible posts. Namely, if it is going to be around 2000+ words, you should divide it up into 4 posts of around 500 words or so.  None of my posts are over 1000 words. I like to keep them between 500 and 1000 words. My reasoning is that your typical adult lives a rather hurried existence. They work a full time job. They may even moonlight on a second job. They have to attend to their children and their spouses. They have to attend to home obligations. They have to keep in contact with friends, associates and associations. They need time to take a break. Considering all that, I reason that they don't have a whole lot of time to read my posts. So I strive to keep them clear, succinct, and to the point. On second thought, if someone really wants to read what you wrote, I believe they will take the time. In other words, instead of you breaking up your posts into small chunks for them, they might decide to do that themselves by reading your post over a period of time like they read a book--not in one sitting  but over over a series of days! That's my take on it, Hoggan. But that's your decision. Again, if it were me, I would shoot for the short, the brief, the digestible--under a 1000 words.
   
                                  hubby7

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6. 62

   darksideposted 15 years ago

   It should be as long as it needs to be. But don't shy away from a vicious edit.
   
   And break it up into paragraphs. hubby7 has shown an excellent example of why a big slab of text is to be avoided.

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   1. 63

      hubby7posted 15 years agoin reply to this

      Thanks for the compliment, darkside. And by the way, I like your phrase: "vicious edit."
      
            hubby7

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7. 62

   Froggy213posted 15 years ago

   The best advice I can give is to use empathy. Become the reader, always preview your hub before publishing. Ask yourself, is this the type of webpage I would like to come upon? Would I take the time to read it?
   
   Save a copy of it so that if one way doesn't work, you can delete and do it the other way.
   
   Use your widgets wisely, add pics and video that is relevant to the theme.

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8. 68

   Peter Hogganposted 15 years ago

   Thanks for all the advice, anyway I have published the hub as one rather than splitting it up. If you have an interest in Adsense give it a read.
   
   http://hubpages.com/hub/How-I-Make-Money-With-Adsense

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   1. 63

      Julie-Ann Amosposted 15 years agoin reply to this

      It's great but there is a link in there that's not active - you have the link there but it's not clickable... near the top.

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9. 68

   Peter Hogganposted 15 years ago

   The link I posted works for me, or am I missing something?

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10. 68

    Peter Hogganposted 15 years ago

    Duh, In the article... Its near feeding time and my blood sugars a running low, sorry for being so stupid.

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11. 82

    Whitney05posted 15 years ago

    Its' going to depend on how you layout the hub. I have a few that are near 2000 words. It's all in how you lay it out and break up the text. Now, I will admit there was one hub that I had that was goig to be HUGE, so I broke it into 3 hubs, and sometimes that's necessary. But, if 2,000 words is needed to fully explain what you're trying to say, then 2,000 words it is. Remember that if you decide to break it up, not many people will follow along to the next hub in the series. By people, I mean searchers and outsiders from HP. Usually, they find the one, and that's it. You may be able to clearly state "Continued <link>here<link> for more information about ---" kind of thing.

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    1. 61

       gbrgnposted 15 years agoin reply to this

       This is my thinking exactly. By breaking up a large informative hub, you will miss out on people who will either ignore the link to other sections or move on because the information they are looking for isn't there.
       
       My recent hubs have more than 1,500 words and try to encapsulate all my thoughts, broken down by paragraphs, sections and spaces to make things easier for the reader. Then adding my own pictures I've taken, polls, news, rss feeds and youtube videos to draw the reader into my hub.
       
       I also update my hubs if I see or think of new information.

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12. 85

    Marisa Wrightposted 15 years ago

    Peter, all the research indicates that people reading on the internet behave differently and have a relatively short attention span. 
    
    They will certainly read a longer Hub, but not necessarily all the way to the end!  1,500 words seems to be about the limit for most people.  So if you have a "kicker" at the end, such as a link to one of your websites, people are not going to get that far.
    
    Looking at your Hub, I'd say it would benefit from some judicious editing.  I don't know if it's because you're trying to use keywords the optimum number of times, but your sentences are often unnecessarily repetitive, e.g. the following paragraph:
    
    "Topical events may also become hot topics; the US election was both Topical and a hot topic. For the sake of clarity topical means current and newsworthy, a hot topic is current, newsworthy and heavily searched for online. Search engines are very quick at spotting hot topics by analysing search trends. A good example of this happened when concern over the Avian Flu epidemic was at its height. Pages that made reference to Avian Flu were deemed topical, even pages that had been around for years before the epidemic became a hot topic saw an increase in rankings."
    
    could be edited like this:
    
    "A topical event is something current and newsworthy; a hot topic is something heavily searched online.   Topical events may become hot topics - the US election is a good example.  Search engines are very quick at spotting hot topics by analysing search trends. A good example of this was when the Avian Flu was at its height. Even pages referring to Avian Flu that had been around for years saw an increase in rankings."
    
    That's a 30% reduction in the number of words without loss of meaning - not saying it's all that well written but you get the idea.

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13. 68

    Peter Hogganposted 15 years ago

    Might be 30% leaner but it is also inaccurate!

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14. 68

    Peter Hogganposted 15 years ago

    Whitney05, yes that was my thinking also and the reason I published as one hub.

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