How long is too long for a Hub?

1. 86

   krillcoposted 12 years ago

   How long is too long for a Hub?
   
   Personally, long hubs are a bit annoying to me; I'm more of a 'get to the point and don't give me a lot of fluff' kind of guy. Am I alone on that?

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2. 60

   premsinghposted 12 years ago

   I have similar views on this aspect. I personally do not favor long hubs. Visitors do not have time and patience to read long hubs. In my opinion, optimum word requirement for a hub is 400-600 words. people rarely read full hubs if they are more lengthy than the above limit.

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3. 86

   Ms Deeposted 12 years ago

   I don't like long hubs either, if they are an opinion piece. However, if the hub is more informational or 'How To' type of guidance, then as long as it is well written and to the point (as you say) and helpful, I don't mind it being as long as it needs to be to explain the point of the hub.

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4. 78

   Kathleen Cochranposted 12 years ago

   500 to 1500 words seems to be my limit.  I often think a writer could break up the work into "chapters" and group the hub together.  I love that feature on HP.
   
   What really tries my patience is lengthy comments.  If you feel so strongly on an issue, I'd love to see commentors write their own hub on the subject.  Is it good form on HP to refer to your own hub on a subject while commenting on someone else's hub?

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5. 69

   kgala0405posted 12 years ago

   I agree with Kathleen Chochran.  I'm in the Apprenticeship program and our mentor suggested using 500 to 1500 words per hub.
   
   They also suggest that you break it up with lots of capsules.  Most people who find your site in the search engines will only skim the material until they realize it is what they were looking for.  Once they have determined that only then will the reader go back and actually read your hub word for word.  So its really important that people can quickly glance over your hub and get the idea of what it is about.
   
   If you are going to create a long hub its a good idea to use a variety of capsules to ensure the reader stays engaged with your material. 
   
   I must admit when I see a long hub that is one text capsule and a small picture, I click away immediately.

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6. 84

   Gemini Foxposted 12 years ago

   I have read very long hubs before because the topic was interesting to me. But, as I read, I kept thinking that it would have been so much better if the person had broken it up into a series - and then it would have been easier to read AND that person would have had more hubs! Course it does depend on the topic . . .

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7. 86

   Marisa Wrightposted 12 years ago

   We're here to make money.  Longer Hubs - between 800 and 1,500 words - have been proved to do better on the search engines, so there's good reason to go for the longer Hub. 
   
   Another alternative, which works just as well, is to write three or four Hubs on various aspects of the same subject, each around 400 to 500 words long, and interlink them with each other. 
   
   In either case, I wouldn't suggest you write "fluff" just to make up the words.  The bottom line is that Hubs are intended to be informative, useful articles on interesting subjects.  If you can't find 400 words to say about a topic, it's not worthy of a Hub - it's just a blog post.

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