I like to keep things short. I know that you're busy. I know that you've got a million things to do today. And I know that if you're reading this, you're not building your online publishing business.
So I don't want to take up too much of your time.
That's why I tend to keep my posts brief and to the point.
In general, my philosophy is that if I can't say what I want to say in less than 400 words, I'm probably saying it wrong.
That isn't true for everyone though. Some blogs can do very well with long posts that include interviews with people or go into fine detail.
But there are problems with posts that go on and on.
First, if you move from one topic to another within the same post, you might make it hard for AdSense to keep your ads targeted. You could end up with very different kinds of ads in the same unit. That will make your ad unit stand out and might lower your clickthrough rate.
Users who want to reach the end of the post might not click the ads anyway. When they see they've got a lot of reading ahead of them, they're less likely to be distracted by tempting links and more likely to be satisfied at the end of the post.
And you also give yourself fewer opportunities for advertising.
Google limits your AdSense advertising to four text or image units, one link unit, two search boxes (who uses two search boxes?) and four referral buttons. That's true whether your page is one screen long or the size of a giant sales letter.
A better solution then is to divide long posts into separate pages. That will give you more places to add AdSense units and it will make the page look shorter, encouraging people to click. You can even write the post as a series of parts, encouraging users to come back and sending new users deep into your site to dig up the previous sections.
It's a better way to turn long posts into lots of money.
It's Del.icio.us!
Furl It!
