Answer is really simple: it depends. It depends on the target of your blog; it depends on the visitors of your blog. And what’s the most important… it depends on the type of published content.

You can easily understand how long should be the post on your blog. Everything you have to know, is that the decision should be the sum of two components:

• human is inherently lazy
• everything depends on the content of your blog

So… let’s talk about these points.

Ad. 1 Human is inherently lazy

This is particularly clear in the 21st century, when we have to choose plenty from competing blogs, websites, podcasts, television and radio programs, etc.

I can bet, that each one of you subscribe at least 30 blogs. I’m sure of that. I’m even sure that most of you subscribe much more than that. And non of you have a time to read all of that. Particularly, if the posts are long. In my opinion – reading an article should take no more than five minutes. For the Internet – it’s almost like an eternity.

Ad. 2 Everything depends on the content of your blog.

That’s why I can’t tell how many lines your article should have . That’s why I can’t tell on how many screens your post should be placed.

Everything depends… if your content is for designers – you place lots of pictures, images and films; much less of text. If you are writing about sex or any other controversial topics (in non-scientific way)  – you probably should publish lot of short posts (not too much text, plus few images or films). If you are writing tutorials – you should have lots of screenshots or samples of code.

Short summary

So… in few sentences:

• Your visitors should be able to read your post in five minutes. Maximum 5 minutes. I prefer shorter posts.
• If you want to write longer post – don’t do it. Split it for few shorter ones and write that each next post is related to the previous ones.
• Look at the design of your post. If there is a lot of text in your post – use bold font from time to time; try to use bigger fonts for titles and most important things, use paragraphs and/or lists; use images (at least one per post)!
• If your post contains collection of images – do not put there more than 50. First of all: it’s heavy for your web browser; second: after you will see dozen of photos – you realize that each next photo is worse than the previous one – it’s because you think that each of them is similar to each other and you tired of looking at them… Much better idea is to split this collection for few posts
• If your post contains collection of films – do not put more than 20 in it. It’s to heavy for typical web browser.

And remember: in blogosphere the most important thing is to write often and regulary. For your readers two shorter posts are much better than one big! They have a chance to read all of them and (if you are not writing too often) they have a feeling that something is going on on your blog. That it’s not dying.