Size Matters!

Which is better for website conversions long or short pages? Then is an often asked question. Here is a suggestion.

You could actually do a bit of experimenting here. Write two similar posts. Keep one post half the length of the other. Post them on your blog several weeks apart. Then check your analytics 30 later. What you want to do is look at the bounce rates. This should indicate which is better suited for your visitors.

It?s not a perfect method, but it will offer valuable insights.

You could also use Google?s Website Optimizer and set up A/B testing and get more precise results.

I have had more success with short articles unless I keep sticking some interested images within the long article :)

I was referring to web pages and not blog posts. This size allows you enough time to create a full blown features and benefits presentation that is designed to sell. Since blog posts are often informative in nature they may not need to be long.

Just yesterday I listened to Podcast with Tim Ash. He wrote a book called "Landing Page Optimization" and his testing revealed that shorter pages are much better for conversions. He says that you want to remove all the distractions and simplify your page to focus solely on the task you want your visitor to complete - buy a product, sign up for your mailing list, etc. The more clutter, the more the user has to think, and you only want the user to think about one thing: converting.

Here is the podcast:
http://www.emarketingandcommerce.com/podcasts?utm_source=homepage
(Scroll down and select the one on Tim Ash)

I will agree with that. People don't have enough time to read a clickbank style pitch page. You should keep it to the key features and maybe link to suplamental information

Yep, that works for me. Remove your distractions and get to the point. So much effort is wasted on making things pretty and not enough time is spent on selling.

This is a great test. Have you done it? What was the result? I did some tests with sites and minisites. And the truth is that I had better conversions with small sites - 1-3 pages which did not give users a lot of information, but only the necessary needed - than on sites with 20-100 pages in which they were lost. whitespark, thanks for the link.

Yes, I have tested this but on individual pages. I wasn't referring to the size of the site, but I could see how this could affect things as well. However, my small sites 4/5 pages don't do much of anything.

Hello,

Lots of relevant text helps with search bots but sometimes people just back out of your site because its too much. When they back out quickly Google registers this as a bad thing for your site and can lower your ranking.

Just my two sense.

Cameron

In majority, I have used the articles length neither short nor long. i.e it fits to the readers. Readers get bored with the pretty long articles.