I find that, if a post is too long, people get bored and leave your site. I won’t give a specific word count, but bear in mind that web surfers have short attention spans:

The average visitor stays on any one website for 30 seconds.

It’s your job to suck them in, enticing them to stay longer than that average.

• Write a snappy opening paragraph. Try and sum up the content of the whole post in the first few sentences without giving away too much. If you’re struggling with this, try copying a broadsheet newspaper opinion column.

By their very nature they are geared towards the casual surfer as well as the regular subscriber. By this token, try to make use of the following techniques:

• Bullet point ‘em, emboldening a word or two.
• Do top ten lists. People are attracted to these for some reason.
• Make use of Bold and italics to emphasise points, but be careful not to overdo things. Don’t forget the old cheeky strikethrough, too! (<s>Strikethough text</s>)
• Use short paragraphs and images. This breaks up the text so it doesn’t overface the reader.