Feet in the oven, head in the fridge?

The most amusing demolition of statistical tripe may be the joke that if my feet are in the oven and my head in the fridge my temperature may be on average normal.

I was reminded of this on seeing that web expert Gerry McGovern says the ideal length for a page on a regular web site (not a landing page) is 300 words. 50% of visitors will read all a 300-word page, but only 5% will scan 1,000 words.

“Ideal” meaning what?

The question is, which readers will read the longer copy; and which the shorter? And which among them will be most interested? No prizes for guessing – and heaven preserve us from experts.

About the Author

In 2003, the Chartered Institute of Marketing named Drayton one of 50 living individuals who have shaped today’s marketing.

He has worked in 55 countries with many of the world’s greatest brands. These include American Express, Audi, Bentley, British Airways, Cisco, Columbia Business School, Deutsche Post, Ford, IBM, McKinsey, Mercedes, Microsoft, Nestle, Philips, Procter & Gamble, Toyota, Unilever, Visa and Volkswagen.

Drayton has helped sell everything from Airbus planes to Peppa Pig. His book, Commonsense Direct and Digital Marketing, out in 17 languages, has been the UK’s best seller on the subject every year since 1982. He has also run his own businesses in the U.K., Portugal and Malaysia.

He was a main board member of the Ogilvy Group, a founding member of the Superbrands Organisation, one of the first eight Honorary Fellows of the Institute of Direct Marketing and one of the first three people named to the Hall of Fame of the Direct Marketing Association of India. He has also been given Lifetime Achievement Awards by the Caples Organisation in New York and Early To Rise in Florida.

9 Comments

  1. The wonks at SEOMoz have studied what traits get an article links:

    http://www.seomoz.org/blog/what-makes-a-link-worthy-post-part-2

    Links aren't a good proxy for sales, but they're a harder number to fudge. And the results are exactly what anyone with direct response would predict: longer articles get more links.

  2. The sooner a few people wakeup and realise that a new medium doesn't turn human nature upside down and make people think differently, the better

  3. Ian

    Conventional wisdom is that there is a need to blog regularly – daily indeed – to build the authority of your site. Sadly, this means that so called experts sacrifice quality for quantity and post under-researched and meaningless posts, together with regurgitated material.

    If I find one gem of information from all the reading I do on this subject in six months, I'm extremely lucky. And if I discover a gem myself the last place I'd talk about it is on a website or in a blog. Clients pay for it and get the benefit.

  4. Steve Gibson

    I've seen some studies where they've proven things along the lines of:

    “web copy that's under 200 words is far more likely to get 100% readership than web copy that has over 1,000 words”

    No shit, Sherlock.

    If having 100% readership is the most important thing, why not just have one word on your web page?

    (I'd suggest that word is “cock”)

    Steve

  5. As a reader, I would say that if it is interesting or informative (for me) I will read it. But I will just skim long wordy articles unless they seem to have truly valuable information. My advice to authors is if you can't get to the point directly, then at least be funny or entertaining. I don't like my time wasted swimming through a lot of meaningless drivel to get to the information I am looking for; which might not even be there. If it looks like the precise information I am looking for is there, I will read it all very carefully. More than once. Just don't disappoint me and waste my time with “spider food” for google robots looking for your content. (Unless its really good food of course.)

  6. The most result on Which Test Won backs up that longer copy often wins more conversions. http://whichtestwon.com/

  7. It is now over 50 years since I read the famous conversation between Max Hart of Hart, Shaffner and Marx and his ad agent on this.

    Hart said he would never read long copy. His agent said, “I'll just give you the headline of s full page all-copy ad. You would read every word.” “What is it?” asked Hart.

    “This is the truth about Max Hart,” his agent replied.

  8. JBAER33

    FOR PROOF LONG COPY WORKS CONSIDER GENE SCHWARTZ WHO MADE A FORTUNE WITH LONG COPY SUCH AS “SOUND IMPOSSIBLE, GIVE ME TWO MINUTES OF YOUR READING TIME AND I'LL PROVE EVERY WORD OF IT”

  9. Drayton Bird

    I worked tih Gene Schwartz

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