Another problem I will likely have when dealing with Research style posts is that I get distracted by other problems pretty quickly. For instance, since I am using such a basic publishing format I realize that there is no convienient way to link a multi-part series to itself. Also, my spell-checker is not active in this program and that is starting to bug me. And I don't know how to handle Part 2. Should it be pt. 2? Should it be in parentheses? Oh dear.
But focus is good and instead of worrying about crap like that now I will trust my future self to learn how to spell; pick a desired format; and just deal with the non-linking. In any case, I can certainly find all the old posts. You, unfortunately, are going to have to deal with it for now.
So, in my previous post (also, how should I handle summaries? And why are BBEdit and TextEdit hating me so?) I guess between three and seven paragraphs for a good target length. I am verbose and expect to fill up any space given which leads me to desire a good guideline. What does Google say?
And the first page I read deals with word counts. Sigh. I wonder if BBEdit has a word count feature... It doesn't look like it. But the numbers for a medium length average seems to be between 250 words and 500 words. Using a word count tool clocks my previous post in at nearly 300 words. Perfect! I even have some room to spare. My original post is also near 300 words. So far so good. Let's see what other sites report.
The next site was crap and rife with silly mistakes. It did suggest between 250 and 400 words but doesn't deserve any linkage. The third site brings up something the crappy site did: SEO. While interesting, I really don't care about my page rank. Of note, the pros seem to suggest that SEO leans toward 250-1000 words. There isn't really much of a concrete suggestion aside from SEO, however. So on to site number four.
While no concrete suggestion was listed there, it did reenforce a typical suggestion of 250-600 words. It was a great little read about tone and posting frequency, however, and is worth peeking at. It also linked to a great Q/A post that would help me if I were trying to make a professional blog. I haven't read it entirely, but the skim seemed interesting. I am not, however, expecting to make money on this, so much of the advice there is interesting and curious, but not too applicable.
But everything seems to point toward the same range of word count. I suppose word counts are a better metric than paragraphs since paragraph length varies so much by writer and content. This post has provided another seven paragraphs with an estimated word count approaching five-hundred. So my intial guess seems on target. Seven paragraphs for longer posts; shorter for News and quick Ramblings.
MrHen.