The Ideal Length for Online Stories, or How to Avoid the Dead Zone

The Quartz Curve

What’s the ideal length for online stories? 

That’s a question that has challenged writers since the advent of the Internet.

The mantra for some time has been shorter is better, considering that Canadians today have the attention spans of goldfish.

But is that true?

The answer is yes—and no.

Research indicates that while people like shorter stories, they also read longer ones.

That’s what the business news website Quartz discovered in 2013.

Based on its experience with its website, it found the best user engagement was with stories below 500 words, or more than 800.

In between, said editor Kevin Delaney, “is the place you don’t want to be.”

"People read short, fast content on the web,” he said, but also long-form analytical pieces.

And why is that?

Articles of between 500 and 800 words are too long to be sharable, he said, but too short to be in-depth.

What catches attention, he suggested, was short, sharp takes on news stories that are creative and say something new, or long in-depth articles providing strong detailed narrative or insightful analysis.

The stuff in between is the dead zone—articles that provide detail but no insight.

This finding was so popular, it became known as the “Quartz Curve.”

But that was in 2013—a million years ago in Internet time.

What about today?

In fall Emily Loewen, Digital Content Coordinator for Mennonite Central Committee Canada, did research to find what stories were most popular on that organization’s website.

She found that the best-read stories were about what MCC’s supporters were doing to help, humanitarian disasters, and the agency’s observations about events in the news.

She also found some interesting information about reader engagement and story length.

Of stories under 500 words, 60% were read all the way to the end.

For stories between 501-1,000 words, 30% were read all the way.

1,000 to 1,501? 18% were read to the end.

32% of stories 1,500 to 2,001 words were read all the way.

What about 2,001 or higher? 0% were read all the way.

Loewen’s research seems to confirm the “Quartz curve”—although MCC’s maximum seems to be on the higher end.

It also indicates that no story should be longer than 2,000 words.

Her research also shows what we intuitively know: Lots of people never make it to the end of our stories, whether they are short or long.

Which makes it all the more important to use the pyramid style of writing—making sure the most important information is near the top of every story.

As a matter of interest, this post is 444 words long—which means I’ve avoided the dreaded dead zone.