how big is a good web page?

how much text is too little or too much?

[Reid]

I have been writing on various topics. Not selling anything . just useful info on certain subjects.
Some topics need very little text - there's just not much to say about it.
Others are very interesting and complcated (several headings and subheadings with lots of text)
I understand that there is too much or too little - everything has it's limits.
If I have too little I can put several topics on one page or if I have too much I can break it up over several pages.
My question is - what is the range for a good page?

[mt_biker]

While there is no single correct answer to this question, online magazines and newspapers usually break their longer stories into separate pages, each page consisting of, very roughly, 600-750 words of text per page.

[Rosalind]

This depends a great deal on the reading age and attention span of those you are writing for, and the topic. Where the learning curve is greater, say with tutorials on complex subjects, a good page would be shorter even if the audience has a higher reading age, because it's easier to take things in that way.

[zooloo]

Generally people scan the page, not actually read it proper.

So, many topics on one page need clear headlines and group them if you can.

Long articles over several pages - tell them the headline of each page and how many pages/sections there are.

Overall people like a sense of "where they are" and where they are going.

zoo

[cabowabo]

The question that isn't answered is what is your purpose for providing such content is you are not selling anything. There must be an angle, or why do it? Public service perhaps? The bottom line is, there is not a set number of words or characters that constitute the proper page length. How you measure is if it covers the subject properly without boring the reader. If you are an expert in the area, you will know the delicate balance you need.

Cheers,

CaboWabo

[Reid]

what my content is about is, it is an area guide.
tells all about what is there to see and do. it is quite a tourist area with many different things to write about.
What I normally do is provide the quick info at the beginning and get more detailed as the page goes. I use proper headers and make it easy to quickly browse if you like.
Some pages however can get quite long and I am thinking about breaking some of them up.
This would be easy to do. Just make a few subheadings into another page. I'm just wondering how necessary it is to do this.
Some SEO's give an upper and lower limit to the number of words. Estecically (did I spell that right?) the page looks fine I think but I was wondering from a search engine perspective if this really matters or not.
There is also the other side of the coin. Pages that are very short. May be viewed as doorways or lacking in content. How short is too short? On these pages I could ramble on a bit or merge similar pages together but is this really necessary?
What I am selling is basically traffic - web based advertising to the local tourist industry etc.

[Essex_boy]

About 4'6 inches.

Buy a book on DTP layouts youll find all you need in one.