One long post? or better as two (or more) pages

[sublime1]

On several of the sites I manage, we tend to write ... and write and write.

It's all good content, but it's a lot (2500 words and more in some cases). Should we break these up into separate pages (with next/prev links)?

My take:

SEO: more pages, titles, descriptions, topics seems better, as long as a page tends to stand on its own topically.

User Experience: maybe not quite so overwhelming, especially if (like a newspaper article) there are clear sections/headings. However, users need to click a link...

Bounce rate: our bounce rates suck, but it's really hard to know if this is because we give 'em what they want, or because it's a real bounce. Hypothetically, we'll get a better view of whether users are continuing or abandoning.

Thanks --

Tom

[Planet13]

Hi there, Tom:

since you haven't got any responses yet...

How does your site make money? e-commerce? Is it cost per impression advertising? cost per click advertising? cost per sale?

the simple answer would be if it were cost per impression, then you would want multiple pages.

Also, look at this thread that Tedster started about a week ago.

[webmasterworld.com...]

Hope others will chip in to help.

[sublime1]

Dang, I try to be good about searching before I post, and there's tedster's brilliant piece right there. Thanks :-)

There is some discussion of the usability of this kind of setup, which was one of my questions. Nothing much about bounce rates. I'll ask there and see if it's close enough for someone to reply.

Thanks again!