I would deem an article as something more bookmarkable more knowledgable. I see blog postings as informal and insignificat to the search engine user.

I think that’s a common perception: and I think that’s a completely artificial division. It’s a vicious cycle of thinking and action: because many people believe that “blog posts” are informal and insignificant, they use blogs to post information which is poorly prepared, poorly researched, or casual. Because many people read blog posts which contains these posts, the same impression is maintained.

I think that all blog posts are articles: some of them are good articles, others are bad articles, and many of them are just quick comments on articles. An “article” doesn’t require one interpretation or another — - not all articles are equal.

It’s a conceptual division which is simply irrelevant and meaningless.

However, what Jakob Nielsen describes as articles are definitely something that needs to be included for any successful blog. There’s no reason not to also include brief postings which are less informative or bookmarkable, but you absolutely MUST author good articles as well.

That’s the essential problem I have with authors who try and write some kind of proclamation stating that a blog post is any particular type of writing — - or that writing articles is somehow different from writing a blog post. It can be — - but it doesn’t have to be.

Thanks, Jack.

“It depends”.

It depends on who you are, what your site is for, how you are perceived, how you want to be perceived, who your audience is, and what it is you’re talking about (amongst other things).

Who you are: if you’re a big company, articles look more authoritative and informative; if you’re a small company or an individual, short posts are more ‘chatty’ and welcoming.

If your subject matter is brief, then be brief. But don’t be afraid to give a longer opinion if you feel it’s warranted.

In other words: write for yourself; attempting to write for an audience is usually a mistake…

But who takes Jakob seriously these days??

A lot of people. And, frankly, for good reason. For all that I may not always agree with Dr. Nielsen, he’s always got a strong position and provides great information. He does look at web sites from somewhat of an information-purist perspective — - completely ignoring design or marketing — - and those of us who need to consider these other issues are well-advised to take what he says into consideration; although not by following it slavishly.

Alot of his points that while may be right are wrong from an old fuddy duddy point of view.

But more importantly to me, I learn things from your blog and from the dozens of other blogs that I read. I have to filter out what is important to me and what is not. I don’t think it is that difficult to do.

Thanks, David. And your point is excellent: we are perfectly capable of filtering. The article/blog post dichotomy is meaningless — - one is not greater than the other. The true distinction which should be made (and which Dr. Nielsen is actually making; though masked by the wrong terms) is between high-quality writing and poor writing.

The poor writing can be quantified, of course, but the usefullness or uselessness of the internet information is a much more subjective issue, isn’t it?

I agree that opinion has considerable value, Joe. It’s up to each of us to determine what value the opinion is and how useful it is to us. I think we always need to remember learning itself has value, and tremendous value at that, even if it never results in selling more pistachios or more website design projects.

I am certain that Dr. Nielsen would consider the blogs that I write to be full of insignificant and useless information. And perhaps that is the case for most people. But there is no doubt that the blogs have caused my SEO rankings to improve and my business to increase based on cold contacts from new clients.

The net result is there is more money in my business bank account than there was last year. And the year before that. I think Dr. Nielsen agrees that this is one of the goals of a blog post - to increase readership and generate business. So I measure mine a success.

But more importantly to me, I learn things from your blog and from the dozens of other blogs that I read. I have to filter out what is important to me and what is not. I don’t think it is that difficult to do.