Write Less, Reach More? Case Study On Blog Performance
- Harshal
- 2 hours ago
- 7 min read
What 800 Data Points Taught Me About Writing Time, Reading Time, And Views
In 2024, I wrote 77 blog posts. I wanted to understand the relationship between how much time I spend writing each blog, how long it takes to read each one, and how many views each blog gets. My goal was to compare input metrics (like time spent writing) with output metrics (like views and engagement).
I analyzed the data in a few clear steps, which I will share here. I also reviewed the performance of my LinkedIn social media posts. In total, I looked at 800 data points.
I’ve structured this blog as a Minto pyramid, with the takeaways at top and then rest of the details.
I spend 6 hours, 33 minutes analyzing and writing this. You need 6 minutes to read this.
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Takeaways With Blog Data
Summary takeaways:
Longer blogs tend to get more views on my websites, suggesting readers appreciate depth. However, repurposed content from long blogs don’t get more views on LinkedIn, possibly due to uniform post length there.
Writing time: Posts that took more time to write generally performed better on my blogs, but those same posts often underperformed on LinkedIn, indicating readers prefer more spontaneous or digestible content on social media.
My writing efficiency improved over the year, with a decrease in time taken to write each blog. However, writing time per view remained mostly steady, except for year-end review pieces that didn’t resonate as much with my audience.
Read times: Regardless of how long I wrote a post, read times stayed consistent, likely because I now split longer posts into summaries and appendices.
Themes: Posts on personal growth, parenting, food, and career outperformed others. In contrast, meta content about blogging or content creation attracted fewer views.
Repurpose on LinkedIn: There’s some correlation between blog performance and LinkedIn performance, especially when repurposing well-received blogs. A high-performing blog often leads to higher reach on LinkedIn too.
LinkedIn engagement metrics — likes, comments, impressions, members reached — are correlated. Likes is the most predictive of reach.
Top content: My most viral content included career pivot story, school research, and lifestyle experiments, which all resonated across both blogs and social platforms.
Some standout blog posts performed especially well:
Analysis Goal
I wanted to explore the following questions and hypotheses based on my blog performance.
Read time vs views
Do longer posts get fewer views because they take more time to read?
Or do they get more views because they offer more information and depth?
Longer posts may discourage casual readers. But they might attract those who want detailed insights.
Write time vs views:
Do posts that took longer to write get more views because they are well-researched and informative?
Or do quick-to-write posts get more views because they feel more spontaneous and raw?
Longer writing time doesn’t always translate to better engagement. Readers may value authenticity over polish.
Write vs read time:
Do posts that take longer to write get more straightforward and quicker to read because I edited them well?
Or do they take longer to read because I added more details?
Editing improves flow, but adding depth might increase reading time.
Writing Efficiency:
Has my average writing time per blog reduced over the months?
Check if speed increased without hurting quality or views.
Theme vs views:
Do certain themes perform better than others?
For example, do posts about coaching, consulting, or life hacks get more views?
Some themes may naturally attract more attention than others, even with similar effort.
Blog vs social media:
Do blog posts that get more views also perform better on LinkedIn?
A post might do well on the blog but get lost on social media—or vice versa.
Social media reactions:
If a LinkedIn post gets more likes or comments, does it also get more views?
Engagement may signal quality—but it doesn’t always mean reach.
Analysis Inputs
I used 800 data points. These included blog views from my business consulting website, my personal website, and my Substack newsletter. I also tracked the performance of my LinkedIn posts—views, likes, impressions, members reached, and comments.
I used these data sources:
Time to write each blog post — measured by RescueTime
Time to read each blog post — estimated by Hemingway Editor
Views on sparkcreativetechnologies.com
Views on harshal-patil.com
Views on Substack
Views, likes, and comments on LinkedIn
Read Time Vs Views
Do longer posts get less views (because they are long) or get more views (because they have more information)?
I have kept the view counts abstract by removing the Y-axis labels.
The slight correlation between time to read and blog views suggests I am providing more value in longer posts.
No correlation between how long the blog post is and the views received on LinkedIn. This could be because my LinkedIn posts are all the same length, as they are all excerpts of blogs.
Write Time Vs Views
Do posts that took longer to write get more views (because they have more information) or do posts that shorter to write get more views (because they feel more authentic and raw)?
I have kept the view counts abstract by removing the Y-axis labels.
The first graph shows a clear pattern: blog posts that took more time to write often received more views.
The second graph suggests that total views (dominated by LinkedIn views) are fewer for posts that took longer to write.
I see my editing time doesn’t result in smaller blogs.
I realized it is valuable to split a long post into a summarized or top-level post and move rest of the content into separate posts.
Writing Efficiency
Did my writing time per blog reduce over the months?
I'd like to see if I improved my writing speed over the year. So I plotted how many minutes it took me to write blog posts, grouped by month.
That graph shows a downward trend — I’m taking less time to write now.
Next, I look at the time it takes to write per view, over the months. That matters because what if I’m writing faster but fewer people read my posts? The earlier graphs showed a connection between time spent writing and the number of views, so it’s worth looking deeper.
Most of the year, I spent similar time writing per view, but I took up longer-form review pieces at year-end that my readers did not want to read.
Write Vs Read Time
Do posts that take longer to write take less time to read (because I edited it well) or do they take more time to read (because I added more info)?
The time to read is similarl across the blogs. This might be because in longer blog posts, I spend a lot of time writing it, but then split it into one summary or primary blog and rest as appendix.
Theme Vs Views
Do posts in some theme get more views, for example, coaching, consulting, or life hacks themed posts?
My top blog posts are spread across the categories, with one post in food & lifestyle, one in personal growth, and one around my previous career change.
I normalized this data to see the average views per post in some category. It showed some of my parenting, nutrition, or food related blog posts got very high traction.
LinkedIn views data is skewed by 1 post with 15x more views than other posts.
If I were to focus on views per post, I should change my approach to write in these themes:
Personal growth & lifestyle
Career & work life
I should reduce writing:
Meta on blog, e.g. top posts from 2024 or upcoming posts.
Content creation learning
Blog Vs Social Media
Do the blogs that got more views also result in more views on LinkedIn / social media?
I repurpose my blog content to LinkedIn, Slack communities, Twitter/X, and Whatsapp. Does the same content work well in blog versus social media post format? The graph suggests a little correlation between blog post views and social media views for the repurposed content.
Social Media (LinkedIn) Reactions
If a LinkedIn post gets more likes or comments, does it also get more views?
I looked at social media performance for those same blog posts, especially on LinkedIn. These posts reached a much wider audience, and that had a stronger impact on total views. The views, likes, comments, and members reached seemed correlated.
To dig deeper, I checked how closely different lines correlated by trying out several ratio combinations. That helped me understand the strength of the relationships between time, views, and effort.
How correlated are these lines? I saw by checking different combination of ratios. Takeaways:
Impression and “members reached” are similar.
Likes and reach are the most correlated.
See the green triangles. The lower the better.
Further Analysis
I looked at 800 data points in this analysis from 4+ platforms. Next, I have scraped data to understand my audience. I’ll analyze that sometime and share my findings.
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