Thanks to the likes of Jakob Nielsen, we Internet marketers can edit and hack our clients' web copy with confidence (and often glee). Short and to the point is what most usability experts are arguing for these days. And if you know what you are doing, your SEO strategy need not be compromised at all.

Either way, people inevitably end up asking such questions as:

Then a web marketing expert jumps in and advises to simply use how ever many words it takes to get the message across. That's good advice. Sort of. However, I think that, to be helpful, this idea requires some clarification.

In his latest book, Prioritizing Web Usability, Jakob Nielsen and Hoa Loranger tell us that users spend between 25 and 35 seconds on a site's homepage "when the homepage is the first page visited on a website" (2006, p.30). Nielsen and Loranger go on to say that because users spend most of their time on the homepage just orienting themselves to the website, they will actually only digest a handful of the page's words and phrases. Moreover, only 23 percent of users will scroll down to see what more literary gems lie beneath the fold (pp. 30, 32).

Personally, I would rather click over to another site and see my problem or question addressed in the first three headlines than read two and a half pages of "I am being literary because I couldn't think of a better way to say what I needed to say."

So, my version of the aforementioned "expert" advice would be that

Assuming you have a clear Unique Selling Proposition (USP) ...

Assuming you can blend a few keywords into sales copy without sounding like you just started learning the English language last week ...

And assuming that you will NOT infringe heavily on the basic tenets of usability ...

Then, yes, take as much time and web real estate as you need to get your message across. Just make sure your "need" as a writer doesn't trump your user's needs as a potential customer.