How many words per page?
-
I know this has been answered before, but I don't think it has been in about a year (and we all know how quickly the SEO landscape can change). We're having a little debate on it right now and I'd be curious to get some feedback from the community.
What is the minimum number of words you would use on a page? Does it matter to you if it's a second tier (website.com/x) or third tier (website.com/x/y) page?
It's always a tough sell on design between trying to keep it clean and trying to provide a lot of useful information. I'd be curious what your thoughts are. Thanks!
-Adam
-
[Spammy comment removed by forum moderator.]
-
Well if you think the brand exposure TSC has that catapults them to top rankings. If you a small retailer selling Horse Stall Mats with zero brand it will be an uphill battle. However I have found the amount of on page content plays a minimal role to the overall ranking factor. The biggest factors would be to have great branded links that pertain to your business, Social Media Presence with high engagement, and useful evergreen content on your site for people.
It looks like you have decent rankings for that keyterm. With out going to involved it looks like a little push from links to that page and work on your social media engagement since that's really lacking.
-
I'm confused by this because the author says a good percentage of the pages on Page 1 consist of 1000 words or more. However, I find a large number of pages on Page 1 consisting of very little text. For example, if you were to search for "horse stall mats", the number one listing is Tractor Supply. Go to the page and there's very little by way of keywording in the content itself. The meta is kw'd but there's very little related content (text).
-
Don't think of the word count as metric. Think about your users (I know that's becoming cliche now). Does a 200 word post help them with something or at least useful. I don't know of many that are. Sometimes that sort of short winded post may be better off on Google+, FB or Twitter.
Neil Patel wrote a really good article a year ago this time about the more words the merrier. Over 2,000 words in a post seemed to rank it. http://www.quicksprout.com/2012/12/20/the-science-behind-long-copy-how-more-content-increases-rankings-and-conversions/
Also John Doherty wrote on the MozBlog about the types of posts that get links and he did some analysis to back it up.
-
Thanks! I also agree with what Neil Patel said in that post that sometimes, long copy can interfere with conversions. It's a big "it depends". Sometimes all you need is a brief answer to an FAQ that will take you 100 words, and other times you need 2000 words to properly cover a subject.
-
I have found pages with 1000 plus words and various pics references and a video or animation rank very well. I'm sure if you hit 5000 words it may get a bit out of hand but in my experience more is better within reason. It's the video or animation that I find really makes the difference. I still count 300-400 as a bare minimum.
-
Certainly! Here is a great read on content length. But again Quality will be the biggest factor.
-
Hi! Would you care to share more information about the source of that number? It's always helpful to know background for this type of information.
-
Still around 700+ There is really not a formula as pages with 300 words rank very well.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Hi, on SEO article submissions, do I only include the link to the page I am trying to promote or is it best practice to also include a link to home page or parent page?
Good day. I am writing articles for submission, I would just like some help with the page structure. Do I only include the link for the page that I would like to promote or is it advisable to include other page links, such as home page or the parent category too? Any help would be appreciated
Content Development | | thebedguy0 -
Creating a Wiki page
Has anyone had any recent success with creating a Wiki page? I created a page that has been in Draft for 8 weeks waiting for a Wiki Editor to review and approve it. Perhaps someone here is has a more established Wiki account than mine and can help please? PS: Yes, I know a Wiki page doesn't hold much SEO value but it has not been created for SEO purposes
Content Development | | Marketing_Today1 -
One Page Website Blog Content Question
Hi guys, I'm new to the art of SEO and am learning every day from all the fantastic content here, I have a question that I can't find an answer to, hope it doesn't stump you like it has me... I have a one page website (www.neilwilliamsvoiceover.com) that I need to put more content on for SEO purposes but needs to be kept as one page. I've set-up a blog via blogger, and have that on the website but it's in iframe, which I've now discovered is ignored by search engines. So, my question is, is there a way to pull my blog feed into the website and have it recognised by search engines as content for the website? Would I use an RSS feed or feed burner or something else completely?! Thanks for your time and help in advance.
Content Development | | BamMK0 -
What is a Hub Page?
Can anybody explain what is a hub page? Do you have any example? In a other post, somebody suggest creating hub pages. This is the post: http://www.seomoz.org/q/online-store-with-4-products-available-in-50-sizes-need-tips-categories-products Thank you, BigBlaze
Content Development | | BigBlaze2050 -
Duplicate Page Content & Rel-Canonicals
The SEO Moz duplicate page content tool lists the following URL's as having duplicate content: http://www.savvyboater.com/1988-newer-8-tooth-15-hp-honda-outboard-props.aspx http://www.savvyboater.com/1988-newer-8-tooth-15-hp-honda-outboard-props.aspx?sort=PriceAsc&pi=2 The second URL is the price sorter/second page of the category and contains the following rel-canonical: | http://www.savvyboater.com/1988-newer-8-tooth-15-hp-honda-outboard-props.aspx"> Are we using the rel-canonical correctly in this case? If so, why does it continue to show up as duplicate content in our SEO Moz report? There are over 1,000 URLS listed in the report with the exact same issue. |
Content Development | | ironpac0 -
Adding a picture page - Good or Bad?
I have a lot of cool pics that just did not quite make it on one of my pages. Not necessarily because I did not want to, but space reasons they just happened to lose out to another photo. What I was thinking was, maybe I can add like a gallery page? Possibly with links back to the pages that each photo was considered for? Would this be a decent idea or just a page deemed as having low quality/value and end up hurting my site. Or maybe you can add an idea that may make it work for me!
Content Development | | VictorVC0 -
Onsite Content - Word Count & KW Density
Does the word count of a webpage make a difference to search engines? Are longer word counts on pages indexed higher or given higher priority? For example,say you have 300 words of copy packed with 20 keywords, and say you also have 700 words of copy that have the same 20 keywords worked in, does Google have a preference over which one it ranks higher?
Content Development | | greentent0 -
Best strategy for content/articles. Individual pages or blog posts?
Hi all, Whilst adding content to one of my sites quite often I'm left deciding whether I should create an individual webpage for the content, or write it up as another blog post. More often I write it up as a static page so it fits in with the rest of my website more 'directly'. However I'm wondering if I'm missing out here as obviously I'm not taking advantage of the benefits of a blog, RSS, Tag Cloud, etc etc... Just wondering if others encounter the same quandary?
Content Development | | davebrown19750