Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
How much text is recommended for a homepage?
-
I'm working with a client who is redesigning their site and the new design is very image heavy. Does anyone have any recommendations on the minimum amount of text the homepage should have so that it will rank (or at least not be penalized)?
It's a site created by a known brand, but the site itself and URL are relatively new.
Katherine
-
I like Patrick's answer and agree that you need enough words to be able to orient visitors and search engines. While there is no best practice minimum, I personally aim for at least 100 words.
-
Hi there
I added a few more resources - let me know if those work. Sorry, one of those "oh yeah!" moments after I posted!
Good luck!
-
Thanks! I'm familiar with the length of content generally (I like Neil Patel's study) but in this instance it's a homepage/magazine type format with very little text and only a few links to articles.
As a new brand I think it needs a bit of placeholder text to orient the new user, but I was just wondering if there were any studies specifically about the homepage and how much text you might need.
-
Hi there
There's no right answer for this. You'll see homepages and sites ranking with little to no content, and some with novels. If you have images on your homepage, talk to your web development team about bring the text out of the images to live on top of it so it can be crawled. Also, mind your image optimization.
I would focus more on your bounce rate - if it's high, maybe you need some persuasion. Your analytics are your best friend here. You can also test different content or layouts.
Quicksprout has some great tips as well that don't discuss the length, but how much it takes you to persuade the user - there's no "best practice" length, it's just what you need to get your point across and what you need to get the user to continue to move through the site - check it out here.
I also highly suggest this resource from SEOBlog.
You should read through this ranking factors study from SearchMetrics where they break down the average amount of text/content on pages for the first ten results, just remember that this isn't universal or gospel, your audience and what they are searching for is a unique ballgame.
Hope this helps! Good luck!
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
-
Issues with Multiple H1 tags on homepage?
Hi folks, My homepage has 3 identical H1 tags due to the fact that I have had to create individual hero images (with headings) for desktop, tablet and mobile. I couldn't get my theme to display the layout in exactly the way I wanted on each device without doing a specific hero image and tag for each device type. Does this have a major impact on my SEO? Thanks,
On-Page Optimization | Feb 11, 2018, 8:48 AM | Veevlimike
Mike.0 -
Does homepage SEO exist at all?
hi Just read a Yoast article explaining that the homepage should never be optimized for a specific keyword and should only be optimized for its business or brand name. i have a large site that I'd like to rank (or increase traffic for as I know people get irritated with that term now) for 'Campervan hire'. It has plenty of sub pages going after 'Campervan hire 'location'' for example. it makes sense to me for the homepage keyword - my core keyword - to be 'Campervan hire' and for the homepage to be optimised for this. However, the article I've just read (https://yoast.com/homepage-seo/) suggests a separate page for this keyword. What are your thoughts pls?? thanks
On-Page Optimization | Jan 15, 2016, 1:04 PM | CamperConnect142 -
Alt text / internal linking
Hi everyone A question about best practice when linking from pictures on our homepage - hirespace.com We have an option of using divs with background images (nicer in terms of design) but it means that we can't use anchor text or alt text to show Google what these internal links are about. The other option is to use images which do not allow us as much flexibility in terms of CSS but would allow us to use alt text. There is also an opinion that we should have separate text links at the bottom of the homepage to get the anchor page in. What is best practice in this situation - is alt text worth sacrificing some CSS flexibility for? How important is anchor/alt text for internal linking? Thanks guys.
On-Page Optimization | Aug 5, 2014, 3:39 PM | HireSpace0 -
How many Anchor text i can make on One page.
I would like to have clear answer in numbers i.e. 1, 2, 3, or 4 etc. of how many Anchor text i can make on One page.????
On-Page Optimization | May 12, 2014, 9:39 AM | 1akal0 -
How Much Does Punctuation of a Word Effect SEO?
I have a page on a site that is targeted for "mens hair cut" and I have received a F for the grade. The content on the page uses "men's" throughout the content. (proper punctuation) When I re-graded the page with "men's hair cut" the page received a B grade. My question is, does mens v.s men's make a different for on-page SEO? Should my targeted keywords include "men's" rather than "mens"?
On-Page Optimization | Mar 31, 2014, 4:07 PM | Kdruckenbrod0 -
Text within a Div Crawlable?
Hi, I have a paragraph of text contained within a Div container ( ).. Is this readable by a search engine spider. Or is it better to enclose it within ? Thanks for any feedback.
On-Page Optimization | Sep 19, 2012, 9:13 PM | IBMEMM0 -
Do you think using accordion text can hurt SEO?
I have a lot of text for my home page. My plan is to a J Query Plugin for accordion text. Does anyone think that this can hurt SEO efforts?
On-Page Optimization | Jan 7, 2016, 8:31 AM | DTOSI1 -
Is there an SEO penalty for text that appears only in a pop-up box when you hover the mouse over an icon?
A client of mine wants to streamline the look of his web pages, taking some of the visible body copy and putting it into boxes that pop up when you hover the mouse over an icon. My understanding is that search engines will index this pop-up text. However, do they penalize pages that have text in pop-up boxes out of concern that those pages are spammy? In this case, the text and the page are perfectly legitimate e-commerce pages. Thanks for any insights you can offer.
On-Page Optimization | Apr 11, 2011, 7:46 PM | jimmartin_zoho.com0