What do you think is the sweet spot for article length?
-
If you were creating an informational website, how many words on a typical page do you think would be ideal for achieving the best organic traffic and rankings? Why?
-
I agree with what has been said here, I do not think there is a "sweet spot" as far as number of words goes but the article needs to be long enough to give useful information.
That being said it is difficult to imagine to many articles that are less than 300 words that would be of interest and use to the reader.
My suggestion would be to find sites that you think give excellent useful information (maybe like seomoz) and see what the average length of their articles are, but always think what does the reader get from this article and how am I helping them.
-
As these people have said it depends on the content, though I use a rule of thumb from the journalism days:
If you're reporting on something, that is something happened (e.g. new iPhone launch, founder of InvisibleChildren caught masturbating in public) it's usually only 250-500 words.
If you're explaining something, that is teaching a new concept from scratch, I'm usually comfortable with around 1,000 words.
If you're commenting on something or editorializing it can be anything in between depending.
This obviously has exceptions, I find that technology matters have shallow reports for example whereas social science/phenomena are generally longer.
-
The best way to stink up a great article is to foist an arbitrary wordcount onto the author.
If the author is finished and still needs 300 words then he is going to bullshit and blather to reach your goal. Yes, that BS will have an odor.
If the author reaches the wordcount and still has a lot to say then you just might have lost the web's most authoritative content in that niche.
-
Enough words to give a better explanation than your competitor, and to make people want to link to your page. This isn't an exact science, but it's like I had teachers tell me -- write until it is done.
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
-
Blog or article length and SEO value
Why do different blog lengths affect SEO differently? Is it directly affected by Rankbrain or the Google Algorithm, or is it more because of user engagement?
Content Development | | CyrusDariusXerxes0 -
Updating a Business Blog Article - Old or New Published Date
There are a few business blogs that I'm currently updating - include more details, information, case studies, statistics etc. The blog was originally published in September of 2016. Once I make the changes, do I keep the same original date or do I change the date to the day that i've uploaded the new information? Example:
Content Development | | Kdruckenbrod
Original Published date: September 2016
Updated Blog: June 2017. What date should the blog display? Thank you.0 -
Listings site -is freshness important on results or articles?
We have a property listing site.
Content Development | | nick-name123
Wandered if its more important to update the results of the listings (adding or deleting them) or is adding new articles more important.?0 -
Images in articles - copying the authority in my industry
Hello, For my site, BobWeikel.com, I have an article about the type of coaching I do. It's called "What is NLP?" Here's the link. The two authorities in my industry which I respect the most have no (or sometimes one) images or anything in their best articles - it's all just text. Some examples of these authoritative articles are here and here. Note the second article has one image in it. That's common for that author, and he's the top person in the field. Note that that first link has no images at all. I'd like to refine my article until I can compete. Should I leave out all images since that's what the big guys are doing? Thanks!
Content Development | | BobGW0 -
This article on making money with your site has to be out of date, doesnt it
Came across this article on making money with your site but surely it must be out of date as a number of the recommendations breaks google guidelines. Here is the link to read the full article but below is a breakdown http://bloggerspassion.com/make-money-online-websites/ 1. Paid Blogging with Sponsored Reviews Publishers are able to make money selling paid reviews on their blogs and advertisers are able to create buzz, traffic and backlinks with SponsoredReviews website. My total earnings with this paid review website are $1631.95. You need to have 3 months old blog with 10 quality posts published to get accepted. 2. Make Money Selling Text Link Ads Bloggers are able to make good earnings selling text links and advertisers are able to get lots of high quality backlinks and traffic for their websites. This helps them earn a lot of money from the services and products they are selling on their websites. I’m so far I have been able to earn $7,711 with this website. You need PR 3 plus blogs to get accepted. would be interested in your thoughts on this
Content Development | | ClaireH-1848860 -
How to Get Rid of Duplicate Content Captured on Article Lists
We have a ton of articles and blog posts on our site. Currently, we display summary lists of articles that contain the first paragraph of the article in the summary list. However, in my reports, this is coming back as duplicate content with the full article itself. How do I fix this? Ex: article main page- http://www.robots.com/articles/10 First article on that page- http://www.robots.com/articles/viewing/grippers-for-robots (which shows up as duplicate content with the main artilce page). With our blogs, we have the most recent 5 blogs (in the same summary format) listed on our main blog page. We then have categories that people can sort by. But again, this is causing us duplicate content because those pages show the first paragraph of the blogs related to that category. Ex: blog main page- http://www.robots.com/blog. First blog listed on that page- http://www.robots.com/blog/viewing/robots-and-automation-bringing-jobs-back-to-the-united-states (which then shows as duplicate content with the main blog page). And then you can also select categories to see related topics: http://www.robots.com/blog/category/buying-a-robot which is showing as duplicate content also. Help! How can I prevent this? Thanks! JWanner
Content Development | | jwanner0 -
Is modifying already published articles a problem?
Is there any problem updating the date and text of a news article if the URL remains the same? For example, if we published a minor sports story on Monday and on Wednesday there was a small update to the story I would like to take my original article and change the date + first paragraph of the text to make it still relevant for my users to read without having to write an entirely new article since this is not a major story and there is not much new content to add. Any SEO issues with take the original article and changing the first paragraph + title?
Content Development | | theLotter0 -
Handling articles
Is it better for seo to accommodate articles of more than 400+ words by creating new pages on a site or is it best to blog them.
Content Development | | MSSBConsulting0