Today, we’ve decided to tackle one of the big questions in digital marketing – “how long should the content on your website be?” We get asked this all the time by clients, or some variation of it.
It has a really simple answer though: “as long as it needs to be.”
In all seriousness, this is the correct answer. In the SEO game, we used to say “minimum of 300 words.” Nowadays, it’s a bit more nuanced than that. However, while our answer is correct, it’s not overly helpful. Below are some helpful tips for writing the right amount of content.
Who are you writing for?
Your audience can play a big part in how much content they expect and are willing to read. If you’re selling highly technical products to a hobbyist industry, chances are they’ll hoover up any and all communication you can put out.
On the other hand, if you’re selling simple cleaning equipment in a B2B environment, such as mop heads or dust sheets, chances are the audience aren’t interested in reading very much. Know your audience and write to their expectations.
Who should you not write for? Google (and other search engines). Google’s algorithm is constantly evolving and updating, and so are the requirements for satisfying it. What is important is remembering that Google wants content to be written naturally, for humans. Their algorithm is evolving to match this aim. This is one reason why SEO has changed, from stuffing a keyword everywhere in an article to focusing more on themes and synonyms.
What type of content are you writing?
Alongside your audience, the type of content you’re writing will often dictate what your wordcount needs to be.
Blog articles
These can vary in length dramatically. From short updates to detailed guides, there’s no rule when it comes to the number of words in the article. However, we find that longer articles tend to do quite well, from a ranking perspective. Long-form content is a natural fit for blogs. You’re less likely to be hampered by the design of the page and people often expect more content on this type of page.
Homepage
The homepage can often be a tricky one to gauge content for. Usually, it will have a unique design on the site, which often dictates how much copy is present. Likewise, its job is to send users deeper onto the site, rather than giving them all the information right off the bat.
When we design sites, there are often a couple of different sections for text, and this can help with SEO. It also gives some flexibility for how much content is needed. Generally, we’d say to aim for around 100-200 words.
Category pages
On category pages, there tends to be more content than on the homepage. Rules are made to be broken, but often content will get longer the deeper into the site users go. These pages tend to be more specific and detailed, which is useful for users and help us to optimise keywords more efficiently. More specific pages allow for more specific keywords.
Again, the design can impact how much content is present, and not everyone wants to wade through a lot of text before continuing to use the site. A compromise is often the best approach. Two content areas on a page, a shorter one at the top and then a larger one towards the bottom of the page can work really well. We used this approach on one of our newest sites,
Rotronics.
Product pages
This can be very industry and product specific. You might need to explain a range of features, technical specs, where the product’s come from or even what it actually does. Likewise, with the aforementioned mop head, it’s rather self-explanatory. It isn’t worth spending hours trying to write 300 words of beautiful prose about a spatter guard – trust me, I have seen it done.
It’s not just about words
A lot of the time, people think about how many words need to go on the page. In reality, there’s more to it. Longer content needs to be broken up. Headings help segment content, making it both easier to read and remember. They also help with SEO.
Adding images helps too. Many people are very visual, and they do say a picture paints a thousand words. Breaking lots of data up with images really helps. It doesn’t have to be Instagram quality images either (and we do generally advise you to try and get your own images).
Data is always useful. It helps support your argument and demonstrates expertise. If you include tables and charts, they also help to break the text up too – see Russell’s latest article about Google Search Trends.
Quantity… and quality
Ultimately, there’s no easy answer that can be applied to every piece of content you’re writing. However, there are some best practices to bear in mind:
- Consider your audience
- Think about the purpose of your content
- Quality is very important
- Write for people
- Balance text with images
- Try to have at least 100-150 words on a page as a minimum threshold. If you can say more, without compromising quality, then go for it
Want to know more? Get in touch :)