Have you ever wondered how many words you should have on a page or blog post?
It's a common question that business owners have when they're looking to create new content. This could be content for an existing website or content for a brand new site.
The answer to the "how many words" question will vary depending on a few factors. These include who you're writing for and if you want the content to be visible in the search engines.
Your audience is the most important people to consider when you're creating content.
Everything you write on your website is for them and not for you. Your content helps someone to understand if your products or services are a good fit for them.
So when you're writing for your audience, your single purpose is to make sure that you're sharing enough information and detail that will help them to make a decision. This could be a decision to contact you, to make a purchase, to opt-in to your newsletter or even just to continue reading more content.
There's no set number of words that are right for every circumstance. Sometimes you may have a page with 500 words on and others you could have 2,000 words or more.
What you do want to avoid is creating "thin content" (link: https://yoast.com/what-is-thin-content/). This is especially important if you want to be visible in search engines to your potential customers.
Thin content is content that has little or no value. It's usually comprised of either a very small number of words or a lot of words but limited substance.
Search engines work on the principle of showing the best possible results that match the search intent of the user. The results that rank highest are those that most closely answer the question or search term that the user entered.
When you're planning a new page or blog post for your website, one of the best things you can do is to scope out the competition. Thankfully, this is easy and something you can do in just a couple of minutes.
For example, perhaps you're writing a new blog post about the benefits of teeth whitening. A keyword someone could be searching with in Google for this is: "teeth whitening benefits".
Opening up Google and performing a search for "teeth whitening benefits" will show you the top 10 results. Now you can look at how many words are on each of these pages to understand what the search engines are looking for.
Ignore any adverts and visit each of the links that make up the first 10 search results. Once you've visited, you'll want to check how many words are on each page. You can do this by using a free tool such as WordCounter (link: https://wordcounter.net/website-word-count).
Copy and paste the URL for each page into WordCounter, making a note of the total number of words on the page. Once you've finished, take an average of those 10 results by adding them all together and dividing by 10. The final number is the minimum number of words that you should be considering if you're looking to rank your new page or blog post in the search engines.
Remember that your most important task is not to focus on a specific number of words, but instead on helping a visitor to your website. Use as many words as you need to clearly explain and help someone to take the next step in their purchasing journey with you.
P.S. If you'd like to talk more about creating articles and in general talking about SEO, please schedule a call with me. You can book a call at a time and date that suits you on my calendar here. Book a meeting with me.
