SEO focuses on the content that impresses both the users and the search engines. It’s commonly known that search engines use different algorithms to rank different websites, but one common factor which they can agree on is that content is given priority. “Content is King” as some may say. This phrase is indeed true, good quality content will attract more users and convey the impression of a good website to the user. Another aspect of having solid content is that other webmasters and bloggers will find it useful and possibly link the content to their own website. This in turn may lead to an increased amount of traffic to the website in question. That being said, the type or quality of content and the methods to develop and maintain that content are still vague. Our focus is on whether the length of the content has an impact on SEO rankings, which will be explained in the subsequent sections.
A website or online platform is a representation of the person or company behind it. In this aspect, SEO service is crucial in online marketing to create a positive impression of one’s website in the eyes of the public. Looking at it from a different angle, a high SEO ranking will lead to greater awareness and attention from the public as shown in a recent study (Chitika, 2013). This point was proven when the first ranked Google search results received 33% of the traffic compared to the 18% of the second position, and a mere 9% of traffic for the third ranked results.
Importance of SEO in Online Marketing
SEO is the sole key for a business to deliver messages from their products to the audience. By attracting the correct audience, there is a higher possibility that they will become permanent customers. SEO works by matching the keywords that are being searched with the contents from the business. The higher the matches for the keywords, the higher the business site will be placed on the search results, resulting in a higher potential of clicks on the business URL. SEO is the cheapest and most effective promotion for a business. Compared to other promotion tools, SEO results can be classified as long term because the search result will stay until the keywords are no longer being searched. And compared to other tools, SEO has the highest ROI (Return on Investment).
When businesses are still in the early stages of establishing their brand, it is a common thought that their chances are bigger if a broader audience is targeted. This is because a large audience means more potential customers. However, the approach of targeting the larger population is not effective in gaining success in the business. A specific targeted audience is an essential part that needs to be achieved by all businesses. This approach is proven effective because by targeting a particular audience, a business may design and draft their products based on the needs and wants of the targeted audience. And it has been a known fact that search engine is a widely used tool by all internet users to look for information on something that they want to know.
Impact of Content Length on SEO Rankings
Content length has always been a topic of debate in the SEO community. Some studies claim longer content ranks better, while others suggest that you can rank just as well with shorter articles. We wanted to know, so our research team in the Narrow.io content department collaborated with our data scientists to find out which content length ranks better. Since we are firm believers of data-driven decisions, we set out to test this on our own blog to draw our own conclusions. We look to end this debate once and for all. This guide is a result of all the data we’ve collected in our journey to find if the length of your content really matters in terms of SEO. We will also provide a guideline of optimal content length with our suggestions on best practices. Organic search was chosen as the traffic source we will analyze all of our data with. The reason behind choosing organic search is simple: users generally use search engines when looking for information. This makes it especially important for us to generate content that ranks well and is easily found. We do not expect these results to be the same for traffic that is referred from social media or email marketing, where users are generally enticed by a catchy title or a quick call to action.
Determining the Ideal Content Length
In the search for the perfect length of metadata and articles, it is crucial to take into consideration a number of factors when determining the ideal content length for your website. Generally, we know that in order to rank well in search engines, it is a good idea to create original and relevant content. However, search engines such as Google express a preference for more in-depth, lengthy content which provides a great opportunity for websites that are looking to increase traffic through SEO. In February of 2011, Google released what was known as the “Panda update,” the aim of which was to lower the rank of low-quality sites and return higher quality sites to the top of the search results. One way to interpret high and low quality here is to liken it with long and short form content with the update suggesting that search engines now perceive high-quality content as being long and in-depth, with low-quality content being short and shallow. This update was created to help keep users engaged with sites by providing high-quality search results, and the update has proven to be quite successful. When thinking about content length, it is possible to think “the more the merrier,” however, it may not always be true and going too long can cause an article to become irrelevant or repetitive. Lengthy content may also be time-consuming to create, and there may be times when less means more.
Factors Influencing Content Length
Relevancy is the most important factor in content length. If you’ve fully and clearly addressed a topic, you’ve met the content length requirement. If you’ve addressed it halfway, you’ve only met half the requirement. Relevancy is determined by the search query or the user’s intent. Content that’s relevant to a search query could be considered “the right content.” There’s a problem, however, with creating “the right content.” What is right to one person is different to another. Imagine you’re a cupcake chef and your cupcakes are the best in town. You decide to make the best doggone cupcake website this side of the Mississippi. Unfortunately, your Google analytics show that nobody is searching for cupcake content, so you won’t have any visitors. Making the right content for a specific topic will be ineffective if there’s no interest in the topic.
Analyzing Competitor Content Length
The optimal approach to ascertaining the ideal content length for any given SEO content is based on statistical evidence of competitor content. This involves performing keyword searches on search engines and analyzing the characteristics of web pages that rank highly for those keywords. As mentioned above, a successful web page is one that ranks highly and drives relevant traffic and leads. The data collected from these keyword searches and competitor web pages should be recorded and analyzed over time. Record the keyword search volume and the content length of the top-ranking pages. Again, the valuable statistic here is the ratio of content length to search volume, L/s. Data should also be collected on the search volume and search positions of each individual ranking page in order to deduce whether content length has a causal effect on search engine rankings. This data can be used to draw meaningful conclusions about the optimal content length for a given keyword and whether it has a causal effect on search engine rankings.
2.3. Utilizing Keyword Research for Content Length Optimization
The most effective way to utilize keyword research for content length is to experiment with different content lengths for a particular keyword. An easy way to do this is to create multiple pages using the same content only with different content lengths and using various search engine optimization methods have them indexed and see which page gets the best result in terms of ranking. This is an incremental process and a long-term investment, but the data you collect will have the potential to significantly improve the performance of your website in search engine results.
Keyword research can significantly help in knowing the market condition and understanding how users are actually searching. The first step is analyzing the competitors and finding what keywords they are targeting. This can be easily done by using Google Keyword Tool External and entering the URL of the page to generate a list of keywords. Now that you have the keywords, try searching them one by one in Google and analyze the results to see the type of content the keyword is targeting. You will want to check the top 3 results as they usually have the most traffic and hence set the precedence for content length. Now find out the content length by copying a snippet of the page into Microsoft Word and dividing the character count by 635 (i.e. the average number of characters in a word). If the search results show more images/videos or flash in the results page, it may be wiser to include a higher number of words targeting that keyword as search engines cannot yet accurately index media content.
Benefits of Finding the Sweet Spot
Improved Search Engine Rankings Undoubtedly, the primary aim of creating a sweet spot is to increase rankings of content. By improving the content only up to a certain length, excess time can be spent on the creation of extra content articles. Using freshly updated content as the long-term method, an increase in the frequency of spidering can occur. Maintaining the same quantity of content, the frequency of spidering could quadruple, resulting in the increased exposure of all content on the website. As search engines only show a limited number of results on each page, it is possible that some of the newly created content may never be viewed by search engine users. An increase in the frequency of spidering will enable new and old content to be found more often, which should result in increased traffic to specific pages. Time can also be invested in off-page activities to increase the quantity of backlinks to a specific article. This content length has been tested by experienced SEO consultants and has been found to be the point at which time investment brings the greatest return of increased PageRank.
The “sweet spot” has been defined as the optimal content length that will give the highest ratio of organic search traffic. In simpler terms, it is the point where the benefit of content quantity has reached its maximum. It is important to mention that in terms of content length, quality and quantity are not directly proportional. Therefore, it is crucial to discover this sweet spot in order to increase the return on investment from the content created. This idea has created an incentive for SEO consultants to experiment and discover the sweet spot in their content.
Improved Search Engine Rankings
One question that is often asked is “how much content is enough?” In other words, how much content needs to be created to satisfy both the search engines and the expectations of the audience. This is a big consideration for businesses, particularly in tough economic times where the inclination is to dedicate as few resources as possible to achieve the desired result. Providing too much content could be considered inefficient and expensive, providing too little may be ineffective.
Search engine optimization (SEO) is the practice of improving a website in order to increase the likelihood of it ranking highly in the search engine result pages (SERPs). In recent years, the focus of SEO is increasingly moving towards a more holistic approach that encompasses quality content marketing and promotion. This is largely due to the ever-changing face of the web, with its move towards social media and networking. Engaging and dynamic content that has the ability to be shared within a network is a powerful way of ensuring that your content and brand is noticed.
Enhanced User Engagement and Experience
User engagement also directly correlates to the amount of content shared. Today, the “#1 rule of design” on many social media platforms is to “Keep It Simple Stupid” and this mentality has seeped into the habits of most internet users. Long content risks losing users part-way through and thus a portion of those who would have otherwise shared the content. This generates fewer incoming links and less frequent visits to the site from users who found the content to be of value. A study by serpIQ found that content in the 2000-2500 word range was most frequently shared. This word count is easily attainable with superfluous information.
Long content has a negative impact on bounce rate. It is a common argument that clearer, more focused writing leads to higher conversion rates. In many cases, it is believed that a visitor who bounces may have found the content to be too long or too difficult to read. Although it is dangerous to assume the reasons behind any single bounce, smart formatting and clear, concise writing can only help to ensure the very best user engagement. It’s clear that the more engaged a user is, the more likely they are to convert.
Increased Organic Traffic and Conversions
While increased traffic is a great benefit, the main goal of any sales-driven site is to increase conversions. A conversion can be defined as persuading a visitor to your site to take a desired action. This can include everything from buying a product, signing up for a trial, filling out a survey, or subscribing to a mailing list. No matter what the site, there is always a desired action. For marketers, a common value is defined as the cost it takes to reach a potential customer. If this cost is high, a company can spend a lot to reach people and not get many new customers. Increased organic traffic can help with this if the traffic is more qualified; however, increasing the rate at which traffic converts into desired actions is much more cost-effective. Here Scribe once again found a direct correlation between content optimization and conversion rates, stating that in general, users of their service saw a 50-60% increase in the same after optimizing their content. This increase can save a lot of resources on customer acquisition, and it can directly increase sales. As with the increase in organic traffic, it is content relevance that really makes the difference with conversions. So, in general, creating higher quality, more relevant content that ranks better in search engines should significantly change the value of traffic and customers coming to a site for the better.
Another significant benefit of finding the content length sweet spot is the potential for increasing organic traffic and conversions. In general, organic search traffic refers to the visitors who arrive at your site from a search engine search, like Google, Yahoo, or Bing. This does not include paid search ads; rather, it refers to results from search engines that appear because of their relevance to the search terms. Traffic that is generated organically is a measure of how effective your search optimization strategies are. The closer the number of visitors to your site from search engines is to your total search traffic, the more effective your SEO efforts are. We know that SEO success is largely dependent on content, so the effect that optimized content can have on organic traffic is significant. In a study of Scribe’s many customers, they found a case in which one company’s traffic increased 300% after completing a campaign of SEO content optimization. This reflects a typical increase that many see when their content begins to rank higher in search engine results. High-quality relevant content is what really encourages organic traffic. It is what makes a site relevant to a search, and it is what persuades searchers to click the result.
Strategies for Optimizing Content Length
“Crafting high-quality and relevant content” highlights the importance of content quality, but its title is a little misleading. Essentially, in order to make less really count for more, you only need one high-quality article to draw the same level of targeting traffic as several low-quality articles. Directly following the apparent advocacy of longer content, this section sets us straight by stating that article length is not what brings in traffic, and that too much low-quality content can, in fact, damage your site’s potential for high search engine rankings. The research cited shows that posts around the 2000-word mark yield the best results, and given that some of it is promoting Yoast SEO, this shows more a disconnect between ideal strategies for SEO and the ways that business clients are prepared to market their product. With search engine optimization posing such a microscope onto individual articles and posts, perhaps future studies might want to break down the quality and content type of short articles versus long ones to answer more definitively whether length is actually a contributing factor.
Crafting High-Quality and Relevant Content
The most effective thing a writer can do to ensure that an article is full-bodied and sufficiently detailed is to properly research the subject before putting proverbial pen to paper. Even a writer who considers themselves to be an expert on a particular topic is bound to miss some important details or facets, and research—whether this means scouring the internet for new information, cracking open old reference materials, or conducting new interviews and studies—will invariably turn up new and relevant information that can be worked into the article. A writer who is on the fence about whether or not to research a particular topic should err on the side of research; it is always possible to pare down extraneous details later.
Crafting content that is both high-quality and relevant in the eyes of search engines is a critical step in optimizing content length for SEO. While metrics such as keyword density and prominence naturally lend themselves to optimization efforts, the task of optimizing for content length is a bit more abstract. Despite the lack of clear parameters, the goal is obvious: content should be as long as it needs to be to adequately cover a subject without becoming unnecessarily verbose. In a practical sense, this means writing and organizing content in such a way that it is “meaty” (contains sufficient information), stays on topic, and fully addresses that topic before concluding. This is contrasted with short, “fluffy” articles that might skimp on important details or drift off into tangential subjects. The following is a collection of tips and strategies for crafting high-quality, relevant content that is naturally optimized for length.
Balancing Quantity and Quality
As already discussed, quality is always the most important aspect of any content. So when it comes to increasing an article’s word count, you never want to add fluff, regardless of what some people may tell you. True, somewhat relevant, yet trivial subject matter isn’t going to benefit the reader. The purpose here is to draw a line between additional content that can improve an article and the filler content that will just end up decreasing quality. Additional supporting details are what you want to aim for with any topic. Go into depth and give more thorough explanations. This is what separates a good article from a great one.
Paragraph length and format can be balanced to reach a halfway point in between what will attract more of those valuable links and cater to short attention spans. This is where most people will tell you that articles should be around 300-500 words so you attract more links. Basically, yes this is somewhat true, but what really needs to be stressed here is the word quality. Writing a 400-word article that sucks is not going to benefit you very much at all, and it probably won’t attract any links, because again, it sucks. Writing a good article of that same length however can be very beneficial. So, yes, shorter articles can sometimes be the best way to go. Typically, you want to reduce word count if you’re writing an article with no real purpose except to get something off your chest and offer a different perspective on a topic, that has practically been beaten to death. Step out of the box and write something different. An article with a very specific purpose though, can still be very lengthy and keep a reader’s attention. There is no magic 500-word count that is suddenly too many words. A lot of it has to do with the writer’s skill and the reader’s interest in the subject. This is figured out through trial and error over time.
Incorporating Visuals and Multimedia Elements
Although the text of each section consumes a number of words, there is a principle of “word economy”. If a more clear and concise way can be found to convey the information in a section, fewer words can be used to convey the content. This is an example of applying the principles of this essay to improve effectiveness. In summary, the section begins by describing the importance of visuals and how they are processed simultaneously with written text, then suggests that a fitting visual should be self-explanatory to reduce the length of accompanying text. The example of a poorly executed infographic describes an inefficient use of a visual to replace text, reiterating the suggested fit between the explanatory power of visual and quantity of accompanying text. The article was addressing the issue of content length, thus the relative paucity of information conveyed on this particular content length issue further speaks to the inefficiency of the visual in reducing the necessary length of accompanying text. The section concludes on the importance of ensuring the reader sees a visual in the form the designer intended, and if done successfully, it requires less text to explain or correct it. This final principle can apply to more than just visuals and suggests that any content requiring less expensive explanation be revised to a more easily understood version.
Monitoring and Analyzing Performance Metrics
If it’s found that changes in content length are having a negative impact on the site, it is important to be aware of this so that it can be fixed. This will involve going back to the content that has been changed and altering it to a state more similar to the original length. By creating an informed strategy and making monitored changes based on findings, it’s possible to move content length closer to the sweet spot and ultimately improve SEO. However, it is important to remember that there are many other factors that affect SEO, and sometimes changes in content length may have no notable impact on search ranking.
This can take a lot of time and work, but for bigger sites, it may be possible to speed this process up using data from similar past changes in content, or even changes made by competitors. With the recent introduction of search analytics to Google Search Console, it should also be easier to monitor changes in metrics on an ongoing basis.
It is also important to test the correlation of content length with as many different types of metrics as possible. If content length has a strong impact on search rankings, it’s reasonable to assume it should also affect things like organic search traffic, number of impressions, and number of clicks in Search Console. However, it’s also possible that the impact on search rankings comes without any change in user behavior. For example, changes in meta data and sitelinks can sometimes have no effect on user behavior even though they increase CTR to that page. By testing a wide range of metrics, it’s possible to get a clearer picture of the way changes in content length will affect a website.
Metrics are a key aspect of SEO strategy and are used at almost every step of the process. This also applies to determining the impact of content length. There are a few important things to note here. First of all, Google tends to be unpredictable. Things that may have worked in the past at one point may suddenly stop working. This means that when it comes to measuring the impact of something on search rankings, it’s important to monitor multiple different types of metrics to minimize the risk of not noticing a change.
