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.
When writing content for a website what is the optimal copy length?
-
My site is currently in the mist of a redesign and I’d like us to compile some recommendations on the length of copy for a page to rank well but can't seem to find any up to date articles on this.Does anyone have any suggestions, comments, or feedback?Thank you.
-
I have hundreds of articles on my site and they range in length between 500 and 4000 words - with lots of photos.
My retail pages usually have several hundred words of unique relevant content and they often link to article content (500 to 4000 words) that explains how to use the product, how to select, how to repair, etc. These are clusters of content around retail products. In my opinion, it is the best way to rank.... but sometimes your articles will rank better than your retail -- but, that's OK because we have house ads on those pages to let visitors know that we sell the stuff.
-
Thanks Monica!
-
Thank you for sharing this link.
-
Thank you Hutch, this is very helpful.
-
Google doesn't have a minimum, but as a rule of thumb, I stay above 500 words per page.
Some things to consider are how many links are on the page. You want to keep your HTML to text ratio at about 1:2. It will help avoid duplicate content issues in the future.
Hutch has a great point, you can't limit yourself to fill the target words per page if it will inhibit your ability to convey your message. If you need 1000 words then you need 1000 words.
Just some helpful tips about content writing, make sure to utilize images and try to incorporate some user generated content. Both of these things will help increase the value of your content and offer an advantage to your searchers.
Good luck!
-
Yeah i agree with Hutch, Google does not appear to have a minimum/maximum word count for indexing content. So just write as much as is required
-
Write as much copy as you need to convey the information that is needed for your visitor on that page. If you can create a good user experience on one page with 100 words (by answering the pain that they would be going to that page to solve) and then you need 1,000 words for your next page, then do that to. Don't make arbitrary copy limits or goals based on SEO, make your pages user friendly and your copy useful and your pages will rank well for the appropriate content.
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
-
titles length, URL length and meta descriptions on a subdomain effecting SEO on main domain?
Hi all, I am currently evaluating areas for optimization on my main domain. When doing this, Moz has identified multiple titles and urls that should be shortened and missing meta descriptions on my subdomain (a help center of sorts). As far as I am aware, we have not set up any "no-index" rules for this subdomain. Are these items affecting SEO on my main domain? Thanks,
On-Page Optimization | | annegretwidmer
Kasey0 -
Does using Yoast variables for meta content overwrite any pages that already have custom meta content?
The question is about the Yoast plugin for WP sites. Let's say I have a site with 200 pages and custom meta descriptions / title tags already in place for the top 30 pages. If I use the Yoast variable tool to complete meta content for the remaining pages (and make my Moz issue tracker look happier), will that only affect the pages without custom meta descriptions or will it overwrite even the pages with the custom meta content that I want? In this situation, I do want to keep the meta content that is already in place on select pages. Thanks! Zack
On-Page Optimization | | rootandbranch0 -
How does Indeed.com make it to the top of every single search despite of having aggregated content or duplicate content
How does Indeed.com make it to the top of every single search despite of having duplicate content. I mean somewhere google says they will prefer original content & will give preference to them who have original content but this statement contradict when I see Indeed.com as they aggregate content from other sites but still rank higher than original content provider side. How does Indeed.com make it to the top of every single search despite of having aggregated content or duplicate content
On-Page Optimization | | vivekrathore0 -
Duplicate Content on Event Pages
My client has a pretty popular service of event listings and, in hope of gathering more events, they opened up the platform to allow users to add events. This works really well for them and they are able to garner a lot more events this way. The major problem I'm finding is that many event coordinators and site owners will take the copy from their website and copy and paste it, duplicating a lot of the content. We have editor picks that contain a lot of unique content but the duplicate content scares me. It hasn't hurt our page ranking (we have a page ranking of 7) but I'm wondering if this is something that we should address. We don't have the manpower to eliminate all the duplication but if we cut down the duplication would we experience a significant advantage over people posting the same event?
On-Page Optimization | | mattdinbrooklyn0 -
Website accessible on http and https. Is it bad?
We noticed that our website is accessible on: http://www.example.com and https://www.example.com Both the versions have page rank of 4. Though on https version we have added canonical tag indicating http:// version as preferred. Is this fine or we need to use 301 redirect and let the site be accessible only on http:// version??
On-Page Optimization | | CyrilWilson1 -
Schema.org for news websites?
So as of late I have been on something of a mission to mark up my news website with as much accurate and detailed Schema and Open Graph data as possible, in order to not only allow the search engines to understand my content properly, but also to ensure everything appears in the most ideal fashion when linked to from Facebook, Google+, etc. Here is an example of a typical article page: http://www.nerdscoop.net/technology/video-games-459 As you'll see I currently have news posts marked up as article because that is essentially exactly what they are, but is there a better way to emphasise that they are news rather than just generic articles? My second question is regarding the category pages and the home page. How would be best to mark these up? With OG the task is fairly simple, because I can specify the homepage as being a website, but not so with Schema from what I can see. Either way, this is an interesting subject to me and I look forward to any discussion as a result. Thanks for looking.
On-Page Optimization | | HalogenDigital0 -
Sliders and Content Above the Fold
I was just inspecting a wire frame that is going out to a client and realized that the slider may interfere with the "content above the fold." Can't believe this had not struck me on others. If the Header has basic business info, etc. in it and you place a slider to display images in the area just beneath the Header or slightly down from it, does that decrease the amount of content seen a being above the fold? Or, is content above the fold established by virtue of H1,2, 3, etc.?
On-Page Optimization | | RobertFisher0 -
Is it better to drip feed content?
Hi All, I've assembled a collection of 5 closely related articles each about 700 words for publishing by linking to them from on one of my pages and would appreciate some advice on the role out of these articles. Backround: My site is a listings based site and a majority of the content is published on my competitors sites too. This is because advertisers are aiming to spread there adverts wide with the hope of generating more responses. The page I'm targeting ranks 11th but I would like to link it to some new articles and guides to beef it up a bit. My main focus is to rank better for the page that links to these articles and as a result I write up an introduction to the article/guide which serves as my unique content. Question: Is it better to drip feed the new articles onto the site or would it be best to get as much unique content on as quickly as possible to increase the ratio of unique content vs. external duplicate content on the page that links to these articles**?** Thank you in advance.
On-Page Optimization | | Mulith0