The amount of text on a page affects its ranking in search engines. At the same time, the optimal text length for a particular page depends on the number of promoted keywords and competitor sites in the TOP-10.
What should be the length of the text on the page
Internet marketers have done a lot of research proving that text length is one of the search engine ranking factors, as well as a parameter that affects conversions. A study of more than 300 thousand articles showed that their length is usually from 100 to 5000 words. Only in approximately 5% of cases the length of the text on the page was less than 100 words and in 3.5% – more than 5000 words.
The first conclusion that can be made is that the amount of text on a page of up to 10,000 words is in most cases sufficient both in terms of the quality of the content and its size.
At the same time, for successful ranking it is better to dwell on articles with text lengths of 8000 characters without gaps for information resources, and on commercial websites it is enough to use materials of 4,000–7,000 characters.
There is a relationship between the length of the text and the age of the domain. On domains that are more than ten years old, the average content length on pages is more than 2,700 words. On new domains that were created less than a year ago, this indicator is less than 1800 words.
Given this correlation, it is especially important for new domains to create high-quality relevant content, backed by natural backlinks, in order to rank better than old sites. Otherwise, older trust sites with voluminous texts may occupy higher positions.
Consider several ranges of text volumes that are best used depending on the subject of the post:
- text from one to 50 words: characteristic of social networks, the optimal length – 23-25 words;
- 51-100 words: often used in tweets. The optimal length is 65 words;
- 101-500 words: short stories, news. “Golden Interval” – 317–327 words;
- 501-1000 words: the volume of most newspaper columns. The optimal range is 738–748 words;
- 1001-5000 words: long articles are published in this range. In this variant, posts with a volume of 2,000-2,500 words are best rated;
- more than 5000 words: traditional volume for scientific texts, guides, instructions, manuals on products, products and services. Texts with a length of 6600–6700 are ranked best.
The benefits of using long text on pages
- Long content, the volume of which is more than 2000 words, is more often referred to from other resources and shared by it in social networks.
- Such content often remains relevant for a long time after publication. This is true for articles on “evergreen” topics, for example, on literature, psychology, cooking, home economics, etc.
- The voluminous text allows you to fully reveal the topic of the article, so that users will not need to search for answers to their questions on other sites. This reduces the bounce rate and has a positive effect on page ranking.
- A well-structured long text with a sufficient number of lists, charts, tables, relevant images increases the involvement of the audience and allows you to get more reposts and conversions.
- In many cases, long articles contain infographics, additional reports and useful data that can be obtained in PDF format after providing an e-mail address. This format is commonly called white papers or eBooks. This marketing ploy allows you to get more leads or more quickly increase the number of e-mail subscribers of the site.
Which text on a web page is ranked better
In addition to the optimal length, the text on the web page should have the following qualities:
- be unique. The use of non-unique content leads to search engine filters;
- be complex to the extent necessary for the target audience. For sites that publish articles on any professional topic, the complexity of the texts is an indicator of the quality of the project;
- The text must contain advanced keywords. It is important that they are used more often than other phrases that are not used for promotion. Page rankings are affected not only by keyword density, but also by their position in the text, as well as the word order;
- it is best to use the keys evenly throughout the text, high-frequency – in the headlines, medium and low-frequency – inside the content. For 1000 characters, 4-5 keys should be placed;
- The text must be literate. Many errors can pessimize the page in the results of search results.
How SEO pages affect your site
For a variety of reasons, the site may contain blank pages. Such web pages do not bring any benefit to visitors and with a large number on the site can reduce its position in the search results.
In addition to the negative impact on SEO, blank pages degrade the usability of the project, forcing users to take extra steps to find relevant content on the resource. This worsens behavioral factors, increases the bounce rate.
Mostly empty pages on the site appear due to the fact that content has been deleted on them. Sometimes these pages are generated automatically by plugins.
Whatever the cause, they must be removed. You can find blank pages on the site in various ways. One option is to find a table in the database in which the contents of the pages are stored, and sort the contents of the desired column alphabetically.
For example, in CMS OpenCart, the descriptions of all products are stored in the product_description table, the prefix is set during database creation and may be different. Load this table and, in order to identify blank pages, sort the results alphabetically by the description column:
So we got a list of blank pages. If necessary, you can add content to them through the admin area or directly in the database by clicking “Edit”. If the pages are no longer needed, here you can click “Delete.”
Conclusion
- The amount of text on a page affects its ranking in search results. Also, this indicator has an impact on the number of reposts in social networks and natural links from other resources, bounce rate and CTR. Increasing the length of the text, subject to its quality, uniqueness and relevance to the site can increase leads and increase conversion.
- Some types of pages, such as posts in social networks, tweets, product cards in online stores, are ranked well with short text. Therefore, to identify the optimal length of the text, for each important page of the site should perform a separate analysis, taking into account keywords and competitors leading in the issue.
- It is important to monitor the absence of empty pages on the site and delete them or fill them with useful content.