I get asked by clients and colleagues a lot about how many words there should be on a webpage. This question is generally focused on organic search engine rankings and how to get more traffic. Sometimes it also focuses on the aesthetic appeal of the page. These are valid concerns but should not be the primary one that motivates you to create a web page.
Watch Roger talk about “how much content you need” in a Video
I did a Google Hangout talking about this, its only 18 minutes long and gets into the details as to why and how:
My suggestion is to focus on whether your content fully answers the question that the page wants to answer. If you can answer this question in 500 words thats great but keep in mind that the average english speaker talks at a rate of about 150 words per minute – h/t Quora That means that in 500 words or less than 5 minutes you are expecting to completely answer someones question about your service, how it applies to them, and how you can help. If thats enough then go with 500 words. My bet is that you are going to need a bit more content to get your points across completely.
Once you answer the question then you can be concerned about aesthetic appeal which is a part of conversion optimization. This is the process where you format the text with bold or italics and create
- lists
- allowing
- users
- to
- skim
- the
- content
for what they need.
Dont expect that they will need all of the content but don’t leave anything out as that might be just the piece they are looking for.
Finally if you can answer the question and optimize for conversions then the organic traffic will follow.
External Resources
Here are some great posts from Neil Patel on the subject:
How Content Length Affects Rankings and Conversions
7 Simple Copywriting Tweaks That’ll Shoot Your Conversion Rate Up