conteWe often get the question of how long an online text should be. As this often depends on different factors, giving just one answer is difficult. But looking from an SEO and user-oriented perspective, there is a rule of thumb you can follow. We advise writing more than 300 words for posts or pages, while product descriptions should be over 200 words. Why? Because a higher word count helps Google understand what your text is about. It also gives you the room to give enough information on the discussed topic, which is helpful for your site visitors. However, we don’t advise adding more content for the sake of it. Quality and readability always come first!
Table of contents
- Why does word count matter?
- What does Yoast SEO check?
- How to write a high-quality lengthy post
- How to create high-quality archive pages
- How to write high-quality product descriptions
- Conclusion on word count and SEO
Did you get a red or orange traffic light because your word count isn’t high enough? Read about the text length check here, or jump to the paragraph on how to write high-quality lengthy posts or informative taxonomy archive pages.
Why does word count matter?
Defining word count is easy: how many words are used in a specific text, a page, or another place. It’s an easy way to measure text length. But why does it matter, you ask? Well, ensuring that your text is long enough helps Google better understand your text. We’ve experienced this ourselves; we have written quite some articles over 2500 words, such as our SEO essentials. They are cornerstone content, and they help our organic traffic grow. Here’s how longer articles contribute to SEO:
When your text is longer, Google has more indicators to determine what it is about. The longer your text, the more often your focus keyphrase will probably appear. This is no excuse for keyphrase stuffing, though! If you optimize your copy naturally, your focus keyphrase will pop up here and there throughout your text. You can also fit in more synonyms and related keyphrases. What’s more, in a longer post, you can add more headings, links, and images, where you will mention the keyphrase or related phrases. So, more content gives you more room to provide users with high-quality and nuanced information.
A longer text can also help you rank for multiple long-tail variants of the keyphrase you’ve optimized your text for. That’s because you have more opportunities to address various topics in a lengthy text. Your article, or your other posts that take a deep dive into the subtopic, will have a chance to turn up in search results for the long-tail variants of your keyphrase. If you do some well-thought-out internal linking you can even boost the traffic to the extensive post you’ve written. This helps you drive more organic traffic to your site.
Avoid having thin content
Also, if a page doesn’t have a lot of text (a low word count), Google is more likely to think of it as thin content. All search engines want to provide the best answers to online searches people do. Thin content is less likely to offer a complete answer and satisfy the needs of the public. Consequently, it will probably not rank very high.
The same goes for product pages and descriptions in your online store. While these don’t have to be as long as blog posts, it is a good idea to make sure the text is long enough. Don’t underestimate the importance of having the proper information on your products. This can make the difference between making a purchase or not, as more text helps them make an informed decision and helps them trust your website.
What does Yoast SEO check?
The text length check in Yoast SEO
Yoast SEO helps you by checking the length of your texts. This check is part of the SEO analysis, and you will find it in the SEO tab of the Yoast SEO meta box or in the Yoast SEO sidebar. It calculates how many words you’ve added to a page and whether that’s enough to help you rank. This check is also available in our Yoast SEO for Shopify app.nido de mierda