Ideal length of web content

Every one of our clients asks what the best length is for web content. The notion that people don’t read it anyway means that almost everyone has unrealistically low expectations. The ideal length depends on various factors.

At least 500 words

People may not read much, but too little text does not meet the need for information. An article should consist of at least 500 words. This is equivalent to one A4 page with a font size of 13 pixels. For an informative page, the recommended length is even 5,000 words (!). These are known as ‘content hubs’.

Effective structuring of web content

Don’t present web content as a single block of text; instead, break it down into smaller paragraphs. Give each paragraph an eye-catching subheading. This structure encourages website visitors to scan the text and then read the parts that interest them.

Varying search terms

Longer web texts give you the opportunity to mention important keywords more often. You should also vary the combinations of search terms you use. Search engines can better assess the value of the targeted keywords based on more content. They use the fancy term ‘authority’ to describe this. And quite rightly so, because a longer article conveys more trust than a short piece with little text.

Expand existing articles

If you take a critical look at the length of the articles on your website, there’s no need to panic if they’re consistently too short. After all, there’s nothing stopping you from expanding those articles. This also comes with a major SEO benefit: existing articles have built up more link authority, and by expanding them, the changes are indexed more quickly and you can achieve better rankings as a result. Google wants you to update your articles and pages annually, and by critically reviewing your existing articles, you’re responding to this in a smart way. Older articles with a good structure attract high-quality organic search traffic.

Plan carefully

Writing an article takes time. To produce a good piece of web content, you need to bear in mind an important factor. It usually takes 1 minute to type 40 words. Naturally, some people type faster than others, but even a slow typist can still phrase their sentences well in one go. You’ll need to work out an average somewhere in between. In any case, writing a 500-word article takes well over 10 minutes. If you factor in the preparation, editing, creating internal links and finding a suitable image, you’ll quickly reach half an hour. As you publish articles on a regular basis, be sure to take this into account in your planning.

Scan all web content and filter out any articles that a) haven’t been updated for over a year and b) contain fewer than 500 words. If you’d like help with this and you have a WordPress website, we have the ideal tools for the job.