SEO
Does Word Count Really Matter For SEO Content?
In the world of search engine optimization (SEO), the top strategies for copywriting are continually shifting as we adjust to Google’s algorithm updates.
You may have come across digital marketing experts who offer guidance on how to improve your place in the search rankings by following their recommendations for word count range.
There have been multiple debates around whether word count matters in SEO, and it’s time to get to the bottom of it.
Is Word Count A Ranking Factor?
Google’s John Mueller has confirmed that word count is not a ranking factor for the search algorithm.
Specifically, he states that “just blindly adding text to a page doesn’t make it better.”
Rather than looking at the number of words on a page, Google’s algorithms look for relevant, original, and high-quality content.
Why Long-Form Content Tends To Rank Higher
Despite Google’s confirmation that word count doesn’t directly affect rank, you can still find plenty of articles and keyword tools that suggest longer word counts.
So, why do tools like Yoast and Clearscope provide recommended word counts if the numbers on the page don’t directly impact rank?
There are a few reasons a higher word count may improve your ranking indirectly.
Some of these tools are basing word count recommendations on competitive analysis.
Writing longer content makes it easier for Google’s algorithm to figure out what your page is about.
Well-written comprehensive pieces also position you as an authority on the topic and enable you to rank for long-tail keyword variants.
How To Determine The Right Word Count For Your Content
There’s no rule of thumb to follow in terms of the word limit for SEO.
Instead, you can look at your keyword research, competition, and past performance to determine your content’s best word count range.
Start With Your Keyword Strategy
You may create a new piece of content with a single target keyword in mind.
But a study by Ahrefs found longer content is more likely to rank in the top 10 for multiple keywords.
By increasing the length of your article, you can cover your primary topic from various angles, which means you can rank for more keywords.
In particular, longer articles have a higher chance of ranking for long-tail variations of your primary keyword, with lower competition and higher conversion rates.
For example, long-tail variants of “Microsoft Word” might include “Microsoft Word for Mac” and “Microsoft Word resume template.”
So if you’ve identified long-tail keywords that you want to target, consider increasing your word count to address those more specific queries.
Check Out The Competition
You can also use word count as a benchmark metric when comparing your content to the competition.
Many keyword research and content optimization tools provide the word count of the top-performing articles for any given keyword.
If you don’t know how long an article should be, looking at the word count of the current top performers is a good place to start.
Pay Attention To Search Intent
In addition to looking at what the competition is doing, you should always pay attention to the search intent associated with your target keyword.
Intent will help define what makes content useful and relevant to the user.
In other words, think about what your target audience wants when they type a keyword into the search bar.
If they want comprehensive information, you might aim to meet or exceed your competitors’ word count.
Conversely, you might choose to create shorter content that gets to the point faster for keywords where the audience wants quick answers.
As it relates to word count, search intent can help you decide whether you want to follow the competition’s lead or differentiate your content through length.
Review Your Performance
Finally, you can look at your past performance to discover what content length works best for you.
Review your SEO performance regularly and see if trends arise.
Is there a word count sweet spot where you tend to rank higher?
Or maybe you have some shorter articles that aren’t ranking as high as you’d like.
In that case, try going back to your keyword research and figuring out how you can lengthen the content with more useful and relevant information.
Additional Factors That Affect Your Ranking
You can use word count to enhance your keyword research and competitive strategy, but it’s not going to be the ultimate deciding factor for search algorithms.
If you want to improve your SEO performance, here are some additional writing tips to consider:
Content Structure
Google looks at structural elements, such as heading tags, as a way to better understand your content and send the right users to your page.
Formatting your content with a clear, logical structure to your content also improves readability and usefulness for the people searching on Google.
Instead of just stuffing your heading tags with keywords, think about the best experience for your reader.
Use headings to break up large chunks of text and make it easy for someone to find the information they want.
Quality Of Information
Information quality remains a top determining factor for search engine results page (SERP) rankings.
In other words, adding a bunch of fluff to increase your total word count won’t help you.
According to Google, the search algorithm prioritizes reliable information and pages that “demonstrate expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness on a given topic.”
Back up statements and claims with links to relevant external data sources to improve your content quality.
You should also ensure your content is original by doing plagiarism checks and avoiding duplicate content on your domain.
Visual Support And Imagery
Images and other visual support can help you demonstrate relevance to your target keyword, another primary factor the algorithm uses.
For example, if you’re targeting the keyword “Harry Potter,” Google will look for relevance signals such as pictures of the character or video clips related to the books or movies.
Adding media can improve the user experience by breaking up large blocks of text and catering to visual learners.
High-quality original images also enable you to rank in Google Images.
Optimize For Special Content Blocks
Google continues to make its SERP pages more intuitive and browseable through special content types and featured snippets.
These content resource blocks appear at the top of SERP pages and often give users a quick answer to their queries.
Optimizing your content for featured snippets can elevate your content to position zero, above all other results.
Around 70% of all featured snippets are paragraph types, which could be an excellent place to start experimenting.
Aim to answer the keyword question using 50-250 characters.
Final Thoughts: Why Is Word Count Important For SEO Strategy?
Optimizing content for SEO isn’t as simple as running through a checklist of keyword mentions and article length.
Ultimately, you have to understand the audience of each keyword and publish the content that best serves their needs.
Word count won’t be the factor that pushes your content to the top, but it can help you define what’s “relevant and useful” for a particular keyword.
Use the writing advice and questions above to find your optimal word count starting point, but keep in mind that all your words should provide value to your readers.
More resources:
Featured Image: Wall to wall/Shutterstock
SEO
Measuring Content Impact Across The Customer Journey
Understanding the impact of your content at every touchpoint of the customer journey is essential – but that’s easier said than done. From attracting potential leads to nurturing them into loyal customers, there are many touchpoints to look into.
So how do you identify and take advantage of these opportunities for growth?
Watch this on-demand webinar and learn a comprehensive approach for measuring the value of your content initiatives, so you can optimize resource allocation for maximum impact.
You’ll learn:
- Fresh methods for measuring your content’s impact.
- Fascinating insights using first-touch attribution, and how it differs from the usual last-touch perspective.
- Ways to persuade decision-makers to invest in more content by showcasing its value convincingly.
With Bill Franklin and Oliver Tani of DAC Group, we unravel the nuances of attribution modeling, emphasizing the significance of layering first-touch and last-touch attribution within your measurement strategy.
Check out these insights to help you craft compelling content tailored to each stage, using an approach rooted in first-hand experience to ensure your content resonates.
Whether you’re a seasoned marketer or new to content measurement, this webinar promises valuable insights and actionable tactics to elevate your SEO game and optimize your content initiatives for success.
View the slides below or check out the full webinar for all the details.
SEO
How to Find and Use Competitor Keywords
Competitor keywords are the keywords your rivals rank for in Google’s search results. They may rank organically or pay for Google Ads to rank in the paid results.
Knowing your competitors’ keywords is the easiest form of keyword research. If your competitors rank for or target particular keywords, it might be worth it for you to target them, too.
There is no way to see your competitors’ keywords without a tool like Ahrefs, which has a database of keywords and the sites that rank for them. As far as we know, Ahrefs has the biggest database of these keywords.
How to find all the keywords your competitor ranks for
- Go to Ahrefs’ Site Explorer
- Enter your competitor’s domain
- Go to the Organic keywords report
The report is sorted by traffic to show you the keywords sending your competitor the most visits. For example, Mailchimp gets most of its organic traffic from the keyword “mailchimp.”
Since you’re unlikely to rank for your competitor’s brand, you might want to exclude branded keywords from the report. You can do this by adding a Keyword > Doesn’t contain filter. In this example, we’ll filter out keywords containing “mailchimp” or any potential misspellings:
If you’re a new brand competing with one that’s established, you might also want to look for popular low-difficulty keywords. You can do this by setting the Volume filter to a minimum of 500 and the KD filter to a maximum of 10.
How to find keywords your competitor ranks for, but you don’t
- Go to Competitive Analysis
- Enter your domain in the This target doesn’t rank for section
- Enter your competitor’s domain in the But these competitors do section
Hit “Show keyword opportunities,” and you’ll see all the keywords your competitor ranks for, but you don’t.
You can also add a Volume and KD filter to find popular, low-difficulty keywords in this report.
How to find keywords multiple competitors rank for, but you don’t
- Go to Competitive Analysis
- Enter your domain in the This target doesn’t rank for section
- Enter the domains of multiple competitors in the But these competitors do section
You’ll see all the keywords that at least one of these competitors ranks for, but you don’t.
You can also narrow the list down to keywords that all competitors rank for. Click on the Competitors’ positions filter and choose All 3 competitors:
- Go to Ahrefs’ Site Explorer
- Enter your competitor’s domain
- Go to the Paid keywords report
This report shows you the keywords your competitors are targeting via Google Ads.
Since your competitor is paying for traffic from these keywords, it may indicate that they’re profitable for them—and could be for you, too.
You know what keywords your competitors are ranking for or bidding on. But what do you do with them? There are basically three options.
1. Create pages to target these keywords
You can only rank for keywords if you have content about them. So, the most straightforward thing you can do for competitors’ keywords you want to rank for is to create pages to target them.
However, before you do this, it’s worth clustering your competitor’s keywords by Parent Topic. This will group keywords that mean the same or similar things so you can target them all with one page.
Here’s how to do that:
- Export your competitor’s keywords, either from the Organic Keywords or Content Gap report
- Paste them into Keywords Explorer
- Click the “Clusters by Parent Topic” tab
For example, MailChimp ranks for keywords like “what is digital marketing” and “digital marketing definition.” These and many others get clustered under the Parent Topic of “digital marketing” because people searching for them are all looking for the same thing: a definition of digital marketing. You only need to create one page to potentially rank for all these keywords.
2. Optimize existing content by filling subtopics
You don’t always need to create new content to rank for competitors’ keywords. Sometimes, you can optimize the content you already have to rank for them.
How do you know which keywords you can do this for? Try this:
- Export your competitor’s keywords
- Paste them into Keywords Explorer
- Click the “Clusters by Parent Topic” tab
- Look for Parent Topics you already have content about
For example, if we analyze our competitor, we can see that seven keywords they rank for fall under the Parent Topic of “press release template.”
If we search our site, we see that we already have a page about this topic.
If we click the caret and check the keywords in the cluster, we see keywords like “press release example” and “press release format.”
To rank for the keywords in the cluster, we can probably optimize the page we already have by adding sections about the subtopics of “press release examples” and “press release format.”
3. Target these keywords with Google Ads
Paid keywords are the simplest—look through the report and see if there are any relevant keywords you might want to target, too.
For example, Mailchimp is bidding for the keyword “how to create a newsletter.”
If you’re ConvertKit, you may also want to target this keyword since it’s relevant.
If you decide to target the same keyword via Google Ads, you can hover over the magnifying glass to see the ads your competitor is using.
You can also see the landing page your competitor directs ad traffic to under the URL column.
Learn more
Check out more tutorials on how to do competitor keyword analysis:
SEO
Google Confirms Links Are Not That Important
Google’s Gary Illyes confirmed at a recent search marketing conference that Google needs very few links, adding to the growing body of evidence that publishers need to focus on other factors. Gary tweeted confirmation that he indeed say those words.
Background Of Links For Ranking
Links were discovered in the late 1990’s to be a good signal for search engines to use for validating how authoritative a website is and then Google discovered soon after that anchor text could be used to provide semantic signals about what a webpage was about.
One of the most important research papers was Authoritative Sources in a Hyperlinked Environment by Jon M. Kleinberg, published around 1998 (link to research paper at the end of the article). The main discovery of this research paper is that there is too many web pages and there was no objective way to filter search results for quality in order to rank web pages for a subjective idea of relevance.
The author of the research paper discovered that links could be used as an objective filter for authoritativeness.
Kleinberg wrote:
“To provide effective search methods under these conditions, one needs a way to filter, from among a huge collection of relevant pages, a small set of the most “authoritative” or ‘definitive’ ones.”
This is the most influential research paper on links because it kick-started more research on ways to use links beyond as an authority metric but as a subjective metric for relevance.
Objective is something factual. Subjective is something that’s closer to an opinion. The founders of Google discovered how to use the subjective opinions of the Internet as a relevance metric for what to rank in the search results.
What Larry Page and Sergey Brin discovered and shared in their research paper (The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine – link at end of this article) was that it was possible to harness the power of anchor text to determine the subjective opinion of relevance from actual humans. It was essentially crowdsourcing the opinions of millions of website expressed through the link structure between each webpage.
What Did Gary Illyes Say About Links In 2024?
At a recent search conference in Bulgaria, Google’s Gary Illyes made a comment about how Google doesn’t really need that many links and how Google has made links less important.
Patrick Stox tweeted about what he heard at the search conference:
” ‘We need very few links to rank pages… Over the years we’ve made links less important.’ @methode #serpconf2024″
Google’s Gary Illyes tweeted a confirmation of that statement:
“I shouldn’t have said that… I definitely shouldn’t have said that”
Why Links Matter Less
The initial state of anchor text when Google first used links for ranking purposes was absolutely non-spammy, which is why it was so useful. Hyperlinks were primarily used as a way to send traffic from one website to another website.
But by 2004 or 2005 Google was using statistical analysis to detect manipulated links, then around 2004 “powered-by” links in website footers stopped passing anchor text value, and by 2006 links close to the words “advertising” stopped passing link value, links from directories stopped passing ranking value and by 2012 Google deployed a massive link algorithm called Penguin that destroyed the rankings of likely millions of websites, many of which were using guest posting.
The link signal eventually became so bad that Google decided in 2019 to selectively use nofollow links for ranking purposes. Google’s Gary Illyes confirmed that the change to nofollow was made because of the link signal.
Google Explicitly Confirms That Links Matter Less
In 2023 Google’s Gary Illyes shared at a PubCon Austin that links were not even in the top 3 of ranking factors. Then in March 2024, coinciding with the March 2024 Core Algorithm Update, Google updated their spam policies documentation to downplay the importance of links for ranking purposes.
The documentation previously said:
“Google uses links as an important factor in determining the relevancy of web pages.”
The update to the documentation that mentioned links was updated to remove the word important.
Links are not just listed as just another factor:
“Google uses links as a factor in determining the relevancy of web pages.”
At the beginning of April Google’s John Mueller advised that there are more useful SEO activities to engage on than links.
Mueller explained:
“There are more important things for websites nowadays, and over-focusing on links will often result in you wasting your time doing things that don’t make your website better overall”
Finally, Gary Illyes explicitly said that Google needs very few links to rank webpages and confirmed it.
I shouldn’t have said that… I definitely shouldn’t have said that
— Gary 鯨理/경리 Illyes (so official, trust me) (@methode) April 19, 2024
Why Google Doesn’t Need Links
The reason why Google doesn’t need many links is likely because of the extent of AI and natural language undertanding that Google uses in their algorithms. Google must be highly confident in its algorithm to be able to explicitly say that they don’t need it.
Way back when Google implemented the nofollow into the algorithm there were many link builders who sold comment spam links who continued to lie that comment spam still worked. As someone who started link building at the very beginning of modern SEO (I was the moderator of the link building forum at the #1 SEO forum of that time), I can say with confidence that links have stopped playing much of a role in rankings beginning several years ago, which is why I stopped about five or six years ago.
Read the research papers
Authoritative Sources in a Hyperlinked Environment – Jon M. Kleinberg (PDF)
The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine
Featured Image by Shutterstock/RYO Alexandre
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