A frequent question during SEO training is “How long should my web pages be?”
The answer is around 2000 words. Yes, 2000 words.
This is not my opinion, it is based on 2016 research conducted by the people at Search Engine Journal.(refer https://www.searchenginejournal.com/ideal-blog-post-length-for-seo)
I quote: “Average content length for Page 1 results is around 1,900 words, according to a 2016 study. That’s a lot longer than the 200- or 500-word blog posts most writers or webmasters think is ideal.“
“But what about increasingly short attention spans and the rise of mobile devices with small screens”, I hear you exclaim.
I agree, it doesn’t make sense, but that is the way it is. Remember Google is just a text and backlink processing engine with a few bells, maps and whistles. It needs text to do its job.
This raises two questions:
a. How do I get to the magic 2000 word target?
b. How do I deal with short attention spans and devices with small screens?
Let us assume you want to get your home page to 2000 words. What you could do is include a frequently asked question section and testimonials section down the bottom of the page. If you already have an FAQ page (always a good idea), have the FAQs rewritten and rearranged by an SEO copywriter to overcome any duplicate content issues. The beauty of FAQs is that they also tend to be keyword-rich and include a lot of your keywords without seeming forced and spammy.
And if you need even more words, why not a mini case study on the home page? Most people love a story. If you want to check your page word count, please try this tool: https://wordcounter.net/website-word-count
To cater for short attention spans and smaller screen sizes you can use what is commonly called the “expanding text” function. You have probably seen it. You see a heading with a + next to it, and when you click on the + more text is revealed. If you are running WordPress, there are a bunch of plugins that make it easy.
