If I read 10 SEO articles, 9 out of 10 have said that you should have 1000 -3000 words. That is huge. Generally it takes more than 3 -5 hours to write a well researched 2000+ word article.
Does it really matter? I mean most topic we can cover just 1000 with some external links. And I can say that it is quality and it is helpful for users.
Do I still have to write 1000-3000 word articles to get SEO traffic?
No. Absolutely not!
Any suggestion that word count is a ranking factor is bad SEO and completely wrong. In fact, it is an insult to Google and Bing to suggest such a thing.
There is no limit, short or long, or even a range that influences search except for the ridiculous. The advice to create high quality content stands. Short and concise content, if done well, is perfectly fine.
Google uses a rule in determining ranking factors. Can the factor be manipulated to artificially boost search performance?
Can word count be manipulated? In a word, Yes. Of course. If word count were a ranking factor, then content would be made long consistently across most sites to gain rank. This is not done. In fact, shorter content can rank very well. This is self evident to anyone who searches Google for any length of time.
Short of extremes, extremely short or extremely long content, the size of the content does not effect how well it performs. There are too many factors that go into indexing and evaluating content for content length to have any effect if it were to. The plain fact of the matter is that content length would, at least, be so insignificant a metric, if used, compared to others to matter.
Here is another rule Google uses to determining a ranking factor. What does the metric say about the content? For example, content quality or how the content should be found, etc. Content length literally says nothing about the content itself. Again, short of extremes, content length cannot logically be used to indicate the quality of the content, how the content should be found, the popularity of the content, etc.
Correlation aside, assuming that there is any correlation to be argued, content length as a metric offers no definitive rule to be made. Long content can be garbage as much as valuable. The same exists for shorter content. Ask yourself, Under what set of rules can content length definitively indicate content quality, value, popularity, etc? You will not be able to find one.
Some years ago when researching trust factors for a security systems research project for NSF I was working on, Google shared some internal documents that detailed database schema, algorithms, business logic, etc. The reason for sharing the document was simple. There is a large overlap between domain trust factors that Google uses and ones we were developing to determine domain trust on the Internet and Google wanted to see if there were any new factors we were developing and what experiences statistically would help with how Google determines domain trust factors.
Based upon these documents, nowhere was there any metric or algorithm that addressed content length. This bears repeating. Content length is not a ranking factor or even a factor at all.
Primarily from SEO bloggers. SEO bloggers are, for the most part, not familiar with how technology is used in search. Much of what is posted is either parroted from others or anecdotal. Very few actually have researched how search works. They go from their own experience. However, they forget one simple fact. Short content can perform extremely well too.
Google has a lot to say about satisfying content. Much of what is said is purely conceptual and designed for human consumption. It is not actually how search engines CAN see content. It is a machine afterall. It cannot evaluate content the way we do. The cognitive ability of any computer using artificial intelligence (AI) is extremely low. Instead, search engines use scientific measures many of which date back to the 70's. Semantic analysis of various types, trust networks, link maps, are older technology that search engines rely upon heavily. What is used are technologies and AI that are specific to evaluating and presenting large-scale ontologies of textual information some of which were built examining how humans use, process, and perceive language. Others are about processing information in a manner that allows information retrieval (IR).
I thought how can I discuss how content performs without getting into the metrics? I looked at my list of metrics and it is far too overwhelming for this Q&A format. Then I thought how can I not get into the technologies such as mentioned above? Again, far too overwhelming. I could write a book! Instead, I will explain a few things you may not have thought about. I will keep it simple. I am working from memory.
Content is evaluated for several things of which topical strength, expertise, reading level, target market, fact statements, semantic structure, citation analysis, etc., just to name a few.
Topical strength is the analysis of specific key terms found in a topical ontology to score what topics a given text is about. Topical strength is the score of all topics, especially related topics, and how focused and complete a given text is on a particular topic.
Expertise is the analysis of specific key terms found in a topical ontology and fact link analysis that indicates the level of expertise a given text presents. This is compared to other writings where expertise has been established. This requires comparison scores with known writings from experts on any given subject. For example, your writings can be compared to research papers from a known expert. In this case, proper use of terms using semantic analysis, topical strength scores, fact link analysis, and other forms of evaluation will indicate your expertise on a topic.
Reading level is the analysis of the required education level to understand a given text. While on some hand this is self explanatory, it is found that highly educated people will write at a targeted level. For example, people with PhDs will often write for their peers. This indicates a level of education and expertise not related specifically to the text. Instead, it will indicate who the text is targeted toward.
Target market is the analysis of markets that indicate who a given text is meant to appeal to. This may be obvious, however, market analysis is used to match a search query more precisely to intent. For example, queries that appear to be looking for SEO advice will lean heavily toward content that is SEO centric. Search queries that are not specific enough can skew results toward an entire market easily.
Fact statements is the analysis using semantics to extract fact statements from a given text and compare them with similar fact statements in other text. Fact statements that pass scrutiny and are accepted compares favorably in search. For example, George Washington's birthday is February 22, 1732. If your content states George Washington's birthday as something different, it will not be found in search. Fact statements are converted into fact links which comprises the knowledge graph. The knowledge graph is simply an ontology of facts seeded with trusted information. For any fact to be added to the knowledge graph, it must be corroborated by several trusted sources. When a fact statement within your content can be corroborated, the content receives a link within the knowledge graph (also known as a knowledge base) as a trusted source for that specific fact. The more fact statements that exist within a given text that can corroborated and linked within the knowledge graph the better that content will perform in search as being factual.
Semantic structure is analyzed and used in a variety of ways. One of the ways that semantic structure is used is to create facts. Facts are not always apparent. For example, "A dozen is 12." is apparent. Whereas, "Brian has an uncle named Pete. Pete has a daughter Diane.", semantic structure and fact analysis can determine that Diane is Brian's cousin and vice versa. Another way semantic analysis is used is to analyze a given text for linguistic expertise. Complex sentences, if structured correctly, can be properly understood and scored. This not only can indicate expertise on a given subject, but also allow complex relationships between facts to exist.
Citation analysis is the analysis where quotations and references are found to be used within a given text that refers to another text. This is often in the form of a quote, but can refer to a title or author of a given work that shows a level of expertise or not. Quoting from one or more authoritative works helps search.
Because these all influence how content appears for a given search and applies evenly regardless of the content length. However, how your content scores using the analysis mentioned will influence how your content is found. Here are the two ends of the scale.
Shorter content tends to be fact based and concisely answers a single question. This content works well in the answer engine using the knowledge graph. Search queries that solicit a fact based response will often result in shorter content. This works best when search is trying to answer a search query with one correct factual answer.
Longer content tends to be heavily fact based with a high level of expertise. This often does not work well in the answer engine. Why? Because the answer is not as apparent. However, for more scholarly searches, longer content is often found.
There are exceptions of course. However, I suspect I made my point.
Because most SEO blog posts are relatively short and are shy of fact statements. What fact statements exist many times cannot be corroborated from highly authoritative sources such as research papers and most fact statements can be corroborated only among other SEO bloggers. Other analysis metrics come into play. Expertise analysis falls flat. Reading level is moderate. Topical scores are lacking. However, market analysis is strong. Based upon the experience of SEO bloggers, content within a relatively narrow window of context is created and therefore performs narrowly based upon what is created. SEO blogs are written for an audience that is looking for smaller bits of information. Most SEO queries are not in search of a single fact based answer and therefore rely more heavily on other search metrics. Longer posts tend to do well with more fact statements however, are very narrow in topical scope. It is a fait accompli. SEO bloggers tend to parrot each other in a large echo chamber and therefore few posts offer anything new or insightful. Few ever refer to real authoritative works. This is why SEOs drive me nuts. Most simply do not know how search works.
Google does not use "word count" as a ranking factor. Think to yourself; does it make sense? Just look at the StackOverflow site, you will hardly see more than 1000 words per page. Still SO and SE sites rank like a rocket.
Do not believe marketing blogs, they have not done any studies, they just show us some nice reports so you believe it. Just ask to see their real inside reports. They have no time to do that. They don't even know how to create a program to crawl webpages, so how can they write a study on that? Especially don't believe marketing blogs (like backlinko) who do not have a team to do real data analytics.
Marketing guys create false case studies to get promotional backlinks. Yes, promotional backlinks, it means writing something different, make it viral, and grab promotional backlinks.
Technically, Google uses word count but in terms of whether the user is satisfied with the result or not. Let's say you've written a 2000 word article for your blog, and people read your whole blog post from start to finish, and spend 20+ mins on your blog. It means the user really enjoyed your article, so it should get a higher score. But what if you've written a 2000+ word article and most people spend just 2 mins on your blog post before going back to the search results page? It is a sure sign that the user was not satisfied with the result. So The time spent/UX is really the important factor, word count is not.
And Google does not use your Google analytics report to find all kinds of UX stats, they can create their own. So if you think that when Google employees like John Mueller and Matt Cutts said that they don't use analytics reports, that means they don't use your analytics report, but still they can create their own by checking how users interact with their search results. Don't think like: what if the user opens your site for the whole day? There is already a bunch of API calls which can identify whether the user interacted with your site or not, by checking their cursor movement for example. I am not data analytics but there are too many things which apply to measure user experience.
But the simple answer is, the number of words does not count as a ranking factor, because it does not make sense at all, in this data analytic world.
You shouldn't think word count as ranking factor but rather what may be the good length to justify the blog.
Google doesn't like way too short content with more links.
In my view 1K words blog should be perfectly fine.
It is true that there are many SEO blog guys and they are in a race against words. Some even got 5K+ words, and mostly you will notice they just exaggerate basic points. And at times it becomes hard to take the gist out and becomes confusing.
I will just make one additional point. When you produce a content and if you got a number of sub-headings in the blog post and if you feel people may be searching those sub-headings then you may wish to cover those in detail which will extend the length naturally but importantly, it will be useful for the user too.
Conclusion:
The mindset shouldn't be that you need to produce massive length content but rather solving the problem with required length. Just make sure it is not too short like few hundred words. You can also make your content look bigger by having proper graphics and videos.
The technical answer to your question is yes. According to Google, ranking factors can be separated into 1. quality and 2. relevance. In Google's updated Guidelines (as of 2017) (which can be found here) word count is indirectly, if not directly a ranking factor. Google has specifically mentioned the length of content as an important criteria for a page's quality - and if you understand "quality" as a ranking factor, you will find it self-evident that content length can therefore effect your rankings. Before everyone freaks out, please scroll down to section 3.1, where you can find "Main Content Quality and Amount" as one of 4 most important Page Quality Rating Factors. Quality, as it relates to length of content, is based on a landing page of the task url.
However, it is a huge misconception that a web page needs 2,000-3,500 words to rank. This is simply not true. However, based on what your underlying landing page is trying to accomplish, I recommend comparing the underlying keyword query with the sites which rank on page one within your niche - and using an aggregated average to determine the range that your page's wordcount should fall within.
However, relevance is even more important than having a high word count. Sites which cover a topic in-depth, and written by experts within their field will, acccording to Google, significantly outrank sites which don't. Publishing specific content that covers a specific topic can help with Page Quality Rating, and thus search engine rankings.
Original Source: https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2015/11/updating-our-search-quality-rating.html
Google does need content to crunch so as to return popular results for popular searches
So personally, I would be concerned more about creating the quality of the content on your pages.
And, I would worry more about creating low-value pages in some desperate attempt to reach 1000 words.
If you believe all the SEO articles go for it, otherwise keep it interesting for a reader.
And also I think that how much words are needed to explain to convenience the visitor about the content that is enough for Google Rank.
Yes according to the content marketing word count is important ranking factor. Google has particularly specified the length of substance as a vital criteria for a page's quality - and in the event that you comprehend "quality" as a positioning element, you will think that its undeniable that substance length can thus impact your rankings.
In large word count you can put your more keywords in content through which you can internal link you web pages which helps to increase Page Authority and improve your keywords ranking as well.
