Google SEO: How Many Words & Keywords?
I get asked this all the time -
how much text do you put on a page to rank for a certain keyword?
Well, as in so much of SEO theory and strategy, there is no optimal amount of text per page.
Instead of thinking about the quantity of the text, you should think more about the quality of the content on the page. Optimise this with searcher intent in mind. Well, that’s how I do it.
I don’t subscribe that you need a minimum amount of words or text to rank in Google. I have seen pages with 50 words out rank pages with 100, 250, 500 or 1000 words. Then again I have seen pages with no text rank on nothing but inbound links or other ‘strategy’. In 2012, Google is a lot better at hiding away those pages, though.
At the moment, I prefer long pages and a lot of text, still focused on a few related keywords and keyphrases to a page. Useful for long tail keyphrases and easier to explore related terms.
Every site is different. Some pages, for example, can get away with 50 words because of a good link profile and the domain it is hosted on. For me, the important thing is to make a page relevant to a user’s search query.
I don’t care how many words I achieve this with and often I need to experiment on a site I am unfamiliar with. After a while, you get an idea how much text you need to use to get a page on a certain domain into Google.
One thing to note – the more text you add to the page, as long as it is unique, keyword rich and relevant, the more that page will be rewarded with more visitors from Google.
For instance, this page might be relevant to a search for;
- How many words on the page for Google?
- How many words to rank in Google?
- How many words and characters on the page for SEO?
- How many words on the page for Yahoo?
- How many words on the page for Bing?
- What is the optimal amount of text on a page for search engines?
OK so I cheated a bit there, and normally I would take more time to work these questions into the text – but hopefully you get my drift.
There is no optimal number of words on a page for placement in Google. Every website – every page – is different from what I can see. Don’t worry too much about word count if your content is original and informative. Google will probably reward you on some level – at some point – if there is lots of unique text on all your pages.
TIP: The ‘inverted pyramid‘ – pictured above – is useful when creating pages for the web too – very useful.
Written by Shaun Anderson
