We are often asked how long the online text should be. Since this usually depends on different factors, it is difficult to give only one answer. However, there is an empirical rule that can be followed in terms of the optimization and user-oriented nature of the search engine. We suggest that the number of words in the post or page exceeds 300, while the product description should exceed 200 words. Why? Because a higher number of words helps google understand your text. It also provides you with sufficient space to provide information on the subject under discussion, which is very helpful to visitors to your website. However, we do not suggest adding more to this. Quality and readability are always first
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Do you see red or orange traffic lights because you don't have enough words? Read here the information about text length checks, or jump to paragraphs about how to write high-quality long articles or an informative classified archive page。
Why does the word count matter
Defines the number of words simply: it refers to the number of words used in a particular text, page or elsewhere. This is a simple measure of text length. But why is this important? So make sure your text is long enough to help google better understand the content of your text. We've been through this ourselves; we've written more than 2,500 words, like our seo point. They are the building blocks that help to increase our natural flow. Here are some of the contributions of longer articles to seo:
When your text is longer, google has more indicators to define its content. The longer the text is, the more frequent the focus keyword may appear. But that's not the excuse for the keywords! If you naturally optimize your copy, your focus keyword will pop up everywhere throughout the text. You can also place more synonyms and associated keywords. In addition, in a longer post, you can add more titles, links and images in which you will refer to keywords or related phrases. Therefore, more content gives you more space to provide users with high-quality and detailed information。
Longer text also helps you to rank multiple long tail variants of the words that have been optimized. This is because you have more opportunities to discuss topics in lengthy texts. Your article or other post that explores the sub-theme in depth will have the opportunity to appear in the search results of the keyword longtail variant. If you have some considered internal links, you can even increase the flow of your extensive posts. This will help you bring more natural traffic to your website。
Avoid thin
Furthermore, google is more likely to view it as lacking in content if it does not have a large number of text (less words). All search engines want to provide the best answers to people's online searches. A single content is unlikely to provide a complete answer and meet the needs of the public. Therefore, it may not rank very high。
The same applies to product pages and descriptions in online shops. Although this need not be as long as blogs, it is best to ensure that the text is long enough. The importance of obtaining correct information on products should not be underestimated. This may affect the purchase, as more text can help them make informed decisions and help them trust your website。
Yoast seo, check what
Text length check in yoast seo
Yoast seo helps you by checking text lengths. This check is part of the seo analysis and you can find it in the seo tab or the yoast seo sidebar in the yoast seo bar. It calculates how many words you add to the page and whether it is sufficient to help you rank. This is also available in our yoast seo for shopify application。
Feedback from yoast seo on text length analysis
Each page on your website needs to contain a certain number of words to help your visitors and google. The minimum length of text depends on the type of page. The classification page requires less content than a blog post, and basic content is usually the most important content and therefore requires a large number of words。
In the following table, you can see how we assess different pages. If the number of words on the page is less than the minimum number of words, you will see a red traffic light in the yoast seo analysis. When you reach the minimum number of words we suggest, you will see a green traffic light。
Minimum number of words for each page type to obtain a green light in yoast seo
Not enough
If your post or page is less than 50 characters in readability analysis, yoast seo will also give you a red or orange light. To properly assess the readability of content, the yoast seo plugin requires a minimum number of characters. The readability check of the plugin will not provide you with the best results if your post or page contains fewer than 50 characters. And, in most cases, you cannot give the audience the best answer in such short text。
Number of words in yoast seo view tab
You can also find the exact number of words for content in the yoast seo view tab in the sidebar. The “insight” tab also contains other useful features, such as flesch reading difficulty, projected reading time and highlighting words。
How to write a long, high-quality article
Thus, longer articles may have some advantages over shorter articles. However, it is important to maintain a high level of text quality when you write a post with a high number of words. High-quality texts are readable, well structured and always contain original content。
It is difficult to produce quality content for your website or online store. Especially when your goal is to write high-word articles to increase natural flow. When you write, and in particular elaborate on what you already have, ensure that the following are kept in mind:
Preparation of readable texts
The most important thing when writing a long article (or any type) is for your readers. This sounds obvious, but it is surprising that it is easy to distract and start adding irrelevant information. First of all, consider the questions that the reader may have on the subject covered by you. A clear answer to these questions is then provided. Of course, the answer should be good and readable。
What can you do to make your text readable? Your text needs to follow a logical approach. In order to achieve this objective, we suggest that you use the subject sentence at the beginning of each paragraph, the sentence explaining the main idea of the paragraph. The remainder of the paragraph is used to elaborate on the sentence. Make sure your sentences and paragraphs are short and quick. If you find any unnecessary words or sentences - delete them. Minimize the use of passive speech. However, paragraphs must be linked to make the text easy to read, and a good way to do so would be to use the transitional word。
Use title
One way to construct the text is to use the title. The title in the text serves two purposes. First: they show a hierarchy from top to bottom. For example, you will immediately see a subject with three subheadings that are further elaborated. Another feature is scanning. You can use the title to inform the reader about the contents of the paragraph. It also makes your text enjoyable because the title tells you the content of the next paragraph。
Write original content
This is the hardest. Faced with so much, it is not easy to keep the original. But it might help if you thought about what makes you different. Consider how the products you offer differ and are better than those offered by competitors. Then a few keyword studies were conducted to see what your audience was searching for online. And getting ready for research can give you a lot of ideas about what to write and how to get out of the crowd. If you have problems, we have a full blog post on how to find inspiration。
Would you like more information on how to write high-quality posts that users and search engines like? Our seo writing and other seo courses can help you. You can access these courses using the yoast seo premium or the yoast seo for shipify, which also allows you to access additional features in the yoast seo plugin。
How to create high-quality archived pages
Let's start by explaining what's on the archived page. Wordpress uses the so-called classification to group content. The term “classification” is a strange term and refers to a set of things that have common ground (in this example, the page of the website). Wordpress has two default classifications: categories and labels. The distinction between categories and labels is mainly structural. Category is layered: you can have a subcategory or even a subcategory. However, the label does not have such a hierarchy。
Wordpress automatically generates a page for each category or label you create. Therefore, please beware of them and do not create new labels for every article you write! We call these pages archived because that's what they do: they have posts (or products) in common. In addition to categories and labels, there are other types of archived pages. You can even create a custom classification or a plugin to create a classification。
Why is the archived page important to your seo
When building a site, a classified archived page is very valuable. Clear web structure helps google and your visitors to understand and view your website and help you get a higher ranking. In order to make full use of the classified archived page, you need to process it. Wordpress automatically generates pages that often contain only a list of posts without any further introduction. Therefore, if the visitors land on one of your archived pages, they will not get much information. This increases the likelihood that they will not find the required content and leave the page。
How to optimise class archive pages
In order to make your cataloguing files great, you usually don't even have to do that. Add a clear title and profile to highlight the contents on the archived page. In addition, you can add links to the introductory content to the best post or page on the archived page. This helps to ensure that users are aware of the content of the page。
For the description of the archived page, we suggest at least 250 words. This is less than our proposal for blog articles, but it is because the description of the archived pages differs from the purpose of the blog articles. These descriptions do not explore a particular subject, but rather serve as an introduction to the rest of the page. These texts need not be long. However, you want to rank these pages, which means that categories and tab pages need content。
How to write high-quality product descriptions
Many online shops use default versions provided by manufacturers when selling their products. This is not what we recommend. This not only shows google that you already have the same content as five other websites (which undermines your ranking), but also shows the user that you do not spend time optimizing your product page correctly. It'll damage your credibility. Of course, if you have an online store with a large number of products, we know it can't be done in a few minutes. In this case, we suggest starting with your most important product or best-selling product。
Make sure your product description contains the information people want about these products. To make this information easy to read and to get to the point. These pages usually require less content than blogs or other pages, as you may see in the table. Please ensure, however, that all information about the product that users want is on the product page. As i mentioned earlier, excellent product descriptions may be the key to sales。
Conclusions on word count statistics and seo
This article tells you that the number of words in the post and page will affect your ranking. This is very important, however, and you should not sacrifice the quality of the text in order to write longer articles. Therefore, please always apply your common sense and prepare a readable and well-structured text, which will help your visitors to your website. Eventually, this is what google wants, so you'll get higher rankings
