1500 words OK ? For money article

[Cassius Ali]

1500 words is a good start. Make sure your article gives you room to expand if need be.

 

[Codliver]

Why limit yourself? Write as much as you can and as long article as you can with tons of longtails everywhere. Some of my articles are 15K words and they rank and convert perfectly.

Because people have literally 4 second attention span and can't be bothered to read 15k words.

I recently wrote a 10k article and had to spend a long time making it as pieced out as possible.

 

[Nargil]

Because people have literally 4 second attention span and can't be bothered to read 15k words.

I recently wrote a 10k article and had to spend a long time making it as pieced out as possible.

Exactly. And during those 4 seconds you want them to click the affiliate link, gtfo and do the landing page make the conversion.

 

[Codliver]

Exactly. And during those 4 seconds you want them to click the affiliate link, gtfo and do the landing page make the conversion.

That doesn't explain why 15k words is better...

Unless you're purely filling up content for keyword usage. Although you're undermining UX that way.

 

[Nargil]

Unless you're purely filling up content for keyword usage.

See? It wasn't that hard.

And no, with a nicely made navigation you are not undermining anything.

 

[Backlinked]

Hey,

I would advise you to simply check the guys ranking top 3 for your keywords you're trying to rank for and add a few hundred words more than them.

Optimal content length differs from niche to niche.

Cheerios,

 

[loukeyzee]

How many words should an "About" page be on an affiliate authority website?

 

[Codliver]

See? It wasn't that hard.

And no, with a nicely made navigation you are not undermining anything.

Google cares about user experience. The mentality "the longer the better" isn't always the best strategy.

 

[Stavro]

Google cares about user experience. The mentality "the longer the better" isn't always the best strategy.

Google's UX evaluation is algorithm-based, not manual reviews, so well-written content-heavy pages tend to get a bonus.

I agree that virtually nobody reads these overly-long articles, but a 1% conversion rate while on page 1 of the SERPS is always going to be more profitable than a 10% conversion rate while stuck on page 3.

 

[Matze]

As long as the users wont go back to Google and click on another result, you are fine.

 

[Codliver]

Google's UX evaluation is algorithm-based, not manual reviews, so well-written content-heavy pages tend to get a bonus.

I agree that virtually nobody reads these overly-long articles, but a 1% conversion rate while on page 1 of the SERPS is always going to be more profitable than a 10% conversion rate while stuck on page 3.

Except if people see long-winded redundant 15000 word articles they will bounce da fuck out of there, and then googles algo goes to work to drop your ranking.

 

[Stavro]

Except if people see long-winded redundant 15000 word articles they will bounce da fuck out of there, and then googles algo goes to work to drop your ranking.

Have you done split-testing between multiple sites to verify this?

 

[Codliver]

Have you done split-testing between multiple sites to verify this?

It is common knowledge that user actions influence search results (i.e. bounce rate, etc).

Whether 15,000 words as a hard rule encourages that I couldn't tell you, but I did mention long-winded, redundant information which certainly can. The original guy I was quoting was implying that longer is always better. And I gave reasons why it's not.

 

[MaxGuard]

Don't write for bots. Write as much as you can, add longtails, try to convert traffic. Don't focus on googlebots, if visitors are reading and converting then you can rank with "less backlinks".

 

[Stavro]

It is common knowledge that user actions influence search results (i.e. bounce rate, etc).

I'm not questioning the bounce rate aspect of the algorithm, I'm just curious if you've tested long vs short articles to compare real-world bounce rates.

 

[Nargil]

Except if people see long-winded redundant 15000 word articles they will bounce da fuck out of there, and then googles algo goes to work to drop your ranking.

Well, you base this argument on what you think, while I base it on what has been working for me for years.

Your user experience depends on how you structure the article. The length does not matter. Length is just a bot fodder. Everything important is in the first few paragraphs, including clickthrough links. My longest article is ranking top 3 for 4400 Amazon keywords (and gazillion of longtails I do not even know about) without a single backlink built (site overall has also no links built). And Amazon traffic from that article converts well about 10%.

So if you know what you are doing, yes, longer is always better.

 

[Codliver]

Your user experience depends on how you structure the article. The length does not matter.

False. Some people actually like to read entire articles before clicking or performing any actions. If the article is 15,000 words, they might eject or bookmark it for later (and we all know how bookmarks go with forgetting and revisiting).

Length is just a bot fodder. Everything important is in the first few paragraphs, including clickthrough links.

False. What about an informational style website? You're using your own website to apply to every site and as a rule.

Well, you base this argument on what you think, while I base it on what has been working for me for years.

My longest article is ranking top 3 for 4400 Amazon keywords (and gazillion of longtails I do not even know about) without a single backlink built (site overall has also no links built). And Amazon traffic from that article converts well about 10%.

So if you know what you are doing, yes, longer is always better.

You are basing this off your narrow-experience of your Amazon sites and passing it off as a general rule. And this is simply not the case.

 

[Stavro]

You are basing this off your narrow-experience of your Amazon sites and passing it off as a general rule. And this is simply not the case.

Just curious, what broad experience do you have on the subject? What split-testing have you done, across how many sites, how many niches, how recent, etc?

There are lots of things about my own sites that I seriously dislike (my personal pet peeve is pagination and slideshows rather than single-page articles), but the raw data from split-testing proves that these annoying tactics greatly improve the bounce rate and SERP positions, without overly sacrificing the conversion rate. And if your site is well-designed, your article length won't even be immediately apparent to your visitors.

 

[Codliver]

Just curious, what broad experience do you have on the subject? What split-testing have you done, across how many sites, how many niches, how recent, etc?

There are lots of things about my own sites that I seriously dislike (my personal pet peeve is pagination and slideshows rather than single-page articles), but the raw data from split-testing proves that these annoying tactics greatly improve the bounce rate and SERP positions, without overly sacrificing the conversion rate. And if your site is well-designed, your article length won't even be immediately apparent to your visitors.

You seem pretty hell bent on me providing data for common sense and don't seem to question what the other guy says.

To be clear, you are stating no matter what question, what topic, what kind of website that 15,000 words or that longer content is always better?

And if your site is well-designed, your article length won't even be immediately apparent to your visitors.

They still have to read the article. You do know that not every website is an affiliate site with the goal of stuffing links for immediate clicks to Amazon right? The average attention span is 4 seconds online (something like that)... and you cannot possibly fathom how some people prefer to read shorter articles?

You do know some websites goals are to build trust and actually have the entirety of their content read, right? Long-winded and redundancy is not a good thing. There is a time and place for longer articles, but it's not all the time.

 

[Stavro]

You seem pretty hell bent on me providing data for common sense and don't seem to question what the other guy says.

So you're speaking from opinions, not data? Got it.

And why should I question someone when my own personal experience matches what he's saying?

They still have to read the article. You do know that not every website is an affiliate site with the goal of stuffing links for immediate clicks to Amazon right?

I think you're getting me confused with someone else, I've never done affiliate links.

The average attention span is 4 seconds online (something like that)... and you cannot possibly fathom how some people prefer to read shorter articles?

If your visitors are bouncing out after four seconds, perhaps you should have someone look over your site for UX/content issues.

I have personally found that longer articles with pagination work best (using actual data, not assumptions). Google sees one long article, visitors see a series of short ones. I personally hate pagination with a passion, but in the niches I cover, paginated articles get more engagement and a lower bounce rate than single-page articles of any length.