Will increase article length result in ranking improvements?

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I have a few article well positioned (within top 20) which i'd like to push up to the top spots.
They have low word count.

I wonder if increasing they're length might help?
 
Yes it will, add has and especially h3s.
Google algo loves h3s alots of them.
 
word count is not always the right option to improve your rankings (actually, it's rarely the right option). Check what your competition is doing and try to copy them. If everyone who ranks in top 10 has 2000 words on average, but you have 800 words then probably that you need more content. But that's rare.

But if everyone (or most of them anyway) has 600 words and you have 500 words the content length might not be the problem, but it might be an optimization issue (you don't have enough internal links pointing to the article you wish to rank in top 10, or the internal links might not have the right anchor text, or you might not have OBLs, or not enough h2 / h3 / h4 tags, or your image might miss the keyword in its ALT tag and filename, etc) There might be many reasons why you're not ranking in top 10, and content length is just one of them. You might need a few good backlinks, or your domain name might not have enough topical relevance and / or authority to outrank your competition (this is especially true in tough niches like finance, medical, web hosting, SEO, health, etc)

Basically, you need to have a good look at your competition and check how many words their content has, how well optimized it is, how well their content addresses the intent behind the keyword, how many RDs their domains have, how big their domain's DR is, how many backlinks they have, how topically relevant their domain is to the niche, etc....
 
Yes and no
Each article ranks for 50+ long-tail searches on average
So, it makes sense to craft long-form content
 
word count is not always the right option to improve your rankings (actually, it's rarely the right option). Check what your competition is doing and try to copy them. If everyone who ranks in top 10 has 2000 words on average, but you have 800 words then probably that you need more content. But that's rare.

But if everyone (or most of them anyway) has 600 words and you have 500 words the content length might not be the problem, but it might be an optimization issue (you don't have enough internal links pointing to the article you wish to rank in top 10, or the internal links might not have the right anchor text, or you might not have OBLs, or not enough h2 / h3 / h4 tags, or your image might miss the keyword in its ALT tag and filename, etc) There might be many reasons why you're not ranking in top 10, and content length is just one of them. You might need a few good backlinks, or your domain name might not have enough topical relevance and / or authority to outrank your competition (this is especially true in tough niches like finance, medical, web hosting, SEO, health, etc)

Basically, you need to have a good look at your competition and check how many words their content has, how well optimized it is, how well their content addresses the intent behind the keyword, how many RDs their domains have, how big their domain's DR is, how many backlinks they have, how topically relevant their domain is to the niche, etc....
This. I once had a 1500 word article while the competition had 600-800 words on average. It didn't rank. I shortened the article to 700 words and it started to rank.
 
Yes, Word count improves ranking. 2000 to 2500 words recommended for a blog.
 
It's a primitive idea but best ranking articles are all within 1000-2000 words by stats! I don't know how thin your articles are but if I were you, I would definitely add some words, may be do some interlinking and external linking and add some FAQs and h3, h4s and finally top it up with SurferSEO optimization or Frase optimization.

And by the way, updating your old content will anyone increase brownie points! :)

Happy updating
 
Pillar content is what most ranking long blog posts are called.
You can merge multiple topics under one single topic and construct a long pillar content.
The main reason why these blog posts rank is they cover all the information regarding the topic, are formatted with sub topics so in most cases the long form content is well optimized.
 
They have low word count.
What do you mean by "low" word count?
I wonder if increasing they're length might help?
Longer articles do better on average in SERP because they get more backlinks and shares in general.

Assuming you´re not just going "fluff" the article up just to get a higher word count and you will actually increase the depth, detail, and informational value to the article while fulfilling the user´s search intent, by all means, do it.

Also, take into account this correlation between word count and organic rankings is NOT a linear correlation. There´s an "inflection" point where adding more words will actually harm your organic results.

When will be this "inflection" point for you?

Hard to say!

This varies from niche to niche and even from keyword to keyword.

Some keywords are better than others to build much longer-form articles than others but usually, the "magic" number is around the 2,500ish words mark.

Personally, my recommendation to you is NOT to focus on word count and, instead, try to focus on extensively covering the topic at hand in every single article you write while ALWAYS focusing on fulfilling the user´s search intent.

So, go over each and every single one of those articles, review them and make sure there´s nothing else you can add or expand without sacrificing quality.

Make sure to also check what the top-ranking results targeting that same keywords are doing (Skyscraper Technique) and try to pinpoint what they are doing that you´re missing or why Google is rewarding them with higher organic rankings than you.

Lastly, take some time to read these articles about some case studies built around this topic...

https://ahrefs.com/blog/blog-post-length/https://neilpatel.com/blog/longer-content-ranks-better/http://www.canirank.com/blog/does-long-content-rank-better/https://www.sweor.com/seocontentlength
Cheers!
 
Thanks everyone, i made further research and it's confirmed by google itself that length it's not a ranking factor

This myth is widely debunked
 
I have a few article well positioned (within top 20) which i'd like to push up to the top spots.
They have low word count.

I wonder if increasing they're length might help?

Answer:
Check your competitors ranking for the same keywords.
Further than post word count take into account bounce rate. That's why a longer, well written article, will improve your rankings.
 
Wouldn't it be great to live in a world where word count was the determining factor in rankings? Just waffle any old nonsense as long as the word count is longer, BAM, you rank.

Unfortunately, that is not how SEO works. There are many more factors than just length that plays a role. That is why you will see content often that has a lower word count, but still ranks #1 over much longer pieces of content targeting the same keyword. If users find the content is valuable to them, then word count is basically irrelevant.
 
I have a few article well positioned (within top 20) which i'd like to push up to the top spots.
They have low word count.

I wonder if increasing they're length might help?
It surely works buddy! I tried extending my content from 600 to 2000 and my position switched to 8th from 23rd position on SERP.
 
I try to keep all my content over 1000 preferably over 1200. Not sure how required that is but I want to be dang sure Google knows what my pages and site are about.
 
Not that much it works, but technically the SEO optimized content length helps to improve the ranking
 
It will not always result in rank improvement. But in some cases, it can help for sure. Like if you have updated with latest information related to some news people are searching, it may rank higher.
 
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