Cassius Ali
Registered Member
- Aug 14, 2009
- 92
- 18
1500 words is a good start. Make sure your article gives you room to expand if need be.
1500 words OK ? For money article
- Thread starter SergioRamot
- Start date
Codliver
Junior Member
- Jul 27, 2015
- 185
- 72
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.
- May 10, 2012
- 9,542
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Exactly. And during those 4 seconds you want them to click the affiliate link, gtfo and do the landing page make the conversion.
Codliver
Junior Member
- Jul 27, 2015
- 185
- 72
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.
- May 10, 2012
- 9,542
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See? It wasn't that hard.
And no, with a nicely made navigation you are not undermining anything.
Backlinked
Power Member
- Aug 5, 2010
- 546
- 175
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,
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,
Codliver
Junior Member
- Jul 27, 2015
- 185
- 72
Google cares about user experience. The mentality "the longer the better" isn't always the best strategy.
- May 17, 2018
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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.
Codliver
Junior Member
- Jul 27, 2015
- 185
- 72
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.
- May 17, 2018
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Have you done split-testing between multiple sites to verify this?
Codliver
Junior Member
- Jul 27, 2015
- 185
- 72
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.
- May 17, 2018
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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.
- May 10, 2012
- 9,542
- 7,560
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
Junior Member
- Jul 27, 2015
- 185
- 72
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).
False. What about an informational style website? You're using your own website to apply to every site and as a rule.
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.
- May 17, 2018
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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
Junior Member
- Jul 27, 2015
- 185
- 72
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?
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.
- May 17, 2018
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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?
I think you're getting me confused with someone else, I've never done affiliate links.
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.
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