This is one of the most often asked questions in the SEO world.
We wanted to stop guessing and listening to Google so we built 10 different pages.
Page 1 had 100 words and incrementally went up until Page 10 had 1,000 words.
Now we know for sure. Want to guess how they all ranked?
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Transcription Below
1. On-Page Word Count
We lay down the foundation for our word count test. In this test, we set up 10 pages with each page having a specific amount of words on the page.
In this case, we started it up to 100 and took it up to 1000.
Page 1 has 100 words, page 2 has 200 words, page 3 has 300 words, etc.
They all maintained the same keyword density and the target keyword was all set to 2x per 100. We had a 2% density. The concept here is all things being equal, the keyword density being equal.
Is the number of words in a page a ranking factor?
The results was yes, it is a factor and what is really amazing is, they ranked in order from 1000 going down to a hundred.
We will be going into a lot of detail into word count in the next set of tests.
Keyword density vs optimization rate
Keyword density is how many times the keyword is placed in relation to the content.
When looking at the optimization rate, what you look for is the keyword density in the different places where you could get a keyword.
You can put a keyword in the URL, body, metatags, metatitle, metakeywords, metadescription, etc.
A more advanced way of looking at it is by looking at a page holistically.
It is not necessarily on the density of one thing but it is the density of all those different places and how they interact with each other.
When you are looking at your own optimization, it is an important to keep in mind where the keyword is going, all the places where it can go, and how you have it, in relation to the top 10 pages in the SERP results or the top 30 pages in the SERP results because that will give you an idea on what optimization rate you need to have on your page.
Look at the pages that Google is clearly rewarding and you could target an optimization rate based on the target term weighted between those different sections.