In test #1, we went up to 1,000 words being our top article length.
We wanted to further explore this as it really is the most asked question and deserved our attention to drill down deeper to find the optimal on-page word count for ranking.
In this test, we go all the way up to 4,000 words and ABSOLUTELY FOUND A SWEET SPOT and when enough is enough.
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Transcription Below
In our initial test, we looked into 100-1000 words, built up in increments.
We found that the more you can put into a page, the better.
In this next test, we decided to take this up to 4000 words and , we had 3 different sets - one started where we left off at 1100- 2000, another at 2100-3000, and then 3100-4000.
What was great in this test is that we saw that 1300 is a good spot.
We could anticipate when we would not get positive results anymore, that things would muddle or that things will inverse order, and that is exactly what we got in the 2000-3000, 3000-4000.
Basically, the higher numbers were no longer ranking the best.
There is a real switch and muddling in those results.
Showing that you are getting diminished returns when you are reaching those higher ranges.
We got that when we reached 2000+.
The sweet spot in this test is 1300, and we actually dive in a little bit more, trying to see more if we can really zero in on that 1300 or if we can find something within 1500.
The caveat is, look into what your competitors are doing in the particular keyword that you are going after.
If you are going after a keyword and you look at the top 10-30 pages and you could see that everybody has 500 words, that is probably what you would want to do because that is probably where Google has put the benchmark for that particular keyword.
But when you are in the blind and are looking into a general situation and just need things going, I like the 1300s.
That is what I have been telling my clients when they are building pages.
The content is robust and there are a lot of different content, sections, images, videos.
We know from one of our Friday chat tests that just getting a video or image isn’t going to boost the rankings but those could lead to time-on-site sort of factors, better user engagement, and can actually bring conversions.
There are secondary reasons to get images and videos and having that many words really usually opens up opportunities for those sections.