How much is too much website text?

15 replies
Hi

How much is too much text content on a website?
  • Is there no limit as long as its relevant?
  • Short and sweet paragraphs or
  • as much information as possible?

Thank you
#text #website
  • Profile picture of the author trcapro
    I don't think that there is any specific answer here. It depends on a ton of different factors. In some cases, text may not be the primary point of your website, for example a photo blog. But then again, maybe you're site is about product reviews, in which case you're probably going to need a lot of text.

    I would assume that the key is to try to have a combination of text and graphics rather than all of one or the other. This can be both most visually appealing and informative while making the page look a bit more professional.
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  • Profile picture of the author Ian Collins
    Hi.. Thank you for your comments. My aim on our website is to have enough text to encourage customers to complete our contact form to discuss our services. I dot want to bombard the website with lots of text but dont want too much either.
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  • Profile picture of the author Ian Collins
    oo yes my own words indeed. Im using PPC at the minute and social media platforms. Im hoping to promote it on the local radio and website. Im hoping my content is enough and the colours are ok. My signature on my profile has my URL if you wanted to provide feedback but i have included bullet points and paragraphs so its not squashed together.
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  • Profile picture of the author WeavingThoughts
    Ideally a page should have 800-1500 words for an article if you ask for my 2 cents. And for a tutorial or mini guide at least 1000-2000 words.

    Small paras with sub headings and bultets are a given.
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  • Profile picture of the author Mac Wheeler
    It depends a lot on your actual site layout and coding.

    If you have a shed load of stuff happening before the page content appears in the HTML, and then add 1,500 words, you are probably wasting some.

    Check out how your page looks to Googlebot (there are plenty of tools around to do that) and see how much content is being spidered before the new text would be added, then make a judgement call on how many words to add.

    There is no real hard and fast rule as to how many words are optimal. Some people get great results posting a little and often, others post longer content pieces but less frequently.

    Best advice would be to try a few different scenarios, and use analytics to work out which performed best for your site.
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    • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
      Banned
      It depends mostly on your traffic demographics, traffic sources and the nature of the niche.

      The point, here, is that your site itself needs to be part of your overall continuity process.

      What draws people to your site needs to match (or at least, not to clash with) what's on your site, how you collect the opt-in (contact-form) and what happens after that.

      I need large amounts of text because I attract people to my site with long articles published in other places (where those people are already readers/visitors/subscribers). That isn't necessarily going to be true for someone who's attracting primarily SEO traffic looking for a quick, one-off fix for a specific problem.
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  • Profile picture of the author smartuser
    Banned
    for a website which contain many information, its ok to have more than 800 but you should set some salient points on your articles
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  • Profile picture of the author Silas Hart
    On eBay and eCommerce, there is such a thing as word saturation. In fact, less text is often better than long winded text in the form of something like a description. Most new eCommerce sites have very little text, such as Woot.com - Amazon will change their layout relatively soon because many users feel all of the text feels overbearing and makes them less likely to make a purchase. On eBay, I hardly even write anything as a description which works out great for me! Its all about precision, saying exactly what is what, size, condition, etc.
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  • Profile picture of the author RoseJBell84
    Banned
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    • Profile picture of the author Mac Wheeler
      Originally Posted by RoseJBell84 View Post

      As much as it is necessary and as interesting and up to date as it possible be.
      He doesn't know how much is necessary, that's why he is asking!
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      • Profile picture of the author TheArticlePros
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        • Profile picture of the author Mac Wheeler
          Originally Posted by JaRyCu View Post

          Hey Mac...I actually agree with Rose. Since the OP is using PPC to gain traffic, he doesn't have to appease the Googlebots with a set amount of quality text. That gives him the freedom to write the articles up until he feels they're complete without having to shoot for a set number of words in each post.

          -- j
          Yeah I get that man, but the guy came in here basically asking how many words it is necessary to publish, and then somebody answers him by saying as many as necessary! *boggles*
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        • Profile picture of the author mchelle
          It really all depends. If your aim is to rank well in search engines, then there really is no such thing as "too much" as long as the content is relevant and human-readable. Using header tags and bulleted lists definitely helps with readability and makes your site seem more professional.

          If you are just going for conversions (ie:using ppc advertising for example), then I think short and sweet is the way to go, because most people will not read all that text or find it overwhelming. A good headline and a short paragraph with the benefits they will receive if they sign up for a mailing list or request a quote can go a long way too.
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  • Profile picture of the author abyssofseo
    Some websites almost don't have any information except a short description of the product or service they sell. Other website are informational, like Wikipedia, so their texts are often very long. So there is no sure answer for your question.
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  • Profile picture of the author zoha shah
    minimum 700+, natural and write for users. Panda updates are all about content, so make it natural.
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  • Profile picture of the author marketwarrior06
    Banned
    Your paragraph should not be less than 300 Words. Its good to have 500+ words. Actually Big paragraphs are safe for keyword density.
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  • Profile picture of the author dcbaker1
    You can write a big article if you can keep the reader reading it... The first step is making an attractive title, then making him read the whole text and not stopping in the middle of it. Just saying, you don't want to make your articles too big, I think 800 - 1100 words per article is perfect.
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