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Long articles vs multiple articles, what's better?

by Alex II
7 replies
  • SEO
    • |
Hi warriors,

I've read that google doesn't care about article length anymore. However, I've also read an article that showed that most page 1 websites had long articles.

Obviously, now I am a bit confused as to what seems to be true.

I am trying to figure out whether it'd be better to write multiple articles that are shorter (≈500 words) or just one long article (≈ 2'000 words)?
And what about video articles, where the YouTube video is the main content and the "article" only taking up 100-500 words?

As an example:
Say I write 1 article about list building with 2 videos in it and 2'000 words of text.
or I publish both videos separately and write individual 4 articles (autoresponder, getting leads, squeeze page, e-mail sequence) that are around 500 words.

Wouldn't I be better off with the second option? I'd have pretty much an article a day and would potentially rank 6 times instead of only 1, right?
#articles #long #multiple
  • Profile picture of the author yukon
    Banned
    Originally Posted by Alex II View Post

    Hi warriors,

    I've read that google doesn't care about article length anymore. However, I've also read an article that showed that most page 1 websites had long articles.

    Obviously, now I am a bit confused as to what seems to be true.

    I am trying to figure out whether it'd be better to write multiple articles that are shorter (≈500 words) or just one long article (≈ 2'000 words)?
    And what about video articles, where the YouTube video is the main content and the "article" only taking up 100-500 words?

    As an example:
    Say I write 1 article about list building with 2 videos in it and 2'000 words of text.
    or I publish both videos separately and write individual 4 articles (autoresponder, getting leads, squeeze page, e-mail sequence) that are around 500 words.

    Wouldn't I be better off with the second option? I'd have pretty much an article a day and would potentially rank 6 times instead of only 1, right?

    If you search the forum you'll get a dozen threads with the same question & all the nonsense answers from people that don't rank pages suggesting the amount of text on a webpage has anything to do with SEO. It doesn't, Google doesn't count words. IMers count words. They're not even good at IM, just plastering forum threads with crappy forum sigs that nobody cares about.

    To answer your question, research how SEO silos work where relevant internal links/pages piggyback off each others authority & help reduce external link building (reduce, not eliminate).
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  • Profile picture of the author st0nec0ld
    As a reader, I don't really care how long or how short a content is.
    But if your concern is what Google thinks about the length of an article then you will never gonna solve the problem. The question is, from whom are you writing? And what is the purpose of you creating a content? Hope it isn't that hard for you to answer and you'll get what I mean..
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  • Profile picture of the author nettiapina
    Originally Posted by Alex II View Post

    I am trying to figure out whether it'd be better to write multiple articles that are shorter (≈500 words) or just one long article (≈ 2'000 words)?
    If you can get something worthwhile in 500 words, why not. It's still a very short article for anything more complex than the "elevator pitch" of your company. I'm not much of a writer, but I would never approach writing in this manner. Write as many words as you need to convey the idea. Then ruthlessly rewrite the whole thing. I usually end up with something that's shorter than my original.

    As Yukon pointed out word counts don't matter. I guess someone reported correlation between ranking and high word count, but in my opinion it doesn't seem like a causal relationship. These long ranking articles are probably also from well-known bloggers who spend hours writing just one piece. It's the quality, insight, storytelling and pandering, not word count.
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    Links in signature will not help your SEO. Not on this site, and not on any other forum.
    Who told me this? An ex Google web spam engineer.

    What's your excuse?
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  • Profile picture of the author laurencewins
    You have asked a question with nowhere enough info to get a real answer and the answers would be different, regardless of who you talk to.
    You might as well be asking the following:
    Do you want a Ferrari or a BMW?
    How long is a piece of string?
    Do you want to fly in a plane or travel by train?

    I don't know what business you're in but you need to find out what works for you and your niche.

    Why not try both options and see what works best for you. You'll learn, regardless of what you decide to do.

    Good luck.
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    Cheers, Laurence.
    Writer/Editor/Proofreader.

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    • Profile picture of the author Alex II
      Thanks guys for your answers,
      I feel more comfortable writing short articles, but I didn't want to give it away at the beginning and hear some unbiased answers first... I will stick with shorter articles then.


      So, I've been looking into silos and how they work. I understand the concept of them and how one could implement this on a static page. However, I am having a bit of a hard time on how to implement this on a blog.

      After some thought I'd like to rank for 3 major keywords (maybe even 5 in the longer future). So I would be setting up 3 Pages and 3 Categories. Then, I would add about 5 child pages for each keyword and the corresponding categories for my blog posts. Correct so far?

      my website would look something like this: (keywords are just fictional as the real ones are not yet defined)
      Homepage
      - Listbuilding
      -- Autoresponders
      -- Squeeze Page
      -- E-Mail sequences
      -- Content Emails
      -- Promotional Emails

      - Social Media Marketing
      -- Facebook marketing
      -- Twitter marketing
      -- Pinterest marketing
      -- Linkedin marketing
      -- Stumbleupon marketing

      - Affiliate Marketing
      -- Finding the right affiliate product
      -- Product creation
      -- Product promotion
      -- Affiliate networks
      -- Conversion rates

      I would link those pages together in a menu and interlinking the pages with each others in the text itself where appropriate. So far so good.

      Now I'd have 15 general blog topics and I'd write content for each of them. let's say I write about 5 posts for each of the topics. So I'd have 75 blog posts, give or take, all linked to at least one silo page and interlinked with one another where appropriate.

      What would I do now? Would I add another main silo, continue blogging on those initial 15 topics or go deeper within each silo and create sub-sub pages and repeat the process?
      Or should I just blog on one topic until I rank on page 1 for that specific keyword and once I've ranked them all look for new keywords to be implemented where they fit into my structure?
      What if I've written 25 blog posts but still don't rank well on that keyword? Would I then add a supporting silo for that keyword and repeat that process?

      Also, does the URL structure affect anything? My permalinks are setup to be only the blog post name but not the categories. Should I change that or is there no effect?
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      • Profile picture of the author osome317
        HI ALEX
        For me.... my articles word AVG is 300 words.
        no body has time to read 2000 words/30 mnts, exclude people who studies or in science fields.
        if i could complete my article's idea .. i finish & publish it immediately.
        search for user experience forget counting words
        good luck...
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