How Much Content Comprises A “Proper” Web Page?

Content Length Misconceptions – Learn What Not to Do

Yesterday, I had a conversation with a prospective client pertaining to issues revolving around the lack of informative, quality content on each of the pages on their website. This is not the first time over the years, that I’ve had to address this matter with prospects. And in all cases, I kid you not, each person has strongly defended the lack of content, telling me that either: a) they read “somewhere”; or b) their web designer “instructed them”, that the correct length of the content on each web page should be entirely visible above the fold, and NEVER below the fold. So they did everything correctly and “web proper”. Sigh …

The term “above the fold” is used in web development to refer to the portions of a web page that can be visible on the monitor without scrolling.

Umm … so based on the conviction of “a” and “b”, that means when we land on a website, only the portion of your computer monitor’s screen should have the content. So why, pray tell, is there a right side vertical scrollbar visible on practically every web page we visit?

A scrollbar is a graphical object which allows the user to view continuous text, pictures or anything else that does not fit into the space in a computer’s monitor screen.

Because of this most recent conversation, I dug back into my memory bank, and thought I’d educate those of you who are new to having your own website by sharing an experience I had with a client of mine about a year ago.

I was hired as an SEO and online marketing consultant by a real newbie. Bless her heart … she had absolutely no idea about what it would take to get her service related business online. She shared how, because of her naiveness (which of course ANY newbie would have, I completely understand that), she got suckered in to paying someone $200.00 to design a website for her. Oh yes … what a “deal” she thought she was going to get!

Without going into the whole story, let’s just say she got exactly what she paid for! A very crappy poorly coded antiquated-design mess of a site, if you could even call it a “site”.

As a matter of fact, this $200.00 design job was supposedly done by someone who had told her they really understood HTML coding. HA! What a joke! Let’s just say anybody could have done a better job by going online and researching basic HTML coding structure.

After I explained to her everything that was wrong with her site, the content, the SEO, etc., she begged my helping in redesigning the site, which I did handle for her, but for a fee of course.

If I seem like I am going off track here with the topic at hand, that being “How Much Content Comprises A “Proper” Web Page”, well I am … sort of. But I’m telling you this first part about the website design fiasco because this same “expert” gave my new client some of the most ridiculous information about website content and how much you should write for each page that I’d heard in a long time.

My New Client’s Understanding of Proper Content “Length”

My client had provided carefully written content for the 5-pages she wanted on her website that would promote her business. Part of my job was to research the keyword phrases to target for her niche, and to properly SEO the tags. Along with that, I coached her how to tweak her content so that it incorporated the keywords into each web site page of content.

Her pages definitely needed to utilize the keywords I’d chosen for her, but I also mentioned she needed to flesh out the content a bit more, too. Reason being that I knew her website visitors would be more prone to stay on her site and hopefully place an order with her, if she wasn’t so sketchy with the on-page information. I told her they’d probably click right off her web page and go back to the search page to find another site to visit.

In regard to this conversation she emailed me saying:

“My understanding of a ‘page’ is what you can see when strolling [sic] down before the page ends, and I was told that it was better to have it all in that area only.”

Ummm … okay … say what?

So … she believed that a web page’s content ought only to be visible above the fold. Or another way to put it, to only be visible on a computer screen without needing to scroll down in order to continue reading the rest of the page.

Wrong! (Like I said before, bless her heart! She was trusting this other ill-informed person to steer her in the right direction.)

So, to straighten her out, here was my email reply to her:

About web page length … I believe I understand what you are trying to explain to me about “what you can see when scrolling down before the page ends”. This is referred to as “above the fold”. Whomever the person is that told you that is quite ill-informed. Please know that a web page is however many words of informative and well written content and/or images it takes to complete that page and to make sense to the person reading it, and to provide the information they were hoping to find when they landed on that web page!

Think about it … how many darn websites do you go to that you do indeed keep scrolling down to continue reading the content? It is very rare that we land on a website that has just a couple of short paragraphs on each web page!

So, if you are brand new, or even more than a little new to getting a website up and running, please know that each page of content you write should be everything and more for your visitors! If a short page is all that is necessary and does the trick, then fine. If it takes many many words and images to provide a great web page, then fine! Scrolling down a page to keep reading the content is NOT even an issue!

I believe wholeheartedly that it is much better to over-deliver in the information you provide on each page. I personally maintain this attitude for almost everything I write for my websites and blogs. I do not take into consideration it’s length. I focus on quality of content!

I suggest you adopt this same attitude, too. You can’t be wrong by doing so, and your web site content will be all the better because of it!

Not sure if your website could use a little tweaking or a major over-haul in order to better promote your products or services to a larger target group of customers? That is why I am happy to offer a free 30-minute SEO phone consultation to you. To learn more or set-up a call with me, please go to: Complimentary Consultation. I look forward to chatting. My goal is always to help my clients achieve all they desire via their website and online marketing efforts!

Seven Little Tips For Writing Good Content

Easy To Do Tips for SEO Friendly & Reader Friendly Content

There is just no getting around the fact that “content is king” for any website or blog. It’s hugely important for SEO purposes, as the more keyword focused well written content you are able to place on your site, the more chances you will have at being found by an online searcher.

In addition, if your web page material keeps that searcher reading and interested after they’ve clicked into your site, then you’ve accomplished another important step in steering them towards the ultimate goal – which for most of us is to make a sale, and/or gather that person’s name and email address for our mailing list.

Informative & Original Content Will Always Serve You Well

I personally can’t “get away” from writing content on a daily basis, as I have two blogs and other online marketing projects in the works that demand I create fresh and interesting articles and web page copy. I am also constantly coaching my SEO clients on how to write good quality articles to place on their websites, so I provide lots of edited suggestions for improving their content for them to learn from.

And then I re-review, re-critque and/or re-edit my clients content before I let it go live on their sites, too. Not to mention I am hired by all clients to put the final finishing SEO touches to their articles such as writing the Title and meta tags, the page Titles and subheaders … and making sure each page is keyword optimized.

Whew … that’s a normal day for me … write, write, write.

So, in the spirit of all this, and my newest client who has never had a website before, and is not real web-savvy about what constitutes good quality content, I thought these seven little tips might come in handy for her, and anyone else reading this.

Simply put these tips are:

• Write ORIGINAL content – plagiarism is a no-no.
• Make sure that original content exudes “you” – write it like you would “talk it” if you were face-to-face with the visitor.
• Create informative content that serves your visitor’s needs first and foremost.
• Write the content to provide exactly the information your visitor was searching for. Length of each page of content is exactly as many paragraphs as it will take for you to provide quality information!
• Create great content that your visitor will be glad they found. And PLEASE make sure your content makes sense! Read it back to yourself, or better yet someone else, before you upload it onto your site.
• Make your content keyword focused and based on real “behaviorally based research” – in other words DON’T guess and use keywords you think people are typing in as search queries (90% of the time you’ll probably be wrong!). RESEARCH the keywords people are actually typing in as search queries.
• And lastly … make sure your content has a solid, well written “call to action” if appropriate for that particular page and the information it provides.

Happy writing.

If you need to make a list of relevant searched-for keywords for your website, try
Wordtracker’s free trial. Gather up a list of real keywords today.  Wordtracker Free Trial Offer.

How Many Words Should A Page Have For High SEO Rankings?

Is There a “Best Length” SEO Guideline When Writing Content?

I have had more than one SEO client ask me how many words there must be for each page of content they write for their site. I do understand their concern that providing informative content is part of building a successful website or blog, but quite honestly there really isn’t a specific number of words that determines good or poor search engine rankings.

As a matter of fact, I’ve seen it advised in more than one place that for top rankings, page length really should be between 400 and 600 words (give or take a little, depending on whose erroneous information you read). Or, I’ve seen it stated to never ever write less than 250 words. None of this information is correct!

The Search Engine Spiders Don’t Give a Hoot About the Number of Words on Your Page

You can absolutely positively 100% trust that there are not a specific number of words that your pages or blog posts need to contain in order for your site to have the ability to rank highly and to obtain high quality targeted search engine traffic.

The search engines get smarter and smarter every month, and with that comes the understanding that the number of words on a page does NOT determine it’s value from a ranking standpoint. But, the number of words you write does matter to your visitors. Are you providing the information they came to your site hoping to find?

If you are addressing the topic at hand and provide a thorough, well written page of content pertaining to the topic, then whether you’ve written 200 words or 1,200 words is totally OK as long as what … ? Right … as long as you provide targeted, keyword focused information. Your visitors were searching for this information, and you ought to be providing excellent content for those visitors.

How about some help to narrow down the keywords you ought to be weaving into your content? I suggest you try this free-to-use keyword tool from Wordtracker.

Your pages can be as long or as short as you feel appropriate in order to say what you want to convey to your visitor. Every page or post is different, and in that respect each has a different purpose. Quite honestly, the number of words on a page is not a search engine issue at all, but really a marketing issue.

So, do your best to always over-deliver quality content on every page you write. The search engine spiders know that each page is unique unto itself. If I may use a bit of poetic license here, I can tell you that as far as the spiders are concerned … “bean counters they are not!”