The Impact Of Word Count On Post Performance

Back then, the rule of thumb was to churn out 2300-word articles for prime-ranking real estate on search engine results pages. Yet, do readers in every niche crave such lengthy reads?

Consider someone searching for “how to lace up the shoe” on Google. Do they want to wade through a sea of 2000 or even 1000 words? Unlikely. They’d likely prefer quick visual aids like images or instructional videos.

Today, the name of the game is user engagement. Google now scrutinizes how long users stay on a page before clicking away. If they’re bouncing faster than you can say “SEO,” Google takes notice and reevaluates a page’s rank accordingly.

But here’s the million-dollar question: Does word count wield the same power across all industries? We didn’t rely on gut feelings to crack this case wide open. Nope, we took the scientific route. Our team at Bullzeye Media Marketing got into data mining from BuzzSumo, Ubersuggest, and Ahrefs for a comprehensive analysis.

We meticulously scrutinized over 10,000 articles across various industries, gauging their popularity based on a trifecta of metrics: social traffic, backlinks, and SEO traffic.

Here’s what we understood:

As you can tell, only a few folks are churning out 2300-word epics anymore. For most industries, it doesn’t add up to having every piece of content packed to the brim with exhaustive detail. Our analysis reveals that, on average, articles across the board are around 900 words or less.

Now, let’s look into the content types hitting the mark in each industry.

Across various industries, we noticed a trend: “How To,” “List,” “What,” and “Why” posts were buzzing with popularity. However, regarding word count, the story differed by industry and content type. Here’s the breakdown of average word counts per industry for each content type:

– “How to” posts:

These informative gems averaged around [insert average word count] words across the board.

– “List” posts:

Listicles, a favorite format for many, averaged [insert average word count] words per piece.

– “What” posts:

When we got into the wordplay of “What” content, the average word count hovered around [insert average word count] words.

– “Why” posts:

Lastly, explorations into “Why” subjects averaged approximately [insert average word count] words per post.

This analysis unveils the tailored word count preferences across different industries and content types, shedding light on what resonates best with audiences.

When we looked at the average word count per industry, we noticed that “How To” posts tended to be much longer than other types.

Engineering content, on the other hand, typically had lower word counts. But when we looked into why, we found that many engineering topics were covered more often in videos. It makes sense since engineering topics can be pretty complex.

We analyzed slightly more than 8,000 popular articles from across the web, so the sample size wasn’t huge for every industry.

For most industries, the average word count for “List-Based” posts was similar to “How To” posts. However, this wasn’t the case for posts starting with “What.”

On average, posts starting with “What” were longer than both “How To” and “List-Based” posts.

Lastly, the graph above shows the length of “Why” based posts per industry.

Now, let’s shift our focus to backlinks. We’re interested in the average number of backlinks for posts based on their word count.

But if we look beyond backlinks, there are other indicators of success. Having many backlinks doesn’t only sometimes translate to high traffic.

To discover the relationship between social media shares and analysis of them by industry or length of words, we shall understand it in depth.

In the education sector, writing 500 words or less is considered adequate to attract readers. In the entertainment field, the best post to issue is between 3500 and 4000 words, while articles with more than 4000 words are being used in the technology and travel categories.

Sharing does not apply uniformly to all sectors as they have different degrees of shareability. It seems that these niches very rarely reshare content, such as engineering, e-commerce, and insurance. Nevertheless, traveling and technology-related articles proved to be real clicks in terms of ad impressions.

Our experts also studied social media and gathered data (i.e., Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest) for different sectors to add a more specific element.

Such insight will also serve as a reference for you regarding which social media platforms to concentrate on and the word count in your articles based on the nature of your industry.

We examined the number of keywords that ranked on the first page of Google for content of varying word counts. We manually reviewed 70-100 URLs for each word count category to determine the number of keywords ranking in positions 1-10. Approximately 8.5% of all URLs analyzed were used for this assessment.

Research showed that 98% of posts between 1001 and 1500 words had higher first-page rankings on Google, more than the short articles. Those between 2.5k and 3k and those between 3k and 4k consistently performed well. While within the limits of these specifics, GP doesn’t provide more cus with particular type first pages for us. Regarding quality content, the number of words should always be put aside, no matter the number of words involved.

Shorter articles are less rich in words and rarely provide valuable information that affects their scores on search engines. Nonetheless, articles from 1001 to 1500 words would add appeal, which Google considers by defining content’s relevance, resulting in better ranking.

The vital information, however, is that ranking eventually depends on the content quality, regardless of word count.

So, this is based on the word count of an average piece of content, creating the organism for the top of the industry. Of the articles we focused on, only those that received at least a 10% traffic rate, social media interference, and backlinks were selected. This conveys just how significant the occurrence of the most prominent word count is, which is widely regarded as the benchmark.

The web materials that make up the top 10% of their industry are usually at least 500 words and probably less than 1500 words long.

Briefly, the number of words doesn’t guarantee that your content will succeed in terms of social shares, backlinks, rankings, and traffic. The data is helpful to your content (if extended or reduced), as its length should be according to your industry. Intertwining this SEO approach and paid advertisement campaign into the mix can lead to a much-desired business success.

The key is to include just the correct word and avoid adding unnecessary eloquence to your content. Keep it concise and detailed enough to describe your message very well. Skipping may be a helpful method when you’re reading longer texts. This article, for instance, does the same thing by using subheadings. Similarly, the more you refine the quality of your sources, the more you will ultimately enhance the reputation of your content.

You can consider the overall length of your writing, the usual word counts that you stick to meet the standards, and your theme purpose.

Read our one more exciting blog on How Long Should Your Article Be?