We are often asked how long an article should be for SEO. So when we saw an awesome article by Ahrefs answer this question, we had to share it with our audience.
When it comes to SEO performance, creating articles that provide an excellent user experience and drive web traffic is essential. Several factors contribute to exceptional SEO performance. Ahrefs explains the correlation between longer articles, Google ranking factors, and why long-form content is better SEO.
Recommended: How Long Should Blog Posts Be? The ‘Truth’ About Content Length
Longer Content Gets More Backlinks
Backlinks, also called inbound links, occur when a website links to your website. They are important for SEO because a backlink is seen as a positive signal by search engines like Google, especially if the backlink is from a high ranking website with strong backlink domain authority. For example, our link in this article is a backlink for Ahrefs.com.
Well written, longer articles typically have more valuable information that is helpful to readers, especially when it minimizes the time readers spent on research. So, a high-quality web page often receives several backlinks, such as we are doing to the Ahrefs article I am discussing here.
So, as a general rule, high-quality, long-form content often results in high-quality backlinks.
Longer Content Gets More Organic Traffic
Articles with longer content covering more points and information result in more organic traffic. It is helpful when a user Googles a topic and the web immediately navigates to a website giving all the information needed. Longer content is a high-ranking Google factor that helps achieve this. More content allows for more keywords and major topics to be included that will also strengthen SEO performance and promote organic traffic.
Content Length for SEO Purposes
Generally speaking for the purposes of SEO, high-quality content should be at least 300 words. An article with fewer than 300 words is not worth the time, energy, and expense of producing it. As a matter of fact, when producing content explicitly to help with SEO, you need to think in terms significantly higher than 300 words.
Unique, high-quality content for SEO purposes should be closer to 1,000 words in length to be effective and go up to 1,800 – 3,000 words. Content longer than this can be helpful to readers and can result in visitors remaining on the website longer which is good for SEO, but may not help generate more backlinks than content in the 1,800 – 3,000 word range.
Take Away
If your business is generating leads, store traffic, and sales through inbound marketing, it’s important to have effective, high-quality content that achieves your SEO marketing goals.
For content that is not for the purpose of SEO, such as helping with social media and for the purpose of networking, don’t be concerned about the length and focus on the value to your audience.
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