Quality Content Matters For Search Engine Rankings More Than Word Count

A short statement by Google's John Mueller is causing confusion among SEO experts. He said, "Word count is not a ranking factor." which conflicts with what most SEO professionals do which is create helpful, in-depth content to help their clients rank higher in the search results. Anytime anyone from Google say anything about ranking factors its big news.

What Mueller probably meant was 1,000 word articles won’t help a website rank better in the SERPs if the article is low quality and does not offer much information. You’ve probably seen articles like these online; there are many words, but they say little. The article just repeats the keyword the person wants to rank for more times than necessary in sentences which state the obvious and then say the same thing over and over using different words.

Some queries require only a short answer and the user's satisfied. Sites, such as online dictionaries, shouldn't get penalized for offering concise information. Some niches should have long articles, such as a health information sites, while it's overkill for some niches. Look at several competitor's websites which rank well and see how long their articles are and write articles with about the same word count.

Other sites use infographics and videos in their articles so there are less words, but more information. Users find these engaging so visitors stay on the site longer. This should Google to realize the site is relevant and useful. It would be foolish for the search engine to penalize a site like this just because there weren't many words for the Google bots to read.

If you can answer a user's question adequately in a few words, that's all you need. Don't write fluff to reach an arbitrary word count because you read somewhere the right length for a blog post is 800 words. Write to give users the best experience. For more information click here https://www.reddit.com/r/SEO/comments/cmcadi/googlewordcountisnotaranking_factor/.