Does Word Count Matter for SEO?

Word count is not a ranking factor. Longer pages do tend to do better on competitive queries. Only the length is a side effect of covering a subject properly, rather than the cause. Look at what already ranks, then write to that range. All of it is sound, and this site covers it properly elsewhere, so none of it gets repeated here.

Something else about that number is stranger, and hardly anybody asks about it. Where did it come from?

Nobody in Search Ever Asked for a Word Count

Go hunting for the origin of the number and you do not end up at Google. You end up at an invoice.

Professional work mostly gets bought by the hour, or else by the project. Writing is one of the few kinds bought by the word. Rates get quoted that way. Briefs get written that way. Somebody delivers. Then somebody checks. Somebody else pays. The word is what all three are counting, and that machinery was running long before search engines existed.

So the number in your content brief has a history. It simply is not a search history. Bloggers pay in evenings rather than invoices, so easy-to-rank keywords mean something different to them.

You Cannot Buy Thorough

Ask why the word became the unit and the answer is dull. It is one of the few things about an article two people can agree on before either of them has read it.

Try buying thorough instead. Two people can argue about thorough all afternoon. One reads the writing and finds it complete. Another finds it thin through the middle. Neither can prove much, meanwhile the invoice still has to be settled.

Hardly anybody argues about whether a page runs to 1,800 words. You open the file. The software tells you the number. Then the argument is finished before it starts.

The Three Jobs a Word Count Does

None of that is a criticism. This number earns its place. Three jobs, and it handles all three.

It scopes the job, since a writer needs to know roughly how big the thing is before starting. Then it settles delivery, since whoever commissioned the article needs to know it arrived at the size agreed. Finally it settles payment, since an invoice needs a line somebody can reconcile.

Now notice what those have in common. Every one of them gets done without reading the page. A checklist can count bold tags too, which is roughly where bolding fits.

Somebody Will Say the Count Came Off the Results Page

Somebody will point out that the number is not plucked from the air. A good brief sets it by measuring what already ranks. Ten results, count them, take the range. Fair enough, and that is how the careful ones do it.

Only look at what got measured. The length of the pages that won.

Nothing in that exercise measured what the length did.

Then ask why it had to be a length in the first place. Their research budget does not come off the page. Nor does their grasp of the subject arrive as a number. Whether anybody thought the page worth a link stays off it as well. What you can take off a stranger’s page in a second, knowing nothing whatever about their business, is how long it is.

So the count keeps winning. Never because it explains anything. Rather because it is the thing sitting there available to be counted.

The One Line in a Brief Always Within Reach

Here is where the number reaches the writing.

Hand a writer a target of 1,800 words. Then you have handed them the one instruction in that brief always within reach. Not usually. Always.

Ask instead for a page answering the question better than the ten above it, and the writer can fall short. Then ask for something nobody else has published and they can come back empty. Meanwhile reaching 1,800 words never depended on having 1,800 words’ worth of anything.

So the line that can always be satisfied is the line nobody established the value of. None of that is anybody’s fault. It is what happens when one number on a list can be hit without having anything to say.

What a Low Word Count Does Tell You

The word count is still worth reading. Just read it in one direction.

As a negative it earns its keep. A page answering a broad question in 300 words probably did not answer it. Not certainly. Probably, though. That is enough to go and look.

Reading it that way works because a short page is evidence about the material. Not much got written. Meanwhile a long one is evidence about very little, since anybody can reach a number by saying the same thing twice.

Where the Word Count Argument Stops

None of this says length is irrelevant. It plainly tracks something real, and the pages doing well on hard queries are rarely short ones.

Nor is the count a lie. It measures exactly what it says it measures. Trouble starts only when a measure of the material gets read as a measure of the answer.

And nothing here is a claim about how Google works. What any of it is worth inside a ranking system is a question for somebody inside one.

Try This on Your Last Brief

Open the last content brief you wrote, or the last one somebody sent you. Find the word count. Then cross it out.

Now read what is left, and put two questions to it. Could you still commission this article? Then, once it came back, could you still tell whether you got what you asked for?

Should both answers come back yes, the number was doing very little. Drop it tomorrow.

Now suppose you can still commission the piece yet no longer check it. Then you have found what the count was for. Checking. Never writing.

No statistic about other people’s briefs settles which of those you are holding. Yours is on the desk in front of you.

Content Work for Calgary Businesses

A client brief with a number on it turns up often enough at SEO Company To-The-TOP!. Often that number is the line somebody checked most carefully.

The first useful hour tends to go on the other lines instead. Which question the page answers. What it says that the pages above it do not. Sound keyword research settles which question is worth answering at all. Then search engine optimization pays out on the answer rather than on the length. Businesses across Calgary hear the same thing from To-The-TOP! either way. A shorter page saying something new tends to beat a longer one that repeats everybody else. No guarantees. Three to six months is the plain range before positions move, so a Google Ads campaign covers the months in between. To-The-TOP! has been doing this work since 2007, and the portfolio shows the keywords it has reached. Word count is easy to check, which is why briefs skip the quality of the copy.

Common Questions About Word Count and SEO

Is there an ideal word count for a blog post?

No single number. Ranges do exist, and they are covered properly elsewhere on this site. Only remember what a range like that describes. It describes the length of pages that won, never the length winning required.

Does Google count the words on my page?

Counting words is trivial, so assume anything reading your page can do it. Google has also said plainly that the count is not a ranking factor. Worth holding both of those at once, since a thing can be perfectly countable and still say nothing about answers.

Should I take the word count out of my content briefs?

Probably keep it. It scopes the job, and it lets you check what arrived against what you asked for. Nothing else on the brief does that as quickly. Just stop reading it as an SEO instruction.

Why do SEO tools hand me a word count target?

It can be worked out from pages that already rank. Also it is one of the few things about them a tool can read without knowing your business. Useful as a rough scope. Weak as a plan.

Does a longer page rank better than a shorter one?

Often the longer page is the one doing better, though rarely because of the length. Cover the subject properly and the count turns up on its own. Traffic follows the answer rather than the total.