With the proliferation of Content Management Systems (CMS), the job of writing, editing, proofing, and publishing content has largely passed from the hands of web developers and into the hands of marketing generalists. One of the first questions related to this topic that I’m usually asked is, “How much content should I put on each page?”
From both a user-experience and a search engine optimization standpoint, the answer is always always - not much. Here’s an excerpt from Search Engine Marketing, Inc. by Moran and Hunt, published by the IBM Press:
Keep it short. Search Engines will index as many as 100,000 characters on your page, but it is virtually impossible to maintain strong keyword density over a long page - the best pages are usually less than 1,000 words.
Understand that when Moran and Hunt say “characters”, they are including all the HTML code that displays images, flash, your navigation, and all other formatting attributes of your web page.
If 1,000 words is the max for a search engine, then what’s the max for your users and general readability? According to Yahoo! Search Marketing’s Advanced Search Expertise: Take Your Campaign to the Next Level, here are two rules to go by for content development on the web:
- According to Web Usability expert Jakob Nielsen, people read about 25% slower on the Web, and recommend that you sue 50% of the copy that you would in printed material.
- 300 words is the first threshold for reading comprehension, so keep them above the fold.
Finally, the best advice I’ve read on the topic of content development is Steve Krug’s Third Law of Usability, from his bestseller Don’t Make Me Think.
Get rid of half the words on each page, then get rid of half of what’s left.
Good luck, and remember what Steve Krug says - Omit needless words!
