How much content do you need? If this looks like a stupid question – one that can’t be answered, then in one sense you’re right. There is no hard and fast rule for the amount of written content that your site needs.
However, there are some general rules that seem to apply. Ones that don’t always seem fair and are often mis-understood..
Here are 3 factors to take into account when deciding whether you URL’s have enough content.
Is your site an authority or brand?
Authority sites and brands operate under a different set of rules from smaller affiliate sites, local sites and hobby sites. This video best explains what the differences are.
Authority, Brand , Independent Commercial? What sort of site do you have?
First things first. We are talking about the content you link to, your own site’s content in other words. Not the content that surrounds your own back-links on those sites. This is your best A1 material
Are you creating a commercial site, a hobby site or a discussion site?
You can make cash from any type of site if you monetize it in a way that appeals to your specific visitor metrics. Obviously commercial sites are going to be easier to monetize from a technical point of view and are far more likely to get a better conversion rate once visitors arrive, but that doesn’t mean that hobby or discussion sites can’t do very well too if they get the quantities of visitors high enough.
Discussion sites often need to be initially seeded with content to get the ball rolling. Forums and blogs that operate as intended – with lots of user interaction work on some pretty neat self sustaining principles.
Here’s an example www.mmorpg.com
Every day the owners get around 5 posts written ranging in length from 400 words to 2000 averaging about the 1000 word mark. They often ask questions, sometimes playing devils advocate on issues that divide the community. Other times getting in early reports or just speculation.
They then invite the users to comment. How much content does that add up to? Some days it can be measured in tens of thousands of words. All “crowd sourced” if you like.
See most of the posts have page after page of user comment, far more word count than the original post offered, and it all counts in Google’s eyes. Better still it is absolute social proof. It shows positive community engagement. It’s a real win/win situation.
Online Forums. Often fed by trolls
Ok – sometimes this tactic will attract the wrong sort of contributor. But even trolls can sometimes liven up a conversation. As long as you set respectful guidelines, prevent bullying online and be firm but fair with your moderation, then this is a great way to go.
Bait titles with “hook” content. Comment bait, link bait. That’s what is going on here, and it works if you have the community to support it. Getting 5000 words written a day is child’s play for a site with this profile. 5000 is probably far more than you’d need with a new site in a smaller niche (online gaming is enormous – this site makes a 7 figure sum per annum)
Ask yourself if there is any hobby or topic you have a massive interest in. Is there enough news and buzz for you to write about it daily or at least 3-5 x a week?.
If that’s the case a hobby or discussion site might be for you. Check out the topics people monetize in this way. Everything from dog training, chess, vehicles, games, fashion.
Better still you’ll be writing on something that really interests you and your chances of success will increase dramatically.
Hobby sites are very similar. Here it is accepted however that you will be providing real factual incite. For instance – if you have a model making site, it might be expected that you provide reviews and tutorials. Discussion is also part of this of course – but unlike the pure blog or comment site – the idea is that you post more authoritative and informative content – perhaps less frequently. Once a week maybe? This then gives you the rest of the week to promote the new post offsite and actually remain active in the field you are looking to become authoritative on.
In this case you can actually go too far. Your passion can drive your creativity and you could risk losing your audience. How much content becomes; “Have I done too much content?”
Offsite presence is a little more important here.
So very similar to discussion sites (after all you certainly can have a discussion about a hobby) but perhaps better suited to niches with a slightly smaller interest group. I hate to say the word “geek” – but if you have a geeky hobby that no-one else is catering for website wise? Then providing that online authority resource for this should certainly be something to consider.
Still think monetization would be a problem?
This is a gaming table
How much content to promote a product like this?
See this table? It’s a gaming table for RPG players. Know how much this costs?
They start at $3000. They go up $11,000
There are sites that sell stuff like this as affiliates and make $450+ per sale. Up to $2,000.
Seriously! If there is an interest – there is a market.
In this case the question “How much content” might be weighed against the visual attraction of the product “A picture speaks a thousand words” But let’s call it 300 words and reduce our text output according to that rule.
Commercial Site. How Much Content?
We all know this one right. Maybe it starts life as a mini niche or micro niche site. Selling one or two products to a particular market.
Here user interaction takes a back seat. Onsite content needs to be up front and presented from day one.
It still is primarily about getting good content indexed and ranking. Maybe adding more over time, but in many cases no further content is added – at least not for the benefit of the visitor.
Now the question I should answer here is “word minimum”. How much should you write?
As recently as 4 years ago 300 words was often enough, and in some cases it still works. For safety I personally look for 1200 words minimum per viable landing page – and a site should really have more than one landing page.
Commercial sites that have little or no social intent still to this day rank mostly on links. While that is the case, the onsite content needs to be good up front. Well presented, some multimedia helps. Inviting but not expecting interaction from your visitor base (keep comments open maybe – but moderate heavily and do not auto approve anything)
This all assumes a blog style site of course. Static sites can offer means of interaction as well, but it really is no-where near as important as with discussion and hobby sites.
But really word minimum depends on so many factors. The main one is your competition. If they have a site bigger, older and more regularly updated than yours? Then you are going to struggle.
Your site does not exist in a vacuum. Onsite and offsite competition analysis is vital and should play some role in deciding whether a niche is worth your time or not. How much content can depend on what your competition has. Even more importantly how visitors are responding to the content your competition posts. If you are equal on links, authority and social presence but behind on content and engagement, then that is where your focus needs to be.
Ok – now we know roughly how much content we need, the next part will be how to source and sort that content. How to make sure you stay on topic and build relevance.
Article adapted from original posted on demondemon dot com. Author Paul Rone-Clarke