We need to get a sensible balance between quantity of content for SEO performance and quantity of content for usability. Personally, I don’t like sales pages to be more than around 500 words (including the call to action). Blog articles I don’t mind being longer if they are interesting.

HATE videos unless they are for entertainment. Give me transcripts every time.

Thanks for the post!

You may want to run an usability test to determine how much content your audience will (comfortably) read. That way, you have real data to work with – and then it’s easy to backtrack and determine the SEO/page template strategy.

The debate is whether Google reads content on a webpage after the first 100 Kbs or not. Even if it does, is it advisable to have such a large amount of content on a webpage?

After hours of scouring the web, I found nothing concrete but only people cursing about each other’s lack of knowledge.

Great advice about the call to action statements. Do you find it hard to write 250 words – or are the hotels so fabulous that it makes it easy?

Fortunately, you’re an excellent writer. If anyone can come up with 300 words about banking – I know you can!

Great advice, I typically shoot for around 250 on the home page (but nothing is set in stone). I’m writing for the hospitality industry so I always try to emphasize the top selling points of a destination.

I think one of the most important aspects is having several Call to Action statements on the home page. It helps to keep readers moving through your site, filling out a form, making a reservation, buying product etc.

A major bank I write for has been advised by an SEO consultant to have a minimum of 300 words on every page of their website.

Personally I think this is barmy as what’s the point of padding out a page with extra words? But they are intent on following his advice.

Ah, if there only was a magic number – I know that’s what most people want to know!

I’m with you on the videos. I read fast, so watching a video feels like “dead time” to me. I don’t care if it’s 3 minutes. That’s 2 minutes, 30 seconds too long for me…

Of course there are no magic numbers, but it is still something that needs to be addressed.

One thing that I try to let clients know is that yes, some people love videos on a home page, but not everyone, so you still need text, even if you have a video. (By the way, that is one of the things that I LOVE about your video posts, you always give the option of reading the post because some days I am using a lower bandwidth for my internet and videos drive me nuts!)

People process information differently, so yes, use some effective graphics, but also give people (and engines) something to read.