Search Engine Optimization Programs | SEO Tutorial Program

Amount of Text in a Page

The way a webpage is ranked by search engines and hence listed among search results depends a lot in the amount of text contained in that particular website. When said text, it is not just junk text from the top to bottom of the page, but the amount of text, the way the text has been arranged, the keywords present and its relative position in the body of the text, text format, and the tags used. In the following paragraphs, we’ll see each of these factors in detail.

The amount of text contained in a webpage is crucial because search engines only list those websites that contain relevant information. And the direct hint of information a page contains is the amount of text in that page. As a rule of thumb, ideally, a search engine optimized page must contain anywhere between 500-2000 words or 2,000 to 20,000 characters. Anything below or above this limit is most likely to be overlooked by the search engine spider.

As important as the amount of text present in a webpage is the keyword density in the given text. This is because search engines generally lists web pages based on the keywords given for the search by the user. In other words, for a webpage to come on top of the search results, it must contain the relevant keywords ample number of times. Again, as a rule of thumb, for productive results, the keyword density must be anywhere between 5-7% or to a maximum of 7-8%. Anything beyond that would be counter productive and will dent the page ranking.

Further, in order to catch the attention of search engines, it is advisable that the keyword phrase must be so arranged that it repeats a number of times in the text, the phrases coming exactly in the same order everywhere. Further, each of the words in the phrase must be used 5-7 times elsewhere in the text body. Also, ideally, few of the keywords must come towards the top of the webpage to increase the chances of the search engine spider catching hold of it. 

The page rankings would get a boost if one could intelligently use an amount of text inside the title tag. This is the text search engines often analyze and pick up to put alongside the URL listed in the search results. Ideally the amount of text inside the title tag must be anywhere between 50-100 words. Take care not to over do it. If the number of words in the title tag is increased too much, there are chances of google dubbing it as spam and demoting the webpage in the page rankings.

Also, for better results, it is advisable that the keywords in the text be highlighted using <strong> tag. It must be done sporadically and not everywhere. One more point – use <strong> instead of <b>. No explanation on that, but that is the way a search engine works.

Finally, the amount of text – called alternative text – used in the <ALT> tag and in links to other web pages: All webpage images have an optional ‘alternative text’, which can be embedded during the page design using the <ALT> tag. The text included in the <ALT> will be displayed in the browser if the image fails to get downloaded. It must be understood that the amount of text in the <ALT> is not a major factor that influences page ranking, but it is suggested because search engines rely on such hidden text if the image links to another webpage.

Similarly, the amount of text – especially keywords – in links to other web pages enhances the page rankings but it alone cannot help a webpage climb the rankings ladder. It must be used as a method to consolidate the position.