Yes, content is king, but is there such a thing as too much? This question was asked in one of the forums I frequent and the answers were quite varied. I thought I would throw out for anyone who’s interested my thoughts on the subject.
The Internet is such a visual medium. The more time I spend on it; the more I grow impatient with sites that take too long to load and get to the point. If I’m visiting a site that wants to sell me something, I don’t want to wait for this elaborate webpage to load before I can find a link to the products. I don’t want to have to scroll through several screens-full of information to get to the navigation menu at the bottom of the page. And I don’t want to go through 2, 3 or even 4 screens to get to the actual website.
Long story short…I hate when there is so much stuff on a webpage that it takes forever to load before I can see the real content.
Now that I’ve exemplified taking too long to get to the point, let’s talk about finding the point. The longer the content on the page, the easier it is to start to ramble on and stray from the original point. Longer content takes more time to read and if not well-spaced begins to laborious to read as well.
Long on-page content can lead to problems with keywords and search engines as well.
Keyword density is a calculation of how often a keyword appears on a page. So, if we mention our chosen keyword 5 times in a 500 word article we have a density of 0.01 percent. If we up our article to 5,000 words, we have to mention our keyword 50 times to achieve that same keyword density. And with that many words, we are also likely to start unintentionally achieving higher keyword densities for words we are not interested in having associated with our sites.
There are times when it simply takes longer to make the point or explain the topic. When longer content is unavoidable there are a number of things you can do to make it easier to read. Write shorter sentences. Shorter sentences are easier to read.
Make several short paragraphs. They too are easier to read.
Don’t forget to use the H1-H6 tags to break up the content as well.
And if you have more than 2 or 3 screens full of content, why not create a page 2? The same content now has twice the SEO potential and each half can bring your site even more targeted visitors.
My bottom line advice, write enough to make the point but not so much as to bore. And keep in mind the longer the content, the harder to achieve a good keyword density for the right keywords.
I don’t think there is ever too much content, so long as it is organized properly and written well.
The ideal amount of content really depends on the topic and your goal in writing it. If you’re writing to sell, then your content should be focused on that effort and there should be enough to do that.
If you’re not writing to sell, but for informational purposes, write as much as you like. I agree with your points about keeping writing organized. Reading on screen is difficult at the best of times, so shorter chunks of text broken up with header tags makes life a lot easier.
As someone who likes to write for a living, I find many sites painful to surf. Long stretches of text are the least of my worries. Grammar and spelling errors abound. Poor design also interferes with ease of reading.
So many people think they can write and don’t feel the need to hire a writer. At the very least they should hire someone to edit their writing. Nobody wants to pay for professional help, or if they do, it’s a pittance. It’s a shame because so many sites could be improved with some editing and some SEO.
Hi,
Its a informative post.As i am new to this SEO field, really it is very much useful and helpful for me.I agree with you shorter sentences are easier to read.Good explanations by you.Especially the keyword density calculation is really useful for me.Thanks for your valuable information.Did you wrote any other post related to this?