How Many Words and Affiliate Links Should a Blog Have?
Quite often I see WA members asking how many words should they write for the pages and posts on their websites. Seeing how Google is a content whore, excuse the analogy, the more content you can provide the better your SEO. And judging by the statistics of several SEO metrics like the one from serpIQ, long-form content of 2,000 words and up tend to rank highest on Google.
THAT IS NOT SET IN STONE
Just because the majority of highest ranking website content is long-form does not mean that shorter content will not rank highly too. But there are other good reasons for making your content longer rather than shorter. As stated by Kyle in the training and by Google in their affiliate marketing guidelines, your content needs to add value to your website visitor’s experience.
How does one add value to a user’s experience when they read your website content? By providing thorough and detailed information in an engaging and conversational tone. When your content reads like a one-sided conversation, answering questions your visitors may have, and even providing statistics if need be, it helps to foster a better user experience.
But there are times that affiliate content under 2,000 words can rank well in Google. However it is rare that affiliate content under 1,000 words will maintain high rankings over the long haul. If the content is not unique or at least visually appealing, why would anyone want to share it? Now there are many who claim that no one nowadays wants to read long-form content. Not exactly true.
MANY WEBSITE VISITORS ARE SKIMMERS
What the heck are skimmers? Though it is somewhat true that many people will not want to read 2,000+ word content, it is also true that these same people may not want to read content of only 600 words. Many people who click on links in a Google search will sometimes start reading your content and then start skimming through your content to find the answer they are searching for.
If you do not provide website visitor’s different ways to keep them engaged in your content, they will quickly bounce off of your website and look for their answers elsewhere. So how will you keep those skimmers from leaving too soon? Well other than making your content conversational like I am doing here in this post, you can accomplish your goal by some eye candy.
NO… I do not mean that kind of Eye Candy, but the above image did catch your eyes, did it not? And this is just one of the types of eye candy I am talking about. You want to provide relevant images within your content to make it more visually appealing to both your readers and skimmers. Another and most effective way to keep the skimmers engaged is to use Heading Tags within your content.
I personally follow Kyle’s lead and use H3 Heading Tags to highlight what the content that follows it will be about. Sometimes these heading tags will be just catchy phrases and may even have my target keyword in it, which is good for SEO. I make all of the heading tags on my website a light blue color, being that it is a more welcoming color.
SEEING IS BELIEVING
On average I will place an H3 Heading Tag every three to five paragraphs, and note that my paragraphs are short, three lines long which is about two or three sentences. By creating short paragraphs you are providing more white space, giving your website readers a better user experience by making it easier to read.
It has been proven that long big blocks of content will visually turn people off to reading your content no matter how well it is written. So what I do in addition to using heading tags and short paragraphs is to provide that eye candy in the form of bulleted lists and a relevant image placed in the center of my content.
However if the image is not a rectangle, longer in length than in height, and is more of a square or taller than it is wide, I will place it on the right side of my content. You can see an example of this, as well as my use of heading tags every three paragraphs in the image below.
WHAT ABOUT THE AMOUNT OF AFFILIATE LINKS?
You were probably wondering when I was going to get around to talking about the amount of affiliate links to use right? Well you should know me by now from my blogs and training tutorials, I like to be thorough in my descriptions.
So to give you some insight, here are the word counts, Facebook Likes, amount of internal links to other content - some with WA affiliate links, and amount of affiliate links to WA from my 10 most recent posts on my WA promotional website. NOTE: The text that is in bold face is my target keyword for that post
- NASCAR Superstore – Make Money in the #1 Spectator Sport = 2,476 Words, 18 Facebook Likes, 3 Internal Links, and 1 WA Affiliate Link
- How to Start an Online Business the Correct Way = 2,297 Words, 18 Facebook Likes, 4 Internal Links, and 0 WA Affiliate Links + 1 Link to my WA Profile
- How to Make Extra Money From Home – Be Your Own Boss = 3,016 Words, 33 Facebook Likes, 10 Internal Links, and 1 WA Affiliate Link + 1 Link to my WA Blog
- Legitimate Online Jobs From Home – WA is the Real Deal = 2,084 Words, 71 Facebook Likes, 7 Internal Links, and 1 WA Affiliate Link + 1 Link to my WA Blog
- Star Trek Items for Sale – How to Make Money from Home = 1,949 Words, 33 Facebook Likes, 2 Internal Links, and 1 WA Affiliate Link
- Why Affiliate Marketing is Better than Multi-Level Marketing = 2,010 Words, 84 Facebook Likes, 4 Internal Links, and 1 WA Affiliate Link
- Free Drop Shipping Wholesale Suppliers – Make Money on eBay = 1,998 Words, 63 Facebook Likes, 2 Internal Links, and 0 WA Affiliate Links + 1 Link to my WA Blog
- Christian Home Based Business Ideas = 1,229 Words, 11 Facebook Likes, 2 Internal Links, and 1 WA Affiliate Link
- Coca-Cola Collectibles for Sale – Cash in on a Classic = 1,596 Words, 24 Facebook Likes, 3 Internal Links, and 1 WA Affiliate Link
- Can I Make Money Online – Only if you Avoid Three Things = 1,317 Words, 26 Facebook Likes, 5 Internal Links, and 0 WA Affiliate Links + 1 Link to my WA Blog
As you can see above, with the exception of 2 posts, the remaining 8 blogs are all long-form content of 1,500+ words and each have 1 WA Affiliate Link and/or 1 Link to my WA Blog. That last link is important. Though it is not an affiliate link I still get referral credit should someone join WA from my blog because I am the author of it.
HOW MANY AFFILIATE LINKS DO I USE?
Going by my above examples I will in most cases have no more than 2 affiliate links within my long-form content that will get me a direct referral to WA. You may be wondering if that is enough to get people to join and the answer is YES. Even if they do not join from that post I have other posts that I interlink to that will have a couple of WA affiliate links in them.
As is seen in the above image I have an H2 Heading Tag set as an internal link to a post on my website called What is Wealthy Affiliate University which has 3 WA affiliate links on it. You do not always need to have content with more than 2 or 3 affiliate links to the same product to be effective at selling it.
Providing helpful information which adds value to the user experience helps you to sell. No one likes to be pushed into buying something without first learning about how its benefits will help them. When you can provide thorough information that adds value to your website visitor’s search, your SEO will increase.
SEE FOR YOURSELF
Below is a link to one of my website blog posts. I am posting it here as an example, NOT to spam the WA community. Besides, it only has one WA affiliate link and we are already members of this great community, so there is nothing for me to spam here.
In this long-form post of 2,476 words I use all of the ways mentioned above to keep the content visually readable to both full readers and skimmers. I utilize lots of white space with small paragraphs, H3 Heading Tags every 3 to 5 paragraphs, lots of relevant images, bulleted lists, and I even include a video.
All of this helps to add value to the user experience and that is what Google likes to see when determining our rank. It is our content as a whole that brings about our rankings and not just low competition keywords. To see for yourself, click the below link.
http://legitimatejobfromhome.com/nascar-superstore...
Did you read this entire blog or did you skim through it? Just so you know, this WA blog was 1,547 words long.
Recent Comments
134
Robert - Excellent post. I always walk away from reading your training material having learned something valuable. Thanks for sharing.
Nicely done. I must admit, I did find myself skimming some in your blog -- probably just an example of my own personal flaws.
That being said, your blog was one of better blogs on these issues that I have seen on WA.
Thanks so much for taking the time to write it.
You are welcome Steve. There is nothing wrong with those who skim, especially since the content has a lot of valuable content that makes skimmers to still receive value.
Excellent post, Robert, all made very good sense, I hope I learn from it...think I will keep it to look back over.mmm tag bloglayout.
I did not read all the way through and skimmed, as I believe most busy people would do. I started writing a blog over a year ago, not on WA, but still lots of traffic and success and I have to disagree with your blog here. I have linked up with a few of the professional bloggers and they will tell you that between 300-600 words is the optimum as does most seo tools.
It is all about readability and content, concise content and getting to the point. I believe most people nowadays want a quick fix, so want us to get to the point.
Look outside WA not just inside for help and inspiration and check sites like: https://problogger.com for one.
I do look outside of WA and that is where the long-form content is preached by many popular bloggers. Have you ever read any of Neil Patel's or Moz blogs? Those are all more long form than mine.
If you short change your website visitor with thin content and not provide content with robust details, you will alienate those website visitors that do crave to read long form content. For those who don't like to read that much, they can skim.
By providing content that is rich in information with unique features, you are adding value to your website visitors, as stated by Google in their affiliate marketing content guidelines, and will satisfy both worlds.
But if you only provide content that is low in word count, even if it gets to the point, you exclude all those who crave that meaty information. That is not to say that all content needs to be long form. You should write what you feel is justified.
But content needs to be deep in the information it provides so that it falls under that unique category that Google is looking for. As Neil Patel talks about in his post about if blogs need to be wordy to receive high rankings, not all need to be, but those that are deep tend to be.
The link to his post on this subject is below. It is interesting to note that this post is 2,898 words long because it is deep with valuable content and statistics.
http://neilpatel.com/blog/longer-content-ranks-better
A 1800 word blog could be 3 at 600 creating a series. Like everything in life there is no right or wrong way just the way you like or the way the people you follow likes.
We have both quoted people who clearly have two different styles both successful with their own style.
I am happy I started a debate and it is not about right or wrong but about writing.
One. Best selling Novak could be 30000 words and another 100000, it all comes down to your audience at the end of the day.
There is no right or wrong length. There is long form content that gets higher rankings, more social shares, and more natural banklinks for being deep value adding content and then there is what Google calls thin content.
Like highly respected blogger Neil Patel says, content needs to be deep with valuable informative content whether it is 2,500 words or only 1000 words. As many here have commented, giving value through robust content does have its benefits.
As I normally do, I skim something first and when I discover it's value to me, then I read thoroughly. I read this thoroughly. And thank you for the example too with your own site. Valuable information. I also bookmarked this page so I can easily go back to it. Thank you :)
You are welcome Susan. One of the reasons why I believe writing long-form content is beneficial, other than it being a magnet for higher Google rankings and possible backlinks, is to provide enough info for both those who read through and those who skim.
Yes, absolutely! And the short paragraphs and bullet points helps us skimmers glean more information in a short amount of time and space.
Sue
Thank you and this is why it is important to write content that is full of information that people can benefit from.
See more comments
Great read Robert !!!!
It was my pleasure.