Length of review pages

[Batman]

Obviously I imagine the members here aren't amateurs so when articles and reviews are written and posted they will be done so with the user in mind, following googles guidelines and making the content useful and deserving enough that big G shows it to people.

My question really is about reviews of casinos/poker rooms/bingo sites/sport books. At what point do you say enough is enough?

Is it really worth covering absolutely everything and having 5000+ Words that hardly anyone will ever read?

Or do you find the average length of maybe 500 words that covers the main topics or an overview is enough?

Have you found any ranking differences between long and short reviews at all with the same or similar metrics?

It's reviews I'm talking about here not articles or guides which I am of the opinion have to be the best they can be.

Thanks in advance.

 

[RyanWeb]

When I hire writers I try not to put to much of a focus on post length, because its really the quality of the article that matters. You want it to be unique, informative and a good read. You don't want to water it down with filler words just to obtain a character count.

But at the same time, you want to actually receive content for your site, and imo the more, the better, when its good!

I usually tell my writers between 400 and 600+ words, "unique, informative and a good read." I think between 400 and 600 gives you a lot of flexibility without focusing on length. It also allows you to see what kind of writer you have... I expect most to fall around 500 words, some shorter some longer. If you have a writer thats always writing to the 400 word mark, you might want to rethink your hire

 

[Batman]

Totally agree and thanks for the reply.

However what I mean is how in-depth do you go..

Let's say these eexamples are within teh review covering the banking.

Example 1:

Made up Casino Banking

The casino accept all the major methods for depositing and cashing out winnings. Paypal, neteller, skrill plus credit and debit cards. Withdrawals take around 5 days, deposits are instant.

Example 2:

Made Up casino Banking

The banking at this imaginary casino is pretty much industry standard. You can use all the most popular methods so the majority of customers will be happy.

Paypal:

Deposits are instant and withdrawals take between 2 to 5 days. The reaso for this is processing time as your withdrawal request is held for 48 hours before actually being started.

You can expect to see the money hit your paypal account in 72 Hours.

Neteller

This is the fastest way to cashout from this made up casino and your withdrawal request will be completed within 2 hours of processing. You do still have to wait 48 hours before the cashout begins but once this has passed the money will be with you at lightening speed.

Skrill

Same overview if this

Credit / Debit Cards

And same again for this method

The amount of content by doing a more in-depth review is usually x5+ as much imo so is it better? or will it turn people off and be ignored anyway?

It's not so much me worrying about word count, I'm more just wondering if there is any real need to cover absolutely everything which does increase the word count significantly for reviews.

 

[Batman]

Just read that back sorry for all the spelling errors, it's been a long day!

 

[PaaskeUK]

Example 1 is the best. Example 2 is way to much no need to describe each single payment method. My tip for that is any affiliate should have 1 page dedicated for payment methods and then each review could then link to that page for players or new players that wants to read what Neteller or paypal is etc Just my opinion also as a long time player. Maybe have bit details for each about withdrawal time that is an important one as is different from casinos to casino.

 

[TheGooner]

It depends on whether you are writing for google or your readers (especially if they are accessing via mobile).

Google needs content, needs to see keywords, needs a lot of things in order to rank your page well.
Mobile readers want a lot less - they want short, sharp snappy and to the point.

If you already have traffic then short sharp reviews work.
IF you are trying to get traffic from goggle then you'll need longer reviews to get a presence.

 

[Batman]

Totally agree with you there Gooner, but if google wants us to write for the user, but that's not what they want and need to rank you then where is the happy medium?

I'm kind of coming round to doing a short review of the main points followed by a full 5000 word one. Perhaps that's the solution!

 

[Vargoso]

It depends on whether you are writing for google or your readers (especially if they are accessing via mobile).

Google needs content, needs to see keywords, needs a lot of things in order to rank your page well.
Mobile readers want a lot less - they want short, sharp snappy and to the point.

If you already have traffic then short sharp reviews work.
IF you are trying to get traffic from goggle then you'll need longer reviews to get a presence.

Key points here, always think in your "target market", if you are targeting mobile users you will need one thing different from if you are targeting desktop users.

 

[NDG]

I'm in the boat that shorter and precise is better for the visitor and also for Google.
Most searchers want to find what they are searching for quickly, and don't want to
wade through a long review. While some tend to believe that Google likes longer
reviews (more content) , I tend to believe that they just want well constructed reviews.

 

[TheGooner]

While some tend to believe that Google likes longer
reviews (more content) , I tend to believe that they just want well constructed reviews.

Are you suggesting that Google can somehow invent keywords, and give your site credit for words and content that it doesn't use?

That's the problem with these algos - they are not intelligent or smart or thinking, they simply combine and rank what they find. If they don't find it somewhere on your site - then you won't rank for that word or phrase.

 

[NDG]

Are you suggesting that Google can somehow invent keywords, and give your site credit for words and content that it doesn't use?

I'm not suggesting that. You definitely need the keywords in the content.

I agree with what you are saying, but I think that a shorter review with the keywords in the content can
work as well or maybe even better than a long review. When I say a shorter review.. It could be a review
with bullet points, pros & cons, tables with basic information about the casino, and a summary.

It ends up being less content than a review that is written out with 5-6 paragraphs or more that visitors
need to read through to find out all of the information. When I'm looking at a review.. I typically scan
through it for the information that I need to know.. and not read it like I would a news story.

There is only so much information about these online casinos that you can provide. I've seen
reviews that drag out all of the details about the casino in order to make the review longer and
to try and satisfy what they feel that Google wants.. but it turns into a real bore to read.

 

[eenzoo]

Actually, it's quite simple. Ask Google which kind of content you need to rank for particular keys. If you compare Top10 for "Royal Panda" you see an average word count of 2025 ...

Usually, I order casino reviews with approx. 1500 to 1800 words. Depends a bit on the casino.

 

[xecutable]

Of course those stats are pretty wrong. Open all of these pages individually and you'd see that most of them are not even above 500 words. Comments, menus and footers, sidewidgets all get count into those. For example the wikipedia page had 3 paragraphs. That's it 3.

So are all of these pages with comments. I highly doubt there's a holy grail on words length but there was a conducted study on what exactly the rank 1 pages contained.

The test was done on many keywords and rank 1 contained Info A, Info B, Info C, Info D, info E for a given subject. So did rank 2. From that point 3rd place had B C D but not A and E, 4th had A B C but not D and E and you get the picture.

I believe the length comes from managing to cover all of these topics and not for what kind of word count you managed to hit. On top of that RankBrain is #3 ranking factor behind links and content. Depending on your audience you may need different lengths.

Paul compared the devices, imma compared the ages. A middle aged man or a woman that has a hobby of reading and would like to read the whole page, before making a good decision will act differently than a 22 year old with an ADD who has never read a book in his/her life, saw the pretty picture with the $5000 welcoming offer and could not be bothered reading further.

 

[Batman]

All good points of view however the main reason I asked was because my best ranking casino review has 440 words and ranks 4th for that casino name. I would normally write 1200+ words for a review but am now thinking it's a waste of time and that a shorter review with more of an outline rather than anything in-depth could be the way.

Thanks for your opinions, although I'm still none the wiser.

 

[eenzoo]

Of course those stats are pretty wrong. Open all of these pages individually and you'd see that most of them are not even above 500 words. Comments, menus and footers, sidewidgets all get count into those. For example the wikipedia page had 3 paragraphs. That's it 3.

Hmm i did that job. Pure content, no menu´s, no comments:
Casino.org 2070
Casinonewsdaily 2700
Askgamblers 900
Casinosmash 1100
Slotsup 1000
Casinotop10 1250
Roulettesites 2740

Of course, you don´t need to think about YT or Wiki. They ranking for everything with a title and h1 tag only.
For sure there is no holy grail. But if you want to rank for such keywords, you don´t do it with 500 or 600 words unless you have the link power to compensate it.

Sure, the reader is probably fine with 500 or 600 words good information but you don´t get rankings. It is a nice idea to build sites, not for search engines but there is for 95% no way around. On the other hand, you don´t need the review rankings to make money and the competition is out of the world strong.

Yes, it seems ridiculous if you see sites like casinoreviews.co.uk with almost 7k words on the homepage. Nobody read this in full but Google ... if you have the rankings and traffic you can work on UI and conversion but not vice-versa.

 

[Paavo]

Sure, the reader is probably fine with 500 or 600 words good information but you don´t get rankings. It is a nice idea to build sites, not for search engines but there is for 95% no way around. On the other hand, you don´t need the review rankings to make money and the competition is out of the world strong.

Yes, it seems ridiculous if you see sites like casinoreviews.co.uk with almost 7k words on the homepage. Nobody read this in full but Google ... if you have the rankings and traffic you can work on UI and conversion but not vice-versa.

Exactly right content length correlates with rankings in almost every keyword which I track

 

[awesamko]

Very few people will read a review of 5000+. In my opinion, it is good to have 1000+ words with 2,5% of keywords. If anybody wants to achieve 1 position on a keyword with casino name it is almost impossible. On the other hand, I don't think a casino would like it.

 

[eenzoo]

Top 5 would be enough. With a catchy title like "The truth about Brandname ... " and rich snippets, you would get a quite good CTR. The bigger question is the intent of the user!? I guess about 80% just want to login in an existing account and searching for the right URL.

 

[Batman]

I guess about 80% just want to login in an existing account and searching for the right URL.

This is something that I never used to pay attention to at all. I was more like wow 12000 a Months search for that when in effect it could be in the 100's the rest are already members navigating their way back.

 

[edgarf76]

Honestly, I have found 500-1000 words very effective in some cases. Some SEO's say you should have a minimum of 2000 words but it results it too many of the same keyphrases over and over. Also, in most cases you can get all the info with a good 500-1000 word article in my opinion.