Every writer eventually asks the same question: how long should this article be? The honest answer is that Google has no minimum word count. What it does have is a strong preference for pages that fully answer the question behind the search. Length is a side effect of completeness, not a target in itself.
Match the length to search intent
Before writing, search your keyword and look at what already ranks. If the top results are 600-word definitions, a 3,000-word essay will bore readers and hurt engagement. If they are detailed comparison guides, a short post will look thin by comparison.
- Quick answers and definitions: 500 to 900 words
- How-to tutorials: 1,000 to 1,600 words
- Comparison and 'best of' guides: 1,800 to 2,500 words
- Pillar guides you plan to update yearly: 2,500 words or more
Cut padding, keep substance
Padding is easy to spot: long introductions that restate the title, generic history sections, and repeated conclusions. Replace them with specifics — numbers, steps, screenshots, and examples a reader can act on today. A tight 1,200-word article usually outperforms a bloated 2,500-word one.
Track length while you write
Keep our Word Counter open in a second tab while drafting. It shows live word count, character count, and an estimated reading time so you can see when a section is running long. Aim for a reading time under eight minutes for most informational posts.
The checklist before publishing
- Does every section answer a question a reader actually has?
- Is the title under 60 characters so it is not truncated in search results?
- Is the meta description between 140 and 160 characters?
- Is the URL a short, readable slug?
- Have you linked to two or three related pages on your own site?
Write for the reader first and the length will settle itself. Use word count as a guardrail, never as a goal.