How much text is recommended for a homepage?

[KatherineWatierOng]

I'm working with a client who is redesigning their site and the new design is very image heavy. Does anyone have any recommendations on the minimum amount of text the homepage should have so that it will rank (or at least not be penalized)?

It's a site created by a known brand, but the site itself and URL are relatively new.

Katherine

[DonnaDuncan]

I like Patrick's answer and agree that you need enough words to be able to orient visitors and search engines. While there is no best practice minimum, I personally aim for at least 100 words.

[PatrickDelehanty]

Hi there

I added a few more resources - let me know if those work. Sorry, one of those "oh yeah!" moments after I posted!

Good luck!

[KatherineWatierOng]

Thanks! I'm familiar with the length of content generally (I like Neil Patel's study) but in this instance it's a homepage/magazine type format with very little text and only a few links to articles.

As a new brand I think it needs a bit of placeholder text to orient the new user, but I was just wondering if there were any studies specifically about the homepage and how much text you might need.

[PatrickDelehanty]

Hi there

There's no right answer for this. You'll see homepages and sites ranking with little to no content, and some with novels. If you have images on your homepage, talk to your web development team about bring the text out of the images to live on top of it so it can be crawled. Also, mind your image optimization.

I would focus more on your bounce rate - if it's high, maybe you need some persuasion. Your analytics are your best friend here. You can also test different content or layouts.

Quicksprout has some great tips as well that don't discuss the length, but how much it takes you to persuade the user - there's no "best practice" length, it's just what you need to get your point across and what you need to get the user to continue to move through the site - check it out here.

I also highly suggest this resource from SEOBlog.

You should read through this ranking factors study from SearchMetrics where they break down the average amount of text/content on pages for the first ten results, just remember that this isn't universal or gospel, your audience and what they are searching for is a unique ballgame.

Hope this helps! Good luck!