Web Copywriting
How Long Should Website Copy Be? Word Counts by Page Type
There is no universal number. Length is a function of how expensive the decision is — but there are workable ranges for every page type, and reasons to break them.
The honest answer is that a page should be as long as the decision it is asking for is expensive, and not one line longer. That is useless as a brief, though, so here are the ranges that actually work — and the reasons to ignore them.
The Only Rule That Holds
Length tracks risk. Someone booking a £40 proofread needs three facts and a button. Someone commissioning a site rebuild needs to know how you work, who does the work, what happens when it goes wrong and what it costs before they will fill in a form.
Every range below is a consequence of that, not a rule in its own right. If your buyers are unusually cautious, or the purchase is unusually large, the page goes longer.
Ranges by Page Type
- Homepage — 400 to 800 words: what you do, who for, why you, where to go next. Its job is routing, not closing.
- Service page — 900 to 1,600 words: the page that has to close. Scope, process, proof, objections, price signal, next step.
- Landing page (cold traffic) — 600 to 1,200 words: one offer, one action, every objection handled inline because there is nowhere else to click.
- About page — 500 to 900 words: read more often than owners expect, usually by someone about to enquire and checking you are real.
- Pricing page — 300 to 600 words: mostly numbers and the framing around them. Long explanations here read as excuses.
- Contact page — 100 to 250 words: set expectations — who replies, how fast, what to include — then get out of the way.
- Product description — 80 to 300 words: longer for considered purchases, shorter for repeat or commodity items.
- FAQ answer — 40 to 120 words each: a full answer in the first two sentences, detail after.
These are for a typical B2B or considered-purchase service business. Ecommerce category pages, SaaS pricing and regulated industries all move, and they move for reasons you will recognise: more risk, more words.
What Pushes a Page Longer
Price is the obvious one, but it is not the strongest. The strongest is unfamiliarity — if buyers do not already know what your category is, you are paying for the education before you can sell anything.
- A long or irreversible commitment: retainers, migrations, anything with switching costs.
- A crowded market: if ten firms look identical, the page has to do the differentiating.
- Multiple decision-makers: a page read by a practitioner and a finance lead has to satisfy both.
- Genuine objections: every real one you leave unanswered is a visitor you lose silently.
What Pulls It Shorter
Repeat purchases, low prices, strong brand recognition and a simple offer all compress a page. So does a well-structured site: a service page can stay short if the detail lives on pages the reader can reach when they want it.
Word count is not an SEO ranking factor, and never has been. Long pages correlate with better rankings because thoroughness correlates with both. Padding a page to reach 2,000 words gets you the length without the thoroughness, which is the half that does nothing.
How to Cut Without Losing the Argument
Most overlong pages are not too detailed — they are repetitive. The same benefit is asserted in the hero, restated in the intro, listed in a bullet and repeated in the closing paragraph, and every restatement is weaker than the first.
- Highlight every claim on the page. If two say the same thing, delete the vaguer one.
- Delete anything true of every competitor. "Experienced team" is not a differentiator; it is a table stake.
- Replace adjectives with numbers wherever you have one. "Fast turnaround" is filler; "two business days" is information.
- Cut the introduction. On a service page it is almost always the most deletable block on the page.
When a page still runs long after that, it is long because the decision is hard — which is the correct reason.
If you are not sure whether a page needs more words or better ones, it is worth reading what website copywriting actually is first. And if you would rather hand it over, our website copywriting service quotes per page rather than per word, for this reason.
Questions
Questions about this article
Still unsure about something? Talk to a specialist — no script, no sales pitch.
No. Word count is not a ranking factor. Longer pages often rank better because thorough pages tend to cover more of what a searcher wanted, not because length itself helps. Padding a page to hit a number makes it worse on both counts.
Usually 400 to 800 for a service business. Enough to say what you do, who it is for, why you rather than the alternatives, and what to do next — and little else, because the homepage's main job is to route people to the page that answers their actual question.
Check what is in the extra words before matching them. If it is substance a buyer needs, you are short. If it is restated benefits and filler written to hit a target, matching it copies the weakness.