A client in Austin insisted we cut all blog posts under 800 words, and it tanked our traffic

I had a client last year who was very firm about word count. He read some article that said anything under 800 words was 'thin content' and Google would ignore it. So we went back and either padded out or deleted dozens of our shorter, helpful how-to guides that were around 400-500 words. Within two months, our organic traffic for those specific topics dropped by about 40%. People were looking for quick answers, not essays. The shorter posts had better engagement times before we changed them. It taught me that strict rules from one source can really miss the mark for your actual audience. Has anyone else had a client push a hard rule that backfired?

3 comments

3 Comments

blakem131mo ago

Have you ever tried showing them the data side by side on a single page, like a before/after dashboard? That way they can't cherry pick dates or claim seasonality. I did that once with a client who insisted on removing all FAQs from their product pages. I built a simple Google Data Studio report comparing the old FAQ pages to the new stripped down ones over 60 days. The traffic and conversion data were so clear they couldn't argue. It took some work upfront but saved weeks of back and forth calls.

oliviat171mo ago

Ever try showing them the traffic drop data side by side? That usually snaps clients out of it.

matthewkim1mo ago

Yeah, that's a solid move from @oliviat17. I've done the side by side thing before, but you gotta be ready for the pushback. Sometimes they'll blame it on the season or just a bad week, anything but the new design. What works for me is pairing that traffic drop with a quick video screen recording of a real user getting lost on their new site. The data plus the visual proof usually gets the point across.