Blog · Jul 18, 2026
Does more content mean a higher score?
Sites with more readable text score higher, but padding won't help. Substance does.
Key takeaways
- Sites with over 2,000 words of readable text averaged 77.5 (329 sites). Sites with under 100 words averaged 54.4 (988 sites).
- Word count is a proxy: thin sites usually lack the facts, answers and labels that AI needs.
- Don't pad. Answer the questions a customer would ask, page by page.
What the data shows
In our study, sites with over 2,000 words of readable text averaged 77.5 out of 100. Sites with under 100 words averaged 54.4, a gap of roughly 23 points. That's a large difference, but read it carefully.
Correlation, not causation
Adding 2,000 words of filler won't raise your score. Sites with substantial content tend to have the things that score well: described services, answered questions, complete contact details and an About page with real detail. Word count is a proxy for whether anyone explained the business. It also partly feeds our content score, so some of the gap is built in. Thin pages tend to be missing other things too, such as page titles and descriptions.
A homepage that says "Welcome to our site! We do great work! Call today!" contains no quotable facts. An assistant asked about that business has nothing to use: no services, prices, area or answers.
What 2,000 words looks like across a site
It sounds like a lot until you spread it out:
- Homepage: about 300 words on what you do, for whom and where, with specifics.
- Services: three or four pages of about 250 words each.
- About: about 200 words of real history, credentials and team.
- FAQ: ten questions at about 50 words each.
- Contact: about 100 words plus name, address, phone and hours.
That is a normal, complete small business website: a business fully described.
The fix for thin sites
Don't pad. Answer. Go page by page and ask: if an assistant read only this page, could it say what we do, what it costs and where? Where the answer is no, add the missing facts, in this order:
- Services pages. Describe each service: what's included, how long it takes and what affects the price. One service per page beats a list of one-liners.
- FAQ. Ten real questions with short, specific answers.
- About. Who you are, how long you've operated and your credentials. "Family-owned since 2009" is a usable fact.
- Contact. Name, address, phone, hours and service area, all as text.
Quality still beats quantity
Two hundred words of specific facts ("We install asphalt shingles, $4.50-$7 per sq ft, serving the north Pittsburgh suburbs, with a 10-year workmanship warranty") are worth more than two thousand words of "We're passionate about excellence." After you write a paragraph, ask: what could an assistant quote from this? If the answer is nothing, rewrite it until the answer is a fact.
Where to start
Paste your homepage text into a word counter. Under 300 words? Start there, since the homepage carries the most weight, then services, then the FAQ. You don't need 2,000 words tomorrow. You need each page to answer its basic questions, and the words follow.
About this data: 10,369 small business sites scored in October 2026; word counts are rendered visible text on the homepage. 1,126 sites returned no measurable word count and are excluded from the word-count comparisons, which cover the remaining 9,243 sites. Averages are CrawlReady scores.