A lot of SEO effort goes towards optimizing content to a keyphrase.

And rightly so. The entire tone and depth of an article can change based on the keyphrase.

But, that also raises the question: How long should a Keyphrase be?

How many words does it take to get to the center of good search traffic?  According to a study by online ad network Chitika, three – as in, three-word search queries drive the most traffic from search engines.

Three-word search queries drive the most traffic from search engines – Chitika Insights

Before we proceed, let us look at the methodology here:

Study Methodology

This study was done using data from the Chitika ad network.

Chitika Insights analyzed data from its network to see the queries users were typing in Google and analyze them for length. More about the methodology is available here.

To determine the optimal word count, Chitika looked at a sample of 41,103,403 impressions of search traffic coming into their network.

So without further ado, let’s see the results.

Here is a Summary of Our Key Findings:

26% of all search traffic – came from three-word searches.

Let’s dig in deeper now:

Raw Results

For the technically inclined, here are the raw results. The results are based off 41,103,403 impressions of search traffic.

Traffic by Word Count

Now let us dig deeper into the key findings:

26% of all search traffic – came from three-word searches.

Within the sample, 10,710,579 impressions – some 26% of all search traffic – came from three-word searches.

Since we ran one of the largest ad networks, we could see a statistically significant amount of search queries, which allowed us to do this study.

Key Takeaway: Almost 26% of searches come from 3-word queries, and thats the sweet spot for keyphrases.

The next top word counts were two-word (19%), four-word (17%), and finally one-word (14%).

Any query beyond five words will see dramatically lower traffic, throwing into perspective just how fragmented traffic from long queries really is.

The highest ad click rates were for queries of 5, 6 and 4 words.

Additionally, Chitika looked at the advertising click rate by word count to see how visitors’ intent was reflected by how many words they searched for.

The highest ad click rates were for queries of 5, 6 and 4 words.

The highest ad click rates were for queries of 5, 6 and 4 words – Chitika Insights

The implication is that a more complex search is more likely to convert into revenue for a publisher, up to a point.

CTR by Word Count

Some Observations

  1. What does this mean for SEO professionals and web publishers?  It means that there is a very definitive sweet spot in search optimization – ranking high for popular queries between three and five words long should see both optimal traffic and conversions.

  2. If you need to set a keyphrase, your best bet is 3-word keyphrases. This is the sweet spot for both traffic and post-click conversions.

  3. Long-tail queries with 5+ words seem to have better conversions. So even though they might get less traffic, you need to observe the conversions for those queries. Intuitively, a more complex search is more likely to convert into revenue.

Summary and Conclusion

I’d like to thank the Data team at Chitika for making this study possible.

If you’re interested in learning more about how we collected and analyzed the data for this study, here is the methodology that Chitika used for all its studies.

And in case you are curious, our new company, Poll the People, will be doing lot more studies like this. For example, you can test your ad or content headlines with real people. It might even be possible to optimize your SEO (like optimizing titles, descriptions, slugs) – but more on that later.