Minimum # of words on a homepage?

[RogersSEO]

When I design sites for clients I try to keep the homepage clean and simple.  As a result, I usually end up with very little actual content.

For SEO purposes.  What is the minimum # of words that I should have on any given homepage to avoid being penalized by Google?

Does it have to be at least 150 or something like that?  Even though my internal pages have plenty?

thanks,

Martin

[EGOL]

For SEO purposes.  What is the minimum # of words that I should have on any given homepage to avoid being penalized by Google?

Google does not penalize for a lack of content.... it is more the people involved in the website walking away from opportunity and therefore money.  You penalize yourself on this.

Design is very important but in addition the website should accomplish the goals of the business. Those include: communicating a message, engaging the visitor and competing well in search.  For most websites the homepage is the most powerful page and that makes it the one capable for competing for the most difficult (and often most profitable) keywords.

Take advantage of that power!

Great designers understand the goals of the business and understand SEO as well.  They "get" these things perfectly.  Then, they use their design skill to make a website that accomplilshes them first and at the same time is attractive.  Sometimes trade-offs are made - but great designers can get all of the needed words on a page and still make it look fantastic.

[CPU]

Hi Martin

There is no magic number although I have heard 100, 150, 300, 450 all given as the "best practice".

The minimum I would suggest would need to be an amount in which you could achieve mentioning the primary keyword naturally at least 2 or 3 times.

I tend to use the text on a home page as an introduction mentioning the company name, what it does and where. More details are then provided on an about us page. This approach usually means that keywords, phrases and brands are covered in this text.

There is obviously a balance to be achieved between providing not too much text for the user as we are told they don't read it but provide enough for the search engines to be happy.