Answer
Nov 25, 2025 - 08:41 AM
The golden rule for all of your answers is that you should be posting a great answer to the question and make a point to add your "two cents" of original content that demonstrates that you actually have experience and expertise on the subject. These experiences that you have is exactly what Google, AI, and most importantly...your customers need...and is what will service your brand the best. This impacts how Google and the world looks at your site, are you creating actual/unique value for the world based on what is in the brains of your team.
Your Answers Service the Whole World
It's important to know that the VAST majority of the value of your answer comes AFTER the first customer who asked it. We see that 2/3 of the value of your answers comes from servicing the world with your answer.....so when you're answering the question, you're answering it for the world. So, instead of trying to kick it out in 15 seconds....spend a couple minutes just answering great "once and for all"....and it'll service your site well.
What does word count have to do with this then?
It's important you understand it's not about the amount of words, it's a sign of the amount of effort you're putting into the answer....and we've consistently seen that customers who are regularly sharing answers that demonstrate no personal expertise/stories and doing that more times than not in less than 40 words...those customers under perform in both the organic search traffic that content drives as well as the conversion value. So, share your experiences and expertise, and you'll find most times when you do that....you'll be going over 40 words.
Is 40 words a"magic number" when it comes to performance?
Again, it's not about the word count, it's about the original experience/expertise you're sharing and has that actually been shared to service the world well. The reason we put 40 words as our threshold...is because Google's "Featured Snippet" capability where they think they've found the most concise answer to a question that still services the searcher well....those are typically 40-60 words. See an example of a traditional "featured snippet" here:
So, even when search engines are narrowing down content to be VERY concise....they still are over a 40 word threshold. Now with the advent of AI...the AI overviews are most of the time much longer than that. What we've seen since we've recognized that 40 word threshold as something to consider.....customers who are underperforming....99% of the time they are falling below that and when we ask them about their answering practices, they're not really answering for the world, they're just trying to kick out an answer in 15 seconds and "get it over with".
Your Knowledge and Experience is HUGELY Valuable (but only if you share it)
We have customers where each answer posted services anywhere from 10 to 100 customers per year (see case study). Think about that! By answering a question, you're basically standing in front of a small room of people who have that same question and are answering it for the world. So, share your expertise.
Let's Share an Example
Let's talk about an example....
We had a customer have a question come in that said "does this band fit with xyz brand of watch" and the answer was "no"....so they put "No".
That is not sharing expertise.
What the customer should have written is something like "Unfortunately this doesn't fit that watch, but we have these other product or product category (link to other product or product category) that does fit what you're looking for. Most customers lean towards xyz product for abc reasons, but I've seen xyz product do a great job at a more reasonable rate if you're more budget conscious".
Your Real Human Experience is What the World Needs, and What AI and Google Needs and Respects
You're a real person with real expertise and experience that is valuable for the world. You sell these products and categories of products for a living, you speak with customers regularly and see what they're doing and the patterns within their behaviour, what they're leaning towards, etc.....so share that experience/knowledge. It's what the world needs, and it's what Google and AI needs as well. They respect the sites where their teams are sharing it, it impacts the ranking fo your pages and how they look at your site as a whole.
Your Answers Service the Whole World
It's important to know that the VAST majority of the value of your answer comes AFTER the first customer who asked it. We see that 2/3 of the value of your answers comes from servicing the world with your answer.....so when you're answering the question, you're answering it for the world. So, instead of trying to kick it out in 15 seconds....spend a couple minutes just answering great "once and for all"....and it'll service your site well.
What does word count have to do with this then?
It's important you understand it's not about the amount of words, it's a sign of the amount of effort you're putting into the answer....and we've consistently seen that customers who are regularly sharing answers that demonstrate no personal expertise/stories and doing that more times than not in less than 40 words...those customers under perform in both the organic search traffic that content drives as well as the conversion value. So, share your experiences and expertise, and you'll find most times when you do that....you'll be going over 40 words.
Is 40 words a"magic number" when it comes to performance?
Again, it's not about the word count, it's about the original experience/expertise you're sharing and has that actually been shared to service the world well. The reason we put 40 words as our threshold...is because Google's "Featured Snippet" capability where they think they've found the most concise answer to a question that still services the searcher well....those are typically 40-60 words. See an example of a traditional "featured snippet" here:
So, even when search engines are narrowing down content to be VERY concise....they still are over a 40 word threshold. Now with the advent of AI...the AI overviews are most of the time much longer than that. What we've seen since we've recognized that 40 word threshold as something to consider.....customers who are underperforming....99% of the time they are falling below that and when we ask them about their answering practices, they're not really answering for the world, they're just trying to kick out an answer in 15 seconds and "get it over with".
Your Knowledge and Experience is HUGELY Valuable (but only if you share it)
We have customers where each answer posted services anywhere from 10 to 100 customers per year (see case study). Think about that! By answering a question, you're basically standing in front of a small room of people who have that same question and are answering it for the world. So, share your expertise.
Let's Share an Example
Let's talk about an example....
We had a customer have a question come in that said "does this band fit with xyz brand of watch" and the answer was "no"....so they put "No".
That is not sharing expertise.
What the customer should have written is something like "Unfortunately this doesn't fit that watch, but we have these other product or product category (link to other product or product category) that does fit what you're looking for. Most customers lean towards xyz product for abc reasons, but I've seen xyz product do a great job at a more reasonable rate if you're more budget conscious".
Your Real Human Experience is What the World Needs, and What AI and Google Needs and Respects
You're a real person with real expertise and experience that is valuable for the world. You sell these products and categories of products for a living, you speak with customers regularly and see what they're doing and the patterns within their behaviour, what they're leaning towards, etc.....so share that experience/knowledge. It's what the world needs, and it's what Google and AI needs as well. They respect the sites where their teams are sharing it, it impacts the ranking fo your pages and how they look at your site as a whole.
