What word count measures
Word count is the number of words on a page. That is all it measures. Google has said repeatedly that there is no minimum length and no length that earns a ranking, and no tool can tell you the right size for a page, because the honest answer depends entirely on the question the page has to answer.
The confusion comes from a real correlation. Pages ranking for competitive informational queries are often long, so length looks like the cause. It is usually the symptom: those queries need a lot of ground covered, and covering it takes words. A page that reaches the same length by repeating itself does not get the same result.
Why word count matters anyway
It matters as a diagnostic. A page far shorter than every result for its query is usually missing something a reader wanted — the price, the exceptions, the process, the obvious objection — and that gap is worth hunting down. A page far longer than any of them is usually padded, and the padding pushes the answer further from the top.
It matters commercially too, because writing is bought by the word. Commissioning to a word count guarantees you get a word count; whether you get an answer is a separate question, and briefs written that way tend to produce opening paragraphs about how important the topic is.
Where word count goes wrong
The clearest failure is the target itself. Told to reach a number, a writer pads: background nobody asked for, restated points, a summary of what was just said, and lists of considerations with no recommendation. The page gets longer and less useful at the same time, which is the opposite of what was wanted.
The mirror image is just as common. Cutting everything to the bone leaves a page that answers the headline question and none of the follow-ups, which is how thin content appears on a site that thought it was being concise. And treating the typical length of the current results as a target ignores that some of those pages rank despite their length rather than because of it.
How to act on it
Brief by scope rather than by size. List the questions the page must answer, the objections it must handle and the next step it should offer, then let the length follow. If a draft covers all of that and stops, it is the right length — whether that is a couple of paragraphs for a definition or several sections for a buying guide.
Use the current results as research, not as a ruler: read them for what they cover and what they leave out, and win on the gap rather than on the total. Then edit downwards. Almost every draft improves when the first two paragraphs go, and shorter pages are easier to read on a phone, which is how most people in Nepal will open yours. A content brief listing questions instead of a word target is the simplest way to make that stick.