Module 7 · 7.3

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Writing a page that gives answers

Module 7: Content that gets found · Reading time: 13 minutes

Learning objective: After this lesson you can write or rewrite a page that answers the searcher's question, shows who made it and why you can trust it, and fits what Google calls "helpful content for people".

Key concepts: helpful, reliable content made for people (people-first), content for search engines, who, how and why, experience and expertise (E-E-A-T), answer first, structure with headings, your own photos, AI-written text, scaled content, thin content, updating

What Google itself asks for

Google has a page about exactly this topic: "Creating helpful, reliable, people-first content". The core idea: Google wants to reward content made to help people, not to attract traffic from search engines. Google adds a list of questions you can use to assess your own page. A few of them, paraphrased:

Does the page provide original information, original research or original analysis?
Does it describe the topic completely enough?
Is it a page you would bookmark, or recommend to a friend?
Was it written or reviewed by someone who clearly knows the topic well?
Does it contain factual errors that are easy to check?
Would your audience find the page useful if they came to you directly, without a search engine?

And a few warning signs that a page was made mainly for search engines:

you write about a topic only because it "ranks well", not because it suits your audience;
you produce lots of pages on lots of topics with lots of automation;
you write to a certain word count because you have heard that Google wants it. Google's own answer to that: "No, we don't." The SEO Starter Guide also says that the length of a text does not matter for ranking in itself.

Who, how and why

Google asks you to make three things clear about your page.

Who made it? A name on an article where readers expect one, with something about the writer's background. For Lucy: "Written by Lucy, florist since 2009". Google explicitly calls made-up author profiles misleading.
How was it made? Did you test, measure or photograph things yourself? Say so. If you use automation or AI in a way a reader would want to know about, tell them that too.
Why was it made? Google calls this "perhaps the most important question". The right answer is: to help readers.

In the SEO world you often hear E-E-A-T: experience, expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness. Google itself says E-E-A-T is not a ranking factor in itself. Google does use a mix of signals to recognise content with those qualities, and of the four, trustworthiness matters most. For topics that affect someone's health, money or safety, it carries more weight. For you it simply means: show what you know and that you can be trusted.

The structure of a strong page

Take a weak version of Lucy's "Funeral Flowers" page:

Welcome to Lucy's Flower Studio! We are THE specialist in funeral flowers in Exeter. Order funeral flowers Exeter from us. We deliver high-quality funeral flowers. Get in touch!

What is missing? Everything a grieving relative wants to know: what kinds there are, how quickly it can be done, how the flowers get to the funeral, what can go on the ribbon, roughly what it costs. A strong version:

Start with the answer. "Order funeral flowers from us no later than 2 pm on the day before the funeral. We deliver in and around Exeter, to the funeral venue or to the family."
Use headings that answer questions: "What kinds of funeral flowers are there?", "What should you put on the ribbon?", "How does delivery work?". Headings help readers scan (lesson 3.2). According to Google, the order of headings does not matter for ranking and there is no ideal number; they are there for the reader.
Be specific. Real examples, real photos of your own work with good alt text (lesson 3.2). A stock photo says nothing about your craft.
Show experience. "For a winter funeral we choose flowers that can cope with the cold" says more about your expertise than "high quality".
Make the next step easy: ordering, calling, visiting.
Write the way your customers search. Use the words from lesson 7.2 where they fit naturally: in the title, the main heading and the opening. No more often than that. Google warns that repeating the same words over and over tires readers, and excessive keyword stuffing falls under its spam policies (lesson 8.2).

Using AI for your texts

Can you use AI? Google judges the content, not the tool. Its guidance on generative AI says AI can be useful for researching a topic and structuring a text, as long as the result meets the usual quality standards and spam policies. Three limits:

Check the facts. Google points out that generative models do not look up facts and can therefore make mistakes. You need to check everything yourself, including the title, meta description, structured data and alt text.
No mass production. Having lots of pages generated that add nothing for the reader can count as scaled content abuse, a form of spam (lesson 8.2). Bing also names large-scale generated content without editorial review as something that can be kept out of its index.
Add what only you know. An AI does not know the local funeral homes, your delivery times or your own experience. That is exactly what makes your page better than the rest.

A website builder with AI, such as the AI Builder, writes a first draft of your texts. Always read it through and add your own knowledge, prices and terms. The same goes for AI help in WordPress plugins or other builders.

Thin content and updating

Thin content is a page with little value of its own: a copy of the supplier's text, ten nearly identical town-name pages, a category page without any explanation. Better five strong pages than fifty weak ones.

Keep your pages up to date. Are the delivery time, the range and the prices still correct? Change whatever has changed. But do not just change the date: Google explicitly names changing the date to make a page look fresh, without any real change to the content, as a warning sign.

In practice: your website builder's check

The AI Builder has a simple SEO check for each page: a title and description that are not too long, a main heading, descriptions for images, not too little text and a unique title. WordPress plugins such as Yoast SEO or Rank Math give similar traffic lights. Checks like these help you avoid forgetting the basics, but a green light does not mean your page answers the question well. That judgement is still yours, with Google's questions above as your yardstick.

Summary

Google wants to reward content made to help people; use Google's list of questions to test your page.
Show who made the page, how and why. E-E-A-T is not a ranking factor in itself; trustworthiness carries the most weight.
Start with the answer, use headings as questions, be specific and show your own experience. There is no required word count.
AI is fine, as long as you check the facts, add something of your own and do not mass-produce pages.

Quiz

1. Does Google say a page needs a minimum number of words to rank well? Yes, at least 300 words
Yes, at least 1,000 words
No, Google says it has no preferred word count
Yes, but only for product pages

Google even calls writing to a word count a warning sign. A page should answer the question, however long that takes.

2. What does Google say about E-E-A-T? It is the most important ranking factor
It is not a ranking factor in itself; Google uses a mix of signals and trust matters most
You must put the letters E-E-A-T in your meta description
It only applies to news websites

E-E-A-T is a way of looking at quality, not a separate measurement in the algorithm.

3. Lucy has an AI tool create twenty pages: "Funeral Flowers Topsham", "Funeral Flowers Crediton" and so on, each with the same text and a different town name. What is the risk? None, more pages is always better
It can count as scaled content with no added value under the spam policies
Google cannot read text written by AI
Only Bing has a problem with it

Using AI is not the problem; creating lots of pages that add nothing for the reader is.

4. Which opening fits best with what Google calls "people-first"? "Welcome! We are THE specialist in funeral flowers Exeter funeral flowers."
"Order funeral flowers from us by 2 pm on the day before the funeral; we deliver to the funeral venue."
"Click here for more information."
"Last updated: today."

That sentence immediately answers the question a grieving relative has.

5. Every month you change the date at the top of an article without changing the text. What does Google say about that? It is a good way to stay fresh
Google calls it a warning sign of content made mainly for search engines
Google does not look at dates
It is compulsory for blogs

Update a page when something really changes, and change the date then too.

Exercise

Exercise D7.3: Rewrite one page. Choose an important page on your own site (or the weak funeral flowers page from this lesson). First assess it with Google's questions, then rewrite it following the six points on structure, and compare before and after. Fill in the checklist and the questions in the exercise.

Exercise D7.3: Rewrite one page

You do this exercise yourself; no one checks it. Tick off what you've done and mark the exercise as done.

Page chosen and address noted
Assessed with at least five questions from lesson 7.3
Answer in the first two sentences
Headings that answer questions
An example or experience of your own added
Visible who wrote the page (where that fits)
Keyword in the title, main heading and opening, no more often than is natural
Facts and any AI text proofread

Address of the page

The old and the new first paragraph

Which three questions did the old page score badly on?

What do only you know that is now on the page?

Did you use AI, and what did you change yourself afterwards?

Also save my answers in My courses (so you can view and download them on any device). Don't include any passwords or other secrets.

Here's how you could approach this

See the strong funeral flowers page from lesson 7.3: answer up front, headings as questions, own experience and the writer named.

Your ticks and notes only stay in this browser; we don't send them anywhere. If you're signed in, we only save in My courses that you've done the exercise.

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