Writing original, Google-friendly content: topics, length, keywords and meta tags

Original does not mean nobody has written about the topic. Almost every useful topic is covered somewhere. It means the page contains something that did not exist before you published it: your own testing, your own numbers, your own screenshots, a synthesis nobody else has assembled, or an answer written for a reader the existing pages ignore.

The failing pattern is the rewrite: reading the top three results, paraphrasing them, and publishing the average. It passes a plagiarism checker and still reads as derivative, because it adds nothing. That is the shape of page that collects 'Crawled – currently not indexed' in Search Console and 'low value content' from AdSense.

• Add first-hand material: what you did, what it cost, what broke, what the result was.
• Add specifics: exact figures, dates, versions, error messages, configurations.
• Add the parts other pages skip — the failure cases, the edge conditions, the honest 'this will not work if…'.
• Cite sources where a claim is not yours, and link out. Linking out does not leak value; it demonstrates the claim is checkable.

Pick topics where you can answer completely rather than topics with the biggest search numbers. A page that fully resolves a narrow question outranks a shallow page on a broad one, and it keeps ranking.

1. Write down the ten questions people actually ask you about your subject. These are your first ten pages.
2. For each, decide the single intent behind it: are they trying to understand, decide, do, or fix something? The intent determines the format.
3. Search the question and read the current top results properly. Note what all of them miss. That gap is your angle.
4. Group related questions into clusters and plan one hub page linking to each detail page. Clusters index faster than isolated pages because internal links carry crawl demand.
5. Only then check search volume — as a tiebreaker between two topics you can cover equally well, not as the deciding factor.

Ten complete pages beat forty thin ones, every time. A site is judged on its weakest pages as much as its best.

There is no word count Google rewards. Length is a symptom of completeness, not a cause of ranking. That said, the practical ranges are consistent enough to plan with.

• Definition or quick answer: 300–600 words. Answer in the first paragraph, then add context.
• How-to or tutorial: 900–1,500 words, with numbered steps, exact commands or settings, and what to do when a step fails.
• Comparison or decision guide: 1,200–2,000 words, with a table and an explicit recommendation for each type of reader.
• Reference or complete guide: 2,000+ words, structured so a reader can jump to their section.

Two hard limits. Below roughly 300 words, a page rarely carries enough to be indexed on its own merit — merge it into a bigger page. Above about 3,000 words, readers stop scrolling unless there is a table of contents and disciplined subheadings. Padding a 500-word answer to 1,500 words makes the page worse, and it is obvious to both readers and ranking systems.

Keyword density as a target is obsolete. There is no percentage to hit, and pages have been penalised for hitting one. Google matches meaning, not string frequency, and a page can rank for thousands of phrases it never contains verbatim.

What still matters is that the page is unambiguously about its topic. Use the main phrase where a careful writer would naturally use it, and let related vocabulary appear because you are covering the subject properly.

• The main phrase in the title tag, the H1, and the first hundred words. That is the whole obligation.
• Two or three natural repetitions across a 1,000-word page, plus variations and synonyms. If a rough density lands between 0.5% and 1.5%, that is a by-product of good writing, not a target.
• Subheadings phrased as the questions readers ask, not as keyword slots.
• Descriptive link text: 'how ads.txt is verified', never 'click here'.
• Never repeat a phrase in a way you would not say aloud, and never list city names, plurals or misspellings for coverage. Both are recognised as manipulation.

• One H1 per page, matching what the page is about. Subsections use H2, sub-subsections H3, in order — never skipping a level for visual effect.
• Answer the title's question in the opening paragraph. Do not open with three paragraphs of preamble.
• Short paragraphs, two to four sentences. Lists only for things that are genuinely lists.
• Tables for anything comparative — they are easier to scan and frequently pulled into search features.
• Descriptive alt text on every image, saying what the image shows rather than repeating the keyword.
• Link to two or three related pages of your own, in the body text where the reference is relevant.

The title tag is the strongest on-page signal you control and the line people decide on in search results. Write it for a human choosing between ten blue links.

• Keep it under about 60 characters so it is not truncated. Front-load the distinctive part.
• Put the primary phrase near the beginning, in natural word order.
• Add the differentiator: a year, a number, a qualifier — 'in 11 steps', 'with real examples', 'for new sites'.
• Append the site name after a dash if it adds trust; drop it if the title is already at the limit.
• Every page gets its own. Duplicated titles across a site are a reliable sign of thin, templated pages.

Avoid all-caps, stacked keywords separated by pipes, and clickbait the page does not deliver. Google rewrites titles it judges unhelpful, and once it starts rewriting yours you have lost control of the listing.

The meta description is not a ranking factor. It is advertising copy for the click, and Google shows it verbatim maybe half the time, substituting page text otherwise. Write it anyway — the half where it is used is the half you control.

• Aim for 140–160 characters. Shorter looks thin; longer gets cut mid-sentence.
• Say what the reader gets, concretely, and include the main phrase because matched words are bolded in results.
• One clear promise per description, in the site's voice. No keyword lists.
• Unique per page. A single description repeated site-wide is the classic marker of a templated site.

Also set the social tags — og:title, og:description and a 1200×630 og:image — mirroring the title and description. They do not affect ranking, but they determine whether a shared link looks like a real publication.

1. Does this page contain at least one thing that exists nowhere else?
2. Is the reader's question answered above the fold?
3. Is every claim either mine, sourced, or removed?
4. Is the length driven by what needs saying, not by a target?
5. Does the main phrase appear in the title, H1 and opening — and nowhere it feels forced?
6. Are the title and description unique, under 60 and 160 characters, and honest?
7. Do at least two internal links point into this page from elsewhere on the site?
8. Would I send this page to someone who asked me the question in person?