Writing Content for Search
Search engines try to show the page that best answers what someone searched for. The titles, content and trust checks look for signals that make a page easier to understand and more useful to the person who lands on it. The thresholds below are Headnoted’s scoring guides, not rules set by Google or Bing, and meeting them cannot promise a ranking.
Titles and Metadata
- A page title of 30 to 60 characters that names the topic first, in the words people search for, and your brand last. Google cuts long titles off by width, so the end may not show
- A meta description of 70 to 160 characters that sums up the page and gives a reason to click. Search engines sometimes write their own snippet, but a good description is often the one shown
- A canonical URL that points at the page itself. If it points at another address, you are telling search engines to index that address instead, so the report marks it as Improve unless it is meant to be a duplicate
- Open Graph tags (og:title, og:description and og:image), so links shared on social networks and in messages show a proper preview
Give every page its own title and description. The extensive audit flags pages that share one.
Headings and Content
- One H1 that says plainly what the page is about
- A title and H1 about the same topic, so the page does not send mixed signals
- H2 and H3 subheadings that split the content into sections a reader can scan
- Enough specific, useful content to answer the search on its own. Word count is not a ranking factor in itself, but short pages often leave a question half answered
- Links from the main content to related pages on your site, with link text that says where each link goes
- Alt text on every meaningful image, describing what it shows; use alt="" only for decoration
Answer First
Put the direct answer near the top of the page and each section, then the detail. Someone who searched a question wants to see straight away that they are in the right place.
Trust and Freshness
- Show who wrote the page or who stands behind it - a byline with a short bio, and author or publisher in your structured data
- Show when the page was published and last updated, and add datePublished and dateModified to your schema. Only change the date when the content really changes
- Link to the primary sources behind your statistics and claims
Evidence Before Extra Words
Answer the searcher’s actual question before making a page longer to meet a threshold. A clear, concise delivery page can be more useful than a long page of repeated keywords. Repeating a phrase many times does not help and can read as spam.
Google’s guidance on helpful, people-first content asks who created the content, how and why, and encourages original information and evidence of real experience. Google’s title link and snippet guidance explains how titles and descriptions are chosen. A worked example, a documented method or a permissioned case study can help readers judge a claim. Do not invent a customer outcome to show expertise.