Content that ranks

Content that ranks answers the question behind a search faster and more concretely than the content of your competitors, with evidence that a real person with experience wrote the text.

Length on its own is no mark of quality. A text of three hundred words that answers the question directly often beats a text of two thousand words that circles around it. What does count is whether the text adds something a reader will not readily find elsewhere. The same goes for a language model looking for a citable answer. That can be a figure of your own, a concrete example or simply a clearer formulation than the rest of the results page offers.

What ranking content has in common

• An answer in the first paragraph. The core sits up front, so both reader and search engine know quickly whether the page fits. See also recognising and using search intent.
• Evidence of your own experience. An example, a figure with a source or an observation of your own makes a text more credible than a general summary. More on that in building E-E-A-T on your site.
• A structure that can be scanned. Headings, short paragraphs and the occasional list make a text easier to work through for someone after a quick answer who has no plan to read every word.

What ranking content avoids

• Filler sentences. Sentences that exist only to make the text longer weaken the whole instead of strengthening it. A reader senses that sooner than you would think.
• An answer that arrives late. When the core only turns up in the third paragraph, the odds are that the reader and the answer box have both moved on. See winning the answer box.
• Generic claims without a source. A statement with no figure or example behind it convinces nobody. A language model quotes it just as reluctantly, for the same reason, because there is nothing concrete to hold on to.

Want to know whether your content already meets these points? Take the free AI-zichtbaarheidscheck.