I have written 49 pages of niche reference content in the last two weeks. Almost everything I assumed about writing for search was wrong in some small way. These are the corrections that actually changed the pages.
The first sentence is the whole page
The single highest-leverage edit I make to any draft is rewriting the sentence after the H1.
Draft: "Herbal remedies have been used for centuries to treat a wide range of ailments..."
Published: "Most sore throats are viral and settle in 3–7 days. These remedies reduce the pain while that happens."
The second one does three things the first does not: it gives a number, it sets an expectation, and it tells the reader whether this page is for them. That is the sore throat page, and the same rewrite pattern appears on every page I have published since.
The test I use: read only the H1 and the first sentence. If that pair does not answer the query, the page is not finished.
Counterintuitive beats comprehensive
The pages that get read are the ones that contradict a common belief. Not contrarian for its own sake — genuinely correcting something people are doing wrong.
Examples from my own site:
- Peppermint makes reflux worse. It relaxes the valve at the top of the stomach. It is the most recommended herbal tea for digestion and the wrong one for heartburn.
- Do not heat a chicken coop in winter. Sealing it traps moisture, which causes frostbite at temperatures well above freezing. Ventilation matters more than warmth — the full reasoning is here.
- Spraying the ants you can see is the wrong move. They are 1–10% of the colony; killing them makes the colony produce more, and you lose the trail that would lead you to the nest.
Each of those could have been written as neutral advice. The reflux one is on the acid reflux page, which is also the page where I had to admit that the most-recommended herb for a problem is the wrong one. Written as a correction, they are memorable and they are what people link to.
The answer is a number, or it is not an answer
Vague advice is unquotable. "Provide adequate space" is not useful. "2–3 sq ft per bird inside, 8–10 sq ft in the run" is useful, checkable and linkable.
I now go through every draft and hunt for the sentence that should contain a number but does not. There is almost always one.
Caveats belong on the page, not in a disclaimer
The thing that separates a useful page from a sales page is that the useful page tells you when not to use the thing.
- Licorice for reflux: use DGL, and not at all if you have high blood pressure.
- Elderberry syrup: never for children under one, because of the honey.
- Rosemary: almost every dead plant was overwatered, not frozen.
This costs you nothing and it is the main reason people trust a page enough to link to it.
Length follows from the structure, not a target
I stopped aiming for word counts. What I aim for now:
- A direct answer in the first sentence
- A table for the numbers
- The reasoning behind the numbers
- The exceptions and caveats
- FAQ entries that match what people actually search
That lands between 450 and 700 words for most topics. The pages that run longer do so because the topic has more exceptions, not because longer is better.
Internal links are not decoration
Every page links to two or three related pages, in context, with anchor text that describes the destination. Not "click here" and not a bare list at the bottom.
The raised bed depth page links to the soil calculator because the next question after "how deep" is "how much soil". That is the whole principle: link to the next question.
What I would tell someone starting today
Write the hub page first. I wrote 21 pages before creating the page that ties them together, which meant the crawl path between them did not exist for weeks. Everything else — the numbers, the caveats, the first sentence — is refinement. The structure is the thing that decides whether any of it is found.
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