What Google wants from your content: Research + infographic

Google sifts through millions of articles and web pages to discover the most helpful and reliable content it can serve its users.

But how do you create content that Google will love?

What is Google looking for?

In today’s guide, I’ll explain what Google looks for in high-quality content based on its official guidance and how to implement these principles.

So, if you want to create content that ranks high in Google, you’ll love this guide.

Let’s dive in.

Google’s Search Quality Rating

Before I cover what Google wants, I’m going to share a document:

• Search Quality Rating Guidelines [Google]

Google uses this enormous document to train human raters who evaluate search results manually.

In other words, it provides detailed guidelines on assessing the quality of your web pages and how well they meet user needs.

It’s a beast of a document, but it’s well worth the read if you’re technical or want to dive deep into your content.

Google wants people-first content

First up, Google wants ‘people-first content’.

People-first content is content created primarily for people, not for search engines.

In other words, the goal of your content should be to help people, educate them, or entertain them – not to game the search algorithms.

As Google puts it, ask yourself:

“Do you have an existing or intended audience for your business or site that would find the content useful if they came directly to you?”

If the answer is yes, you’re on the right track.

Google shares some other vital signs that your content is people-first:

• Your content demonstrates first-hand expertise and in-depth knowledge
• Your site has a primary purpose or focus
• A reader will leave your content feeling they’ve learned enough about a topic to help achieve their goal
• A reader will leave your content feeling satisfied with the experience

In short, create content that real people will genuinely find valuable. Avoid creating content just to rank in Google.

Self-assess your content

To determine if your content is people-first, Google recommends asking yourself these questions:

• Is the content original, insightful, and comprehensive? Does it provide substantial value compared to other pages on the same topic? Does it match other content on your website?
• Does your content have a descriptive, helpful title that isn’t exaggerated or shocking?
• Is this content something you’d bookmark, share with a friend, or cite as a reference?
• Would you expect to see this content referenced in a printed book or magazine?
• Does your content have easily verified factual errors, spelling, or stylistic issues? Does it appear well-produced or sloppy and hastily made?
• Is your content mass-produced or outsourced to many creators with little attention or care for each piece? Is it plagiarised?

Objectively evaluating your content against these criteria can help gauge if you’re on the right track. Consider having others you trust to review your content as well.

E-E-A-T and YMYL

Google’s systems look for signals that the content demonstrates strong E-E-A-T – Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness.

Trustworthiness is the most important of these; the others contribute to trust. Your content doesn’t necessarily need to demonstrate all these qualities but should exhibit at least some of them.

E-E-A-T is especially important for content on topics like health, finance, and safety (known as Your Money or Your Life topics). Google holds this type of content to a very high standard.

Key Takeaway: E-E-A-T and serving a people-first purpose should be in your mind whenever you create content. But it’s essential for YMYL topics.

If you’re writing about important topics that can impact someone’s well-being or livelihood, make sure your content is high-calibre and demonstrates strong experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness.

The who, how, what, and why of your content

To align with what Google looks for, consider the “Who, How and Why” of your content:

Who is creating the content?

Make sure the author has demonstrable expertise on the topic. Share the author’s credentials and link to their bio. Readers should have confidence that the content was written by someone knowledgeable.

Google doesn’t use author bylines as a ranking factor, but bylines do provide trust to readers.

How was the content created?

For certain types of content, like product reviews, share details of your process, like how many products you tested and what tests were conducted, and include photos as evidence.

If AI was used to help generate the content, or you generated it with AI and edited it to sound more human, be upfront about that. Transparency builds trust.

Why was the content created?

Your content should be created primarily to help people, not to game search rankings. If the “why” appears to attract search engine traffic rather than helping actual humans, that’s a red flag for Google.

Tip: You can use Google Search Console to find content ideas or prowl Google’s ‘people also ask’ section for suggestions.

Putting it all together

Creating high-quality, people-first content that Google loves ultimately comes down to:

• Having a genuine purpose to help your audience
• Demonstrating expertise, authority, and trustworthiness
• Being transparent about who created the content, how it was made, and why
• Self-assessing against Google’s criteria for high-quality content
• Prioritising original, in-depth, insightful content over thin or rehashed articles
• Putting in the time and effort to create truly comprehensive resources

Following these SEO content principles won’t guarantee a #1 ranking overnight. But it will set you on the path to creating the type of high-value, people-first content that search engines aim to surface and that builds trust with your audience.

Help Google find and understand your content

Google needs to be able to find and index your content before it can rank.

What is the best way to help Google discover your pages? Get other sites to link to you.

Google finds new content primarily by following links from pages it has already indexed.

Of course, you can’t force other sites to link to you. But you can encourage links by creating link-worthy content and promoting your site effectively (more on that later).

You can also submit a sitemap to Google with Search Console, which is a file listing all your site’s essential URLs.

Some content management systems automatically create sitemaps. Submitting a sitemap isn’t required, but it can prompt Google to crawl your pages.

Once Google finds your content, it must understand what it’s about. To help with that:

• Make sure Google can access your page the same way a user would. Hiding content from users but showing it to search engines is against Google’s guidelines.
• Use descriptive URLs with relevant keywords. Group related pages together in directories to help Google understand how your site is structured.
• Avoid having duplicate versions of the same content under multiple URLs.

Key Takeaway: Google needs to find and understand your content before it can rank. Get links to your pages, submit a sitemap, keep your site accessible, and organise it logically.

Create Interesting, useful, and compelling content

“Create great content” is the most common SEO advice. But what does great content look like?

According to Google, compelling content tends to be:

• Easy to read, well-organised, and free of errors
• Original, not copied or rehashed from other sources
• Up-to-date and relevant
• Helpful, reliable, and written with the reader in mind

When creating new pages, think about the terms your audience might use to find that content. Include those keywords naturally in your writing.

But don’t overthink it. Google’s systems can understand synonyms and related terms. Write naturally and focus on fully covering the topic.

Avoid creating a poor user experience, like intrusive pop-up ads. Too many distracting ads can frustrate readers and prevent them from getting value from your content.

Key Takeaway: Write original content that is valuable to your intended audience. Make it clear, substantial, and genuinely helpful. Keep it up-to-date and relevant.

Optimise your content for search

Including keywords strategically in certain parts of your content can help Google understand what it’s about.

Some key places to use your target keyword:

• In the first 100 words
• In the page title and meta description
• In subheadings (H1, H2, etc)
• In the URL
• In image file names and alt text
• Target a keyword density between 0.5-1%

But avoid unnatural keyword stuffing, which could hurt your rankings.

Beyond keywords, linking to other relevant pages on your site and other sites helps Google understand how your content fits into the bigger picture. Just make sure you’re connecting to high-quality, trustworthy sources.

Key Takeaway: Incorporate keywords naturally into key elements like titles, subheadings, and image alt text. Link strategically to provide context. But keep your writing sounding natural.

Monitor your SEO performance

Once your content is live, track how it’s performing so you can find opportunities for improvement.

Google Search Console is the best tool for monitoring your site’s organic search performance. It shows you which searches your site is appearing for, where you’re ranking, and how many clicks and impressions you’re getting.

Search Console can also help you identify SEO issues on your site, like pages that Google is having trouble indexing.

Key Takeaway: Use Google Search Console to monitor your search rankings, traffic, and overall SEO health. Continuously look for opportunities to improve.

The next steps

So, where do you go from here?

Start creating high-quality content, of course.

But quality content isn’t the endgame. Google has plenty more ranking factors you need to consider to dominate the first page:

• Technical SEO
• User Experience (UX)
• Schema Markup
• Domain factors (age, keywords, history, etc.)
• Website architecture
• Dwell time
• Link quality and relevance
• Mobile optimisation
• Page speed
• HTTPS/SSL

These topics are in-depth enough to deserve articles all to themselves, so I’ve linked to the best articles and pages to help you get started on them.

Need help producing SEO-friendly content? Our content writing agency can help.