How to structure a long guide so people finish it

Before writing a line, search the query you are targeting and read what is already there. The sections of the pages that rank, and the People also ask questions under them, are the sub-questions your reader has. That list is your outline.

1. 1

   Collect the headings

   Open the top five results and copy their h2s into a document. Twenty minutes. You now know what the search expects a page on this subject to cover.

2. 2

   Collect the questions

   Add the People also ask questions, expanding one to get more. These are phrased the way people think, which is how your headings should be phrased.

3. 3

   Cut the duplicates and the filler

   Five pages saying "what is X" means one section. "Why X matters in today's world" means nothing and goes.

4. 4

   Add what only you have

   The section nobody else can write: your method, your numbers, the mistake you made. This is the reason the page exists.

5. 5

   Order them as a reader meets them

   Definition, then the decision, then the doing, then the checking. Not the order the top results happen to use.

The reader arrived from a search with a question. Answer it in the first two sentences. Not a preamble, not a definition of the industry, not why the subject matters.

That opening is also what an assistant quotes when it answers the same question, which is a second reason to put the answer where it can be lifted.

A heading is a navigation aid for a person skimming and a signal for a machine reading. Both work better when the heading is phrased the way the question is asked.

• "Benefits" becomes "What you get from doing this, in order of size".
• "Implementation" becomes "How to set it up on a site you already have".
• "Considerations" becomes "When this is the wrong choice".
• "Conclusion" becomes "What to do this week", or disappears.

Keep the outline shallow. Two levels are almost always enough: h2 for sections, h3 inside a section that has genuine parts. A guide with four heading levels is two guides.

A section of eight paragraphs is a wall. A section that is only a list is a note. Mix them, and give each section one thing that is not prose.

• Two to five paragraphs, most under four sentences.
• One block that is not a paragraph: a list, a table, numbered steps, a code sample, a warning.
• One worked example with a real shape: a named page like /pricing, a query in quotes, a before and an after.
• A last line that ends in a decision, so the reader knows what they now believe.

Length per section: two hundred to four hundred words. If a section passes six hundred, it is a page of its own and the guide should link to it instead.

One example, running through the whole guide, beats five unrelated ones. Pick a fictional site and keep it: yourproduct.com, its /pricing page, its guide at /guides/getting-started.

1. 1

   Name it once, early

   "Take yourproduct.com, a fictional invoicing tool with forty pages." Now every later example has a context.

2. 2

   Show the before

   The title as it is, the figure as it stands, the mistake as it appears in the report.

3. 3

   Show the change

   Exactly what you would type or click, not "optimise the page".

4. 4

   Show how you would know

   The report, the figure and the period where the change shows up. A guide that never says how to tell teaches nothing.

Not with a summary of what the reader just read. They were there. End with the next action and the next page.

• The one thing to do this week, in a sentence.
• The questions people ask afterwards, answered in two to four sentences each.
• Three to six pages to read next, chosen because they are the genuine next step, not because they need links.
• One call to action, in the reader's terms, placed where the answer ends rather than in a banner that interrupts.

The FAQ at the end is not a keyword exercise. Use the questions your support inbox actually gets and the ones the results page showed you, answered plainly. They are also the part assistants quote most often.

Google has said repeatedly that there is no word count that ranks and that pages should be as long as they need to be. In practice your page competes with what is already there, so the length of the top results is the brief, not a target.

Cut anything that would survive being deleted. A guide that is shorter than the ones it beats is the strongest possible signal that you knew which parts mattered.