Briefs before drafts. Every page targets a defined query set, answers it completely, and carries the internal links that make the rest of the site rank. Content written any other way is decoration with a word count.
What a brief contains
Nothing gets written until the brief is agreed, because the brief is where the thinking happens. Writing is just the part you can see.
- The primary query and the cluster of related questions the page has to answer.
- Who is asking, and what they already know when they arrive.
- What the pages currently ranking say — and specifically what they leave out.
- The angle only you can write, from your own operations. This is the part that cannot be generated.
- Target length, structure, and the internal links in and out.
- The action the page is asking for.
The monthly cadence
- Briefs written and agreed at the start of the month, prioritised off the query map.
- Drafts written, edited and published — not handed to you as a Word document to deal with yourself.
- Internal links updated across the existing library so new pages inherit and pass authority.
- Existing pages refreshed where the data says they are decaying. A page that used to rank is usually cheaper to fix than a new page is to build.
What I will not write
Thin location pages that are one town name away from being identical. Padded intros that delay the answer by four paragraphs. Bulk-generated copy nobody read before it was published. All three used to work and now actively cost you — templated is not the same as thin, and the difference is whether the page has anything of its own to say.
Where it connects
Content sits on top of a site that can be crawled and a map of what to target. If those are not in place, start with the build or the search work — or with the free audit, which will tell you which one you need.