Every time someone goes to make an internet search, they have an intent. It’s a marketer’s job to answer that intent—as comprehensively as possible. This is comprehensive content. 

By creating comprehensive content, we answer the whole question, not just part of it. When we don’t answer the complete question, the searcher has no choice but to go to another source in the search results to finish their research. This is an issue because most people will convert on the last page they view, which means not only do you not get the conversion. In addition, search engines will figure out that someone else answers the question better than you and demote your content in favor of someone else’s.

How to Make Comprehensive Content

Making comprehensive content is not easy, but if you take the time, Google will reward you in search results. Once you have done keyword research and know the question, you hope to answer with your page or post, put yourself in the shoes of the searcher to understand the entire complexity of their question. Then find a way to answer everything connected to the original thought. 

Need help putting yourself in their shoes? Then look at the search results see the people also asked boxed and related searches. That will give you ideas of things to add to your blog or page to make it more comprehensive. This tool creates an idea map that will give you topics to discuss.

These people also asked boxes and related searches will give you good ideas for H2s in your post to write about.

A Comprehensive Piece of Content Can be Created By:

• Creating long form content or pillar pieces
• Linking to other sources on your site that further answer the searchers question
• Giving them next steps as they read through your content
• Embedding video into the content
• Adding an infographic to the content
• Adding any other supporting content to the article or page

How to Structure Comprehensive Content

The downside of comprehensive content is it can get overwhelming as it gets longer. Adding a table of contents with anchor links is a great way to help with this. This also can lead to earning rich results in search with the anchor links showing under your meta description—like below.

In some cases, you can even get your own dropdown like the people also asked boxes for your content.

You should also break up your content with different structures. Meaning having bulleted lists, images, and other things that break up the wall of text.

10x Content

Another way to think about this is looking at what is already ranking number one for the title of your content and asking yourself how can I make content that is 10 times better than what is already there. 

You need to do this in order to take their spot, because without doing this, search engines will continue to recommend the existing content because it is already doing a good job of answering searchers’ questions. In order to rank well, we can’t be just as good as someone else. We need to be significantly better in a unique way. 

Next Steps for Your Content

Once you know the intent you want to answer with a new page or new blog post on your site, ask yourself what are the questions behind the search intent and answer all the questions they may have.

Additionally, make your older content more complete by looking to see where there might need to be updates and link back to other newer pages on your site that help answer that question more fully. Just as you want to rank higher, other people want to rank higher than you. So the battle for the number one spot and the best content never stops. Another person might make something more comprehensive than your content. Then you must work on increasing the value of your piece of content to regain your spot.