The "User-First" Content Framework: A 2-Minute Summary
By Arthur on August 30, 2025
Official guidance on "Creating helpful, reliable, people-first content" is one of the most important documents for any content creator, but it's dense. We've distilled its core principles into a scannable summary you can use as a quick reference or an audit checklist.
To see how we used these exact principles in practice, view our case study.
On This Page:
- Content & Quality Checklist
- Expertise Checklist
- The "People-First" Litmus Test
- Warning Signs: "Search-First" Content
- Understanding E-E-A-T (and YMYL)
- The "Who, How, and Why" Framework
1. Content & Quality Checklist
Search engines want to reward content that is satisfying for a user. Ask yourself if your content provides:
- Originality: Does it offer original information, reporting, research, or analysis?
- Substance: Is it a substantial, complete, or comprehensive description of the topic?
- Insight: Does it provide insightful analysis or interesting information that is "beyond the obvious"?
- Value-Add: If it draws on other sources, does it add substantial value and originality, not just copy or rewrite them?
- Helpful Titles: Does the headline provide a descriptive, helpful summary? Does it avoid being shocking or exaggerated?
- Share-Worthiness: Is this a page you’d want to bookmark, share, or recommend?
- Production Quality: Is the content produced well, or does it seem sloppy or hastily produced? Is it free of spelling and stylistic issues?
- Value vs. Others: Does the content provide substantial value when compared to other pages in search results?
2. Expertise Checklist
This section relates to how much a user can trust your content.
- Trust Signals: Does the content present information in a way that makes you want to trust it? (e.g., clear sourcing, evidence of expertise, author backgrounds, or "About" page links).
- Authoritativeness: If someone researched your site, would they see it as well-trusted or a widely recognized authority on its topic?
- Expert Author: Is the content written or reviewed by an expert or enthusiast who demonstrably knows the topic well?
- Factual Accuracy: Does the content have any easily verified factual errors?
3. The "People-First" Litmus Test
If you can answer "YES" to these questions, you are likely on the right track.
- Do you have an existing or intended audience that would find this content useful if they came directly to your site?
- Does your content clearly demonstrate first-hand expertise and a depth of knowledge (e.g., from actually using a product or visiting a place)?
- Does your site have a primary purpose or focus?
- After reading your content, will someone feel they've learned enough to achieve their goal?
- Will someone reading your content leave feeling like they've had a satisfying experience?
4. Warning Signs: "Search-First" Content
If you find yourself answering "YES" to these, it's a major warning sign that you should re-evaluate your content strategy.
- Is the content's primary purpose to attract visits from search engines?
- Are you producing lots of content on different topics hoping some will perform well?
- Are you using extensive automation (AI) to produce content on many topics?
- Are you just summarizing what others say without adding much value?
- Are you writing about trending topics just to get traffic, not for your core audience?
- Does your content make readers feel they need to search again for better information?
- Are you writing to a specific word count because you heard there's a recommended length? (There isn't.)
- Did you enter a niche topic with no real expertise, just because you thought you'd get search traffic?
- Does your content promise an answer it doesn't have (e.g., a release date that isn't confirmed)?
- Are you changing page dates to make them seem "fresh" when the content hasn't substantially changed?
5. Understanding E-E-A-T (and YMYL)
Ranking systems look for content that demonstrates E-E-A-T:
- Experience (First-hand)
- Expertise (Knowledge)
- Authoritativeness (Reputation)
- Trustworthiness (Accuracy, Honesty, Safety)
Trust is the most important part. The other E-A-T factors help build Trust.
While not a direct ranking factor itself, E-E-A-T is a concept that aligns with the signals search engines do use. It's especially critical for "Your Money or Your Life" (YMYL) topics—those that could impact someone's health, finances, or safety.
6. The "Who, How, and Why" Framework
This is a practical framework for assessing your content's trustworthiness.
-
WHO (Created it?):
- Is it obvious to visitors who authored your content?
- Do you use bylines that link to author pages with more background?
- Clearly showing who created the content builds trust.
-
HOW (Was it created?):
- It's helpful for readers to know how a piece of content was produced.
- Example: For a product review, did you test the product? How many? What were the test results? Show photos/evidence of your work.
- If you use AI or automation, is it disclosed? Are you explaining why it was useful to use AI?
-
WHY (Was it created?):
- This is the most important question.
- The Right Answer: You created it to help people who visit your site directly.
- The Wrong Answer: You created it primarily to attract search engine visits. Using AI to create content for the primary purpose of manipulating rankings is a violation of spam policies.
Read the Full Sources
This post is a summary of official guidance. To see these principles applied in a real-world scenario, read our case study.