Chapter 9 — Exercises

Work these in order; they climb from recall to real on-page rewriting. You will need a live web browser and, ideally, a page you can inspect and edit (your own, your employer's, or a client's). Every tool used here is free. Items marked with a dagger (†) have full worked solutions in Appendix — Answers to Selected Exercises; odd-numbered items are worked there too. Attempt every item before you look.

The spirit of the chapter: writing for search is mostly writing well, plus a few high-leverage packaging decisions. Every exercise should come back to one question — does this serve the searcher's intent, and make it legible to Google?

A. Recall and vocabulary

Exercise 9.1 — Define the title tag and the meta description in your own words. State plainly which one is a ranking factor and which one is not, and what each one is actually for.

Exercise 9.2 — What is the difference between the H1 and the title tag? Say where each lives in the page's code and where each appears to a person.

Exercise 9.3 † — Define keyword density and keyword stuffing. For each, state how modern Google treats it — is it a positive signal, a neutral non-factor, or a negative signal?

Exercise 9.4 — Define comprehensiveness in one sentence, and contrast it with length. Which one is a ranking-relevant quality and which one is merely its frequent side effect?

Exercise 9.5 — What does above the fold mean, and what belongs there on a page answering a question? Where does the term come from?

Exercise 9.6 — Explain the inverted pyramid. What does "leading with the answer" mean for a web page, and what is the opposite (bad) structure called in everyday terms?

B. Applied reasoning

Exercise 9.7 † — Explain, to a skeptical business owner, why the title tag is the "highest-leverage" on-page element. Your answer must name both jobs the title does at once.

Exercise 9.8 — Google is showing a rewritten headline for one of your pages instead of the <title> you wrote. List three plausible reasons Google may have overridden it, and the single change most likely to make Google keep your title next time.

Exercise 9.9 † — A marketer keyword-stuffs a page's meta description "to help it rank." Explain why this is wrong on two separate counts — one about ranking, one about the description's actual job.

Exercise 9.10 — Rewrite this sentence so it is honest by the book's standards, and explain the fix using the word symptom: "Correlation studies prove that longer content ranks better, so make every page longer."

Exercise 9.11 — Give the two-part reason keyword stuffing fails under modern search: one part about how Google understands language (Chapters 2, 4), and one part about the retrieval math (Chapter 4).

Exercise 9.12 — A content brief says: "Our data proves 1,890 words is the ideal length for a blog post." Rewrite the instruction so it targets the right thing instead.

C. Diagnose the on-page problem

For each, name the on-page element(s) most likely at fault and the first thing you would check or change.

Exercise 9.13 † — A service page ranks around #8 for its target query, earns thousands of impressions a month, and gets almost no clicks. Which on-page elements do you inspect first, and why is this not a "write more content" problem?

Exercise 9.14 — A thorough 2,500-word guide that genuinely answers a query still sits below a 500-word competitor. Give two on-page reasons, rooted in this chapter, that could explain it (assume links and speed are equal).

Exercise 9.15 † — On a page targeting "how long does water heater replacement take," the actual answer first appears in the ninth paragraph, after a company history. Name the principle violated and the fix.

Exercise 9.16 — A page uses six H1s, jumps from an H2 straight to an H4, and creates several "headings" by bolding a line of body text. Explain precisely what breaks, and for whom (name at least two audiences).

D. Optimize this title / meta / page (rewrite)

Exercise 9.17 † — Rewrite this title tag to match intent for the query "why is my water heater leaking": Services – Plumbing, Heating, Cooling & More | Best Home Co. Serving You Since 1984. Keep it truthful and under a sensible display width; explain your two main changes.

Exercise 9.18 — Write a meta description of roughly 150–160 characters for a page targeting "tank vs. tankless water heater." It must read as ad copy that earns a click, must match the query's intent, and must not be a keyword dump.

Exercise 9.19 — You are given this jumbled set of on-page points for a page targeting "water heater replacement cost": permit fees; labor cost; the answer (typical total range); tank unit price; tankless unit price; cost by fuel type; when replacement beats repair. Arrange them into a logical H1/H2/H3 heading hierarchy that also answers early.

Exercise 9.20 — Here is a padded opening: "Water heaters are among the most essential appliances in any modern household. Ever since indoor plumbing transformed daily life, reliable hot water has been something we all take for granted — until it's gone. In this comprehensive guide, we'll walk through everything you could possibly want to know about the fascinating world of water heater replacement." Rewrite the first ~40 words so the page answers early.

E. Research and read the report

Exercise 9.21 † — You are about to make a page genuinely comprehensive. List four free places you would look to find the follow-up questions a searcher will have — and name the one source that is free, underused, and unavailable to your competitors.

Exercise 9.22 — Interpret this report excerpt and assign each page a different first move.

FIGURE 9.E1 — "Two pages, two very different problems"        [constructed teaching example]
  PAGE A   Query "replace water heater"   Impressions: 9,400/mo   Avg position: 8.6   CTR: 0.4%
  PAGE B   Query "water heater sizing"    Impressions:   120/mo   Avg position: 34    CTR: 1.1%

For each page, is the first move an on-page title/meta rewrite or a ranking/content problem? Justify using the chapter.

Exercise 9.23 — Given this "People Also Ask" set for "replace water heater" — How much does it cost to replace a water heater? · How long does a water heater last? · Can I replace a water heater myself? · Tank or tankless — which is better? — turn each into an H2 for a comprehensive page, phrased as a searcher would.

F. Spot the myth, ethics, and judgment

Exercise 9.24 † — Spot the myths. A popular post advises: "For maximum SEO, repeat your exact target keyword in the first sentence, in every single heading, and three times in the meta description; and never publish under 1,500 words." Identify each distinct myth in that advice and replace it with what is true.

Exercise 9.25 — Ethics / risk. A client asks you to add 800 words of keyword-rich text in a color that matches the background — "invisible to visitors, but the crawler will still read it." Explain what this technique is, why it violates Google's guidelines, and what you tell the client instead.

Exercise 9.26 — Spot the myth. "Set your content to a sixth-grade reading level because Google ranks pages by their Flesch readability score." Identify the myth, state what is true about readability, and how you'd actually use a readability score.

G. The Strategy File (Rivertown Home Services)

Exercise 9.27 † — Rewrite the title tag and write a meta description for Rivertown's water-heater page (the page stuck at #11), given the intent Chapter 3 diagnosed for "replace water heater" (a decision: cost, signs, tank vs. tankless, DIY vs. pro). Keep the brand where it belongs and avoid stuffing.

Exercise 9.28 — Draft the H2 outline for Rivertown's rebuilt water-heater page — the five follow-up questions that make it comprehensive — and decide where the "book a Rivertown technician" service section goes in the order, and why.

Exercise 9.29 † — Rivertown's owner, Tony Delgado, says: "Our competitor's page is longer, so let's just add a thousand words to ours to beat it." Reframe this for him using comprehensiveness, and tell him what to add instead of raw words.

Exercise 9.30 — Do the chapter's Strategy-File task on your own (or a client's) site. In Search Console, find one page with high impressions and low click-through rate. Rewrite its title to lead with intent, write a real meta description, restructure its headings into the questions your audience asks, and move the answer above the fold. Produce a clean before/after of all four, and note the date so you can measure the change in Chapter 27.

Where these go next. Keep your answers to 9.27–9.30 — they extend the running Strategy File (Appendix C's on-page worksheet) that began in Chapter 1 and gets its architecture layer in Chapter 15, and assembles fully in Chapter 40. The before/after you write today is exactly the artifact a professional shows a client to prove that an hour of writing moved the needle.