Six-Checkpoint Non-Commodity Content Framework
Turn generic information into content only your organization can create
- Difficulty
- Moderate
- Time to result
- ~weeks to results
- Steps
- 6
- Confidence
- 99%
Evaluate each piece of content through six checkpoints: proprietary evidence, firsthand experience, specificity, point of view, an LLM moat, and information gain. Proprietary evidence supplies facts, images, measurements, or records competitors lack. Firsthand experience establishes what the author personally did or observed. Specificity replaces vague claims with names, dates, numbers, products, and places. Point of view converts neutral summaries into defensible recommendations or rules. The LLM-moat test asks whether a general model could have produced the piece without private input. Information gain compares the draft with leading search results and requires genuinely new facts. A piece becomes non-commodity content when these mechanisms work together, making it more useful to humans and more distinguishable to search and answer engines.
Origin
Extracted from Marketing Against The Grain, adapting Google and SEO-industry guidance on commodity versus non-commodity content into six practical checkpoints.
Core principles
- 01Create content that only you could credibly produce
- 02Ground claims in proprietary evidence and firsthand experience
- 03Replace generalities with names, measurements, dates, and places
- 04Take a defensible position rather than presenting every option equally
- 05Contribute information absent from existing search results
- 06Use AI to shape unique evidence, not replace it with generic prose
How to run it
- 1
Collect Proprietary Evidence
Include evidence uniquely available to you, such as customer records, original photographs, measurements, experiments, or internal market data. Make the evidence concrete enough that another publisher could not reproduce it from public sources alone.
Pro tip Start with cases already documented in sales, support, installation, or service records.
Watch out Do not invent proprietary-looking statistics or synthetic customer stories.
- 2
Establish Firsthand Experience
Describe what you personally did, saw, tested, built, or observed. Show the relevant action and its consequences instead of repeating what unnamed experts recommend.
Pro tip Use photographs, video, field notes, or process records to substantiate the experience.
Watch out Secondhand summaries do not become firsthand merely because they are rewritten in the first person.
- 3
Increase Specificity
Replace generic adjectives and categories with exact names, numbers, dates, measurements, products, and locations. Preserve details that help readers understand the actual conditions of the example.
Pro tip Audit every adjective and ask whether evidence can replace it.
Watch out Decorative detail without decision-relevant evidence creates length, not value.
- 4
Declare a Point of View
State what you believe, reject, recommend, or refuse to do. Convert balanced but inconclusive comparisons into a defensible rule grounded in your evidence and experience.
Pro tip Make the position strong enough that a reasonable expert could disagree with it.
Watch out Contrarian language without supporting evidence is provocation, not expertise.
- 5
Test the LLM Moat
Ask whether ChatGPT or Claude could produce the content from public training data without receiving anything unique from you. If it could, add private observations, tests, records, or analysis.
Pro tip Ask an LLM to identify which facts in the draft are absent from its general knowledge.
Watch out Polishing generic material with AI does not create a competitive information advantage.
- 6
Prove Information Gain
Search the draft's headline, read the top three results, and identify facts your piece contributes beyond them. Revise until readers learn something material that those results do not contain.
Pro tip Favor evidence that tests or contradicts widely repeated advice.
Watch out A new phrasing of existing facts is not new information.
In the wild
A running store examines a named customer's Brooks Ghost 15 shoes after 402 miles, measures a four-millimeter difference in heel compression, connects the pattern to the runner's strike, and publishes original photographs. The article combines proprietary evidence, firsthand inspection, specificity, and information unavailable to an unaided language model.
→ The store produces a credible article that competitors cannot reproduce from generic shoe-buying guidance.
A countertop specialist stains named stone samples with grape juice and turmeric, records the test date, publishes 24-hour photographs, and adopts a rule against installing marble for families with young children. The test replaces a generic material comparison with original evidence and a clear recommendation.
→ Readers receive a memorable decision rule supported by a reproducible real-world test.
A real-estate team reviews 41 buy-side offers from 2025 and compares acceptance rates for offers with and without personal letters. Its own results contradict conventional advice, producing a specific insight unavailable in generic bidding-war lists.
→ The article contributes new market evidence and challenges a commonly repeated tactic.
Common mistakes
Repackaging Public Facts
Summarizing widely available information leaves the piece interchangeable with competing pages and unaided AI output.
Using Vague Expertise Signals
Claims such as fast, popular, recent, or expert-recommended do not demonstrate expertise unless replaced with evidence and exact details.
Treating Every Option as Equal
Neutral comparison content avoids helping readers decide and conceals the author's hard-won judgment.
Is it for you?
Best for
It is best for marketers, experts, and businesses that possess customer experience, operational knowledge, original tests, or proprietary data.
Not ideal for
It is not ideal for publishers unwilling or unable to gather firsthand evidence, reveal a position, or contribute new information.
From the transcript
“And so here are the six checkpoints you can use to make sure that you're actually getting it right. Do you have proprietary evidence? Firsthand…”
“What really makes content non-commoditized is only you could have written it.”
“It's your particular take grounded in your first hand experience, expert takes, proprietary data, and an authentic voice.”
From the episode
How to Rank #1 on Google in 2026 (The 6-Step SEO Playbook)