Your briefs have a minimum word count. Kill it.

Your briefs have a minimum word count. Kill it.
Min word counts are why your team pads. Gave a writer '2,000+ words' on a question that needed 600. He inflated it with definitions nobody searched for. Page read like a sponge and ranked like one.

Switched briefs to a section list instead of a number:
— Brief = the exact questions to answer, in order of search intent
— Length is whatever fully answers those, no more
— I'd rather ship 700 tight words than 2,000 soggy ones

Length is an output, never a target. Cut the floor.