What does Google’s Helpful Content update mean for content writers and marketers?
Identify your website’s primary purpose. Generate content in line with that purpose.
Demonstrate your website’s expertise and authority
Write in-depth blog posts and articles that answer a visitor’s query.
Your visitor should leave with a satisfactory answer and a satisfying experience
According to StatCounter Global Stats, Google accounts for 95% of the global market for mobile search. Now you know why, as a website owner or manager, you must pay attention to the recent update to Google Search.
All of us have been directed to a website that is ranked higher on the search results page but does nothing to answer the search query. With the Helpful Content update, Google wants creators to create helpful, satisfying content while following SEO best practices. In Google’s own words, they want people to see more original, helpful content written by people, for people, in search results.
While Google is known to constantly refine and update its search systems, the Helpful Content update rolled out in September 2022 has shaken things up. At first glance, it means that if your website does not provide value, it might slip lower in the search results rankings.
Google says, “this ranking update will help make sure that unoriginal, low-quality content doesn’t rank highly in Search, and our testing has found it will especially improve results related to online education, as well as arts and entertainment, shopping and tech-related content.”
What Google wants you to do?
Focus on people-first content
The update will reward valuable, helpful content where the site visitors get a satisfying experience and a relevant answer to their search query. This means that while the content has to be according to SEO best practices, it has to bring “value” to site visitors.
Google suggests that you answer these questions to determine if you are following the ‘people-first content’ approach:
Do you have an existing or intended audience for your business or site that would find the content useful if it came directly to you?
Does your content clearly demonstrate first-hand expertise and a depth of knowledge (for example, expertise that comes from having actually used a product or service, or visiting a place)?
Does your site have a primary purpose or focus?
After reading your content, will someone leave feeling they've learned enough about a topic to help achieve their goal?
Will someone reading your content leave feeling like they've had a satisfying experience?
Are you keeping in mind our guidance for core updates and for product reviews?
2. Do not focus on search engines-first content
According to Google, content that is created with a search engines-first approach is strongly correlated with content that is unsatisfying to searchers. It means that more searchers will find the content of little to no value if it has been created with the sole aim of ranking higher in search results. If this is the case now, after the update, your site will rank lower because of its lower-value content.
To determine if you are taking a search engines-first approach currently, answer the following questions posed by Google. If you answer one or some of these as a “yes”, you must work on moving to a people-first approach:
Is the content primarily to attract people from search engines, rather than made for humans?
Are you producing lots of content on different topics in hopes that some of it might perform well in search results?
Are you using extensive automation to produce content on many topics?
Are you mainly summarizing what others have to say without adding much value?
Are you writing about things simply because they seem to trend and not because you'd write about them otherwise for your existing audience?
Does your content leave readers feeling like they need to search again to get better information from other sources?
Are you writing to a particular word count because you've heard or read that Google has a preferred word count? (No, we don't).
Did you decide to enter some niche topic area without any real expertise, but instead mainly because you thought you'd get search traffic?
Does your content promise to answer a question that actually has no answer, such as suggesting there's a release date for a product, movie, or TV show when one isn't confirmed?
You can remove content that is not helpful on your website to help preserve/increase the ranking of your other pages.
How can you demonstrate value to Google?
And rank higher in SERPs
1. Identify your website’s primary purpose. Generate content in line with that purpose.
What is your website all about? Who is your audience and what do they search for? Once you have answered these questions, create high-quality content for your audience.
Remember, according to Google, user-friendly content is SEO-friendly content. If your audience finds your content satisfactory to their search query, better rankings will follow.
The key is to stay focused. When Google crawls through your website, it should be able to identify the “focus” of your content. This will help your audience find you. If you lose focus and try to include a lot of unrelated and unhelpful content, Google will find it harder to categorise your website. This may cost you the opportunity to be presented as an expert at a higher ranking placement.
2. Demonstrate your website’s expertise and authority
Build your expertise and authority on a given niche. Be strategic about the content that you create and publish. Aim for credibility and trust. People must see you as a trustworthy source of information to make them keep coming back to your website.
A good content marketer can help you set up systems in place to maintain focus and generate expertise-based content.
3. Write in-depth blog posts and articles that answer a visitor’s query.
Your goal is “stickiness” to the website. When a searcher lands on your page, ensure that they stay on your website by giving them all resources to resolve their query.
Place yourself in the shoes of the searcher. Support your answers with statistics, evidence, research reports, experience and testimonials etc. The searcher should not feel the need to find another source from Google’s search results.
Cover all possible angles in your blog post. If you already have multiple existing blog posts on a given topic, create a “pillar page”. A pillar page is like an index of sub-topics for the main topic. Link all the related blog posts to this pillar page so that the searcher stays within your website even if they leave a specific web page.
4. Your visitor should leave with a satisfactory answer and a satisfying experience
What is a satisfying search experience for a user? It is one where the user gets a satisfactory result for their query. They do not go back to Google’s search results page to look for another resource for the same query because your website did not address it. They should find answers to their query in a simple, easy-to-understand manner. To serve them your webpage, Google should be able to find your content to be valuable and helpful. Hence, you must still utilize SEO principles along with keeping a human-first approach.
A good website will always follow a human-first approach. With Google’s update, this will now become the norm.