This article will explain what the helpful content update is and how it will affect your SEO efforts. Keep reading to learn more!
Have you heard about the algorithms on the internet recently? Google has released a new update that is shaking up the SEO world. The helpful content update, as it is called, is designed to reward websites that produce high-quality content. This update has caused a lot of confusion and speculation in the SEO community, so I decided to put together this piece to help break it down.
This article will explain what the helpful content update is and how it will affect your SEO efforts. Read on to learn more!
What is Google’s Helpful Content Update?
Google’s Helpful Content Update is a new algorithm update designed to reward websites that produce high-quality content written for people. But what do they mean by “primarily for search traffic?”
In the past, many companies wrote articles to rank high on SERPs. While this may be great for website traffic, are they really driving traffic of people who intend to buy? Content written strictly with SEO and keywords in mind often lacks a human touch. It is more focused on how many times a word someone is searching for will be used in their piece rather than the value it provides to its readers.
When content is written for people, value is the priority. The article focuses on providing the information the reader is searching for and making it easy for them to digest. While keywords may be included naturally, the content is much more focused on the human components rather than SERP rankings.
To be considered high-quality, content must be informative, well-written, and provide value to the reader. This update responds to the growing trend of low-quality content being published online. How many times have you searched for something online, only to click on a result and be immediately disappointed? It happens all the time, and Google is trying to fix it.
With this update, they are essentially saying, “If you want to rank high in our search results, you need to produce helpful content.”
How to Get High SERP Rankings for SEO with the New Update
To get high SERP rankings with the new update, you need to focus on creating helpful content. It sounds simple on paper, but it requires a plan to execute correctly. Here are a few tips to help you get started.
Before you start writing, it’s important to know who your audience is. Who are you writing for? What are their needs and wants? What kind of problems do they need help solving? Your content should be designed to help your target audience in some way. If not, it will not be considered helpful by Google, and you will not see any benefits in your SERP rankings.
So using keywords is one thing, but relevant adjacent content and the intended audience for your content are all factors. So how do you know who your intended audience is? If you already have a website or blog, take a look at your Google Analytics data. This will give you insight into who is currently reading your content and what sorts of things they are interested in.
Look at their demographics like age, location, and language. You can also see their behavior, such as whether they are new or returning visitors and whether they are mobile or desktop users. Each of these details can help you better understand who your intended audience is.
If you do not have a website or blog yet, you will need to do some research to understand who your target audience is. Try searching for similar businesses or products online and see who they are targeting. This will give you a good starting point.
2. Will your audience members feel satisfied after consuming your content?
One of the best ways to gauge if your content is helpful or not is to ask yourself this question: will my audience members feel satisfied after reading this? If the answer is yes, then you are on the right track. If the answer is no, then you need to make some changes. Keep in mind that being satisfied does not necessarily mean that your readers will be happy with every single piece of content you create. It is impossible to please everyone all the time. However, as long as most members of your audience feel satisfied after reading your content, then you are doing something right.
For example, if you run a cooking blog, a helpful article might teach your readers how to cook a new dish. They might not be perfectly satisfied with the recipe, but if it is helpful and they learn something new, they will likely feel satisfied overall.
On the other hand, an unhelpful article would be one that teaches your readers nothing new. It might be poorly written, or it might regurgitate information they already know. Either way, an unhelpful article will not satisfy your readers and will certainly not satisfy Google’s helpful content update algorithm.
When it comes to creating helpful content, it’s important to have first-hand expertise. In other words, don’t just regurgitate information that you’ve read elsewhere. Instead, share your own experiences and insights. Your readers will be able to tell if you are an expert on the topic or not, so it’s important to be honest. If you are not an expert, that’s okay! You can still produce helpful content by doing your own research and sharing what you’ve learned. Not everyone will be an expert on the subject, but that doesn’t mean you cannot provide valuable information.
However, if you claim to be an expert when you are not, your readers will likely see through it, and you will not be considered helpful by Google.
Every website or blog should have a primary goal or purpose. For example, a cooking blog might have the main goal of helping people learn how to cook. A travel blog might have the main goal of helping people plan their dream vacations.
Having a clear primary purpose will help you create truly helpful content for your target audience. If your website or blog does not have a primary purpose, take some time to figure out what it should be. Once you have a clear purpose, you can start creating content that aligns with that purpose and will be considered helpful by Google. This task fits in perfectly with finding your ideal audience.
If you want to create helpful content, it’s important to stay up-to-date on Google’s updates and guidelines for product reviews. In the e-commerce industry, product reviews are the primary driver of shopper behavior and can be found on multiple pages of your website.
This includes understanding Google’s policies on affiliate links, endorsements, and sponsored content. By understanding these policies, you can ensure that your content is in line with what Google is looking for. Additionally, you can avoid any penalties that may be imposed if your content does not meet Google’s standards. For example, let’s say you run a cooking blog. You decide to write a helpful article about the best cookware for beginners. In your article, you recommend three different cookware sets and include affiliate links to each of them. However, what you didn’t realize is that Google only allows affiliate links in product reviews if certain conditions are met. This includes:
- Your website should provide valuable and unique content separate from the links.
- You should be transparent about disclosing affiliate links for users and search engines. It is important to also check local regulations surrounding affiliate links.
- For search engines, site owners must use rel=”nofollow” or rel=”sponsored” link attributes to declare an affiliate link.
If you are unaware of these conditions, your article could be penalized. However, if you are aware of Google’s guidelines, you can avoid this potential penalty by ensuring your article meets all requirements. To avoid this type of situation, make sure you are aware of Google’s latest updates and guidelines. This way, you can create content that meets their standards and is truly helpful for your readers.
I want to share a survey that was published shortly after the update was released in early September. Initially, the impression was that the “worst offenders” were the sites most impacted by the update. However, given a little more time, we are seeing many credible sites that have experienced significant changes. Here is some data:
- Moz recorded an 11.1% month-over-month drop in August for total keywords
- Search Engine Journal recorded an 11.97% month-over-month drop in August for total keywords
- HubSpot’s blog recorded an 8.55% month-over-month drop in August for total keywords
- Backlinko recorded an 8.72% month-over-month drop in August for total keywords
You know some blogs are publishing regular streams of helpful content. So what went wrong here? It relates to old content.
If you published a blog about marketing trends 2 years ago, it may not hold the same value for the reader today. Google’s helpful content update may deem these older content examples “unhelpful.” All of a sudden, that legacy content bank is a negative rather than a positive.
My team got the message loud and clear and realized we need to work hard and fast to update old content and make it helpful again. In some cases, this means turning off or redirecting content similar to newer, more effective content.
Note that you don’t have to be in digital marketing to have this issue. Any industry that moves quickly, like fashion, technology, or medicine, runs the risk of content going from helpful to unhelpful just like that.
You also don’t want to wait too long to do this, as it takes time to recover from those penalties. Google explains “sites identified by this update might find the signal applied to them for a period of months. Our classifier for this update runs continuously, allowing it to monitor newly launched sites and existing sites. As it determines that unhelpful content is no longer around for the long term, the classification will no longer apply.
Does the Content Update Improve SEO?
Yes, updating your content can improve your SEO. Google favors websites with fresh, relevant, and engaging content. By regularly updating your content, you signal to Google that your website is active and deserves a ranking. Updates can include refreshing and removing broken links, removing any mention of a previous date or year, and updating old images.
How often should I update my content?
There is no hard and fast rule for how often you should update your content. The most important thing to remember is that updating keeps your content fresh and relevant. A good rule of thumb is to revisit pieces at least once a year. If you have an article about trends for a specific year, set a reminder to go back to that piece and update it for the following year.
Ultimately, the best thing you can do is look at your website traffic to see which posts are being read and unread. You created all this content, don’t let it go to waste. Updating it will give signals to Google that it is helpful and will help you with your rankings.
How can I make my content more helpful?
One of the best ways to satisfy Google’s helpful content update is to focus on creating evergreen content. Evergreen content is the type of content that is always relevant and helpful, regardless of when it was published.
Some examples of evergreen topics include:
- How-to guides
- Listicles
- Tips and tricks
- Product reviews
By creating evergreen content, you can ensure that your content is always relevant and helpful to your audience. Additionally, you can regularly update your evergreen content to keep it fresh and up-to-date. This will show Google that your content is always relevant, which will help to improve your SEO.
Does Google like new content?
Yes, Google likes new content. In fact, one of the best ways to improve your SEO is to regularly publish fresh, relevant, and engaging content.
New content signals to Google that your website is active and deserves a ranking. Additionally, it gives you the opportunity to rank for new keywords and phrases. Just be sure that you are not duplicating content on your site. If you find that you are, use this article for help in removing duplicate content from your site.
Conclusion
Google’s helpful content update is a significant change that will impact your SEO efforts. By understanding what Google is looking for in terms of helpful content, you can ensure your content meets their standards and avoid potential penalties. The era of writing to please an algorithm is over, you need to write for people.
Google’s helpful content update should highlight that regardless of what industry you are in, your content should always be helpful first and foremost to your audience.
Source Neil Patel
Pubblicato in Digital Marketing, SEO
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