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Post Published on August 30, 2022
Last Updated on by Sharat Nair
Big news for content creators and search engine optimization! Google has launched a new algorithm update – Helpful Content Update. Google wants you to be more liable in terms of creating quality content that satisfies human needs and adjusting SEO strategies for long-term success.
Objective:
Google ensures that people should see more authentic and helpful content in search results. The new algorithm aims to better reward content that provides a satisfying user experience and at the same time minimize the visibility of those content in the search engine results pages which are written only to rank well in search engines and attract clicks.
Google will use this algorithm to evaluate and rank content for a website. A high amount of unhelpful content will get flagged with a classifier and that will impact the entire site’s visibility on the search engine ranking pages.
The affected sites will have to produce authentic and helpful content to regain search engine visibility.
These websites will have to follow the best practices for publishing people-first content and prove the same to the ranking algorithm.
Google aims to constantly refine its system to ensure that the web pages and their ranking in the search engine are relevant to the users
The 10 important questions:
How do you ensure that the content you’re creating is aligning with the new ‘helpful content update’? If you have valid answers to the following 10 questions, be rest assured that your content is for the people and not for search engines.
- Do you have a set target or intended audience who can find your content helpful when they visit directly to your website?
- Does your content demonstrate well-done research and depth of knowledge?
- Does your content make readers feel that they do not have to search again to get better information from other sources?
- Are you adhering to the particular word count the content needs?
- Does your website have a primary goal and focus?
- Does your content give the reader a satisfying experience?
- Do you consider the guidance for core updates and product reviews?
- Does your content add value?
- Are you using extensive automation to produce content on any topic?
- Are you combining multiple topics into one site?
The best practices for the creators:
Focus on people-first content and not on search engine ranking:
Content meant to satisfy user experience and meet their expectations performs well on search engine ranking pages. Consequently, sites producing helpful content are less likely to get penalized by Google.
Also, content created solely to rank well in the search engine is often marked as unhelpful and unsatisfying by the readers. This means you have to consider reevaluating your content creation. Identify the content created only to rank high in the search engine, add a no-index tag to the HTML code, or edit the content to make it more genuine and relevant.
Focus on the main topic:
Stick to your area of expertise – that’s what Google is trying to say! Do not try to enter some niche topic without extensive knowledge and real expertise. Also, it is important not to write content without a purpose, simply because it is trending. Your content should be useful and relevant to your existing audiences.
Demonstrate first-hand experience:
Google advises people not to write about a product and service that they haven’t used first-hand. These types of content are usually accompanied by affiliate links that help the author earn a commission. So practice writing about things that you’ve personally experienced. Truly demonstrate your expertise, authoritativeness and trust (E-A-T) in your content.
Get a purpose:
Clarify the purpose of each web page. Your purpose should be to build your site around one subject area. If you want to create content about different topics then you’ve to build different websites to publish them. Do not combine multiple topics into one particular site.
Create content that adds value:
Your content must leave the readers feeling that they’ve learned enough about the topic to accomplish their goal and do not need any other source to acquire information. The content should be able to help answer questions or resolve a concern that led the visitors to find your website in the first place.
A reader search for something, click the first result and annoyingly it doesn’t even remotely answer his question, so he goes back to the search results and clicks another page to search for his answer. This experience called ‘pogoing’ is something that Google wants to avoid long back.
Enhance reader experience:
Make the people realize their overall experience after reading a piece of content. Besides, textual content, visual demonstration of a product and service always enhance the reading experience. In short, satisfy the searcher’s wants and needs and don’t leave them without answering their queries.
Create content based on facts:
Don’t answer a question that has no confirmed answer. Don’t write about something inconclusive. Your content should be based on actual facts, figures and real statistics to establish trust with the readers.
Stop being a copy-cat:
Create your own unique style of writing. Add more subsections, statistical data, charts, images, videos, and expert quotations that are useful for the readers. Look out for the information gap that your competitors are missing and fill them in with your expertise on the topic.
Stay updated:
It is extremely important to follow Google’s advice for core updates and product review pages to make your content well positioned in the search engine results and also benefit from the helpful content update.
Which industries are impacted the most by the new Google algorithm?
It has been observed that the following categories of industries are seeing major improvement in the search engine ranking pages for surfing high-quality and people-oriented content.
The outcome of the algorithm update:
- Availability of unique and authentic information in search results
- Fewer visibilities of low-quality websites in the top SERP position
- Less number of AI-generated content not meant for humans to read
- A large SERP fluctuation across all website industries
- Lesser influence of backlinks for SEO, when the content is not useful enough
- More content creators focusing on the people-first approach to create content.
Wrapping up!
The new algorithm is somewhat similar to Google Panda Update. However, the new update has a new set of algorithms that work in addition to Panda and focus primarily on high-quality content.
