Google’s Helpful Content Update is about helping people and providing people-first content.
What is that, you ask?
Well, people-first content is the one written by people to genuinely help others and answer their queries not just ranking on Google’s SERPs. The update’s key focus areas are helpful, informative, and well-researched content. The new update is a search engine algorithm change for delivering more value to users in the form of informative and helpful content that satisfies their queries.
When did the update begin?
The algorithm update was first launched on August 25th, 2022. It targeted websites having huge amounts of unhelpful and unproductive content.
Continue reading to know more about the update as we cover the main takeaways of the content:
5 Things to Know About Google Helpful Content Update 2022
Here is what you should know about the latest Google update:
Stick to Your Niche
It’s important that you stick to your main topic even though it would be tempting to cover an array of topics and write about anything you like so you can grab the top position in the SERPs. However, you would want to avoid this as the Google helpful content update focuses on content that is not helping users.
It is quite simple.
Creating content not related to your industry or niche would not help you get views.
Why?
You don’t have a grip on the topic or have real expertise or knowledge about it.
Result? You won’t offer a valuable experience to readers. Moreover, your website visitors would be confused by coming across content on your website that is not related to products or services in any way. So, writing outside your niche results in unhelpful content that the new update aims to eliminate.
Provide Satisfactory and Sufficient Answers
Let’s understand what is helpful content?
According to Google, it educates people and informs them while helping them with a particular task.
So, when you are creating content for your audience, your aim should be to get them the answers they are looking for and find them the best solution for their problem that landed them on your website.
Think from your audience’s perspective. What are they looking for? What solutions do they seek while searching on Google?
When you ace that and understand your audience’s wants, you can create quality content that gets them all the relevant information they need.
An Excellent User Experience (UX)
Google urges you to ask yourself if your content would satisfy the readers. Would they leave your site happy and satisfied?
A positive UX is a must. You have to ensure that your content achieves that. Google requires that when users use Google’s search engine, they get the best possible experience.
It means that Google aims to provide users with such websites that cater to their queries and offer great UX as well. Did you know that UX is one of the most important search engine ranking factors? Even more so after the release of its helpful content algorithm update.
You would miss out on significant potential leads if users have a negative experience on your website. How to ensure your content delivers a satisfying and positive experience to your visitors?
- To-the-point answers. No fluff.
- Using bullets and lists to make your content easy to skim.
- Use the table of content to help with page navigation.
- Use visual elements such as images and videos to demonstrate your point.
Writing about First-hand experience
The aim should be to create high-quality content that offers value.
How to do that?
Writing about topics you have had first-hand expertise and experience in is the key. No one can know about your skills, potential, or product/service more than you. If you try your hand at writing about topics you have no knowledge or experience in, you will create poor quality and unhelpful content.
You must highlight your first-hand expertise and experience in your content so readers get valuable answers to their queries.
Don’t Write Content for Search Engines Only
Now, this doesn’t mean that you stop following best practices for SEO while creating content.
Google’s helpful content algorithm update urges that you avoid writing particularly for search engines instead of real people. If you wish to make it to the top of SERPs, avoid excessive keyword stuffing or using other tricks or AI technology to write content.
People seek information and answers from content. That’s why they read it. Poor content that doesn’t make any sense or is bombarded with keywords is annoying to readers. Google wants to remove all such unhelpful content from websites.
Always keep your target audience in mind while creating content. Write content that covers areas your audience is interested in or cares about and get them valuable information. See that your content is SEO-friendly without going over the top.
Looking for Professional Help to Rank on Top?
Creating top-ranking and SEO-friendly content is no easy feat. It requires the expertise and skills of a professional that constantly learns and adapts to Google’s changing SEO ranking factors and changes in the algorithm.
SEO specialists at CodeTeck do exactly that and more. We have the experience to craft quality SEO-friendly content and implement SEO techniques to take your business to the top results, generate leads, and increase revenue.