Google is releasing the helpful content update, which could be a big update for people who make content and for SEO in general. This rollout will start with English, but it will spread to other languages over time. This article will highlight what Google have said about the change and how businesses can get ready for it.
What is the Helpful Content Update?
Helpful content is not a new idea. Google has always stressed that content should be written for humans, not machines. However, they are now rolling out a new update that aims to ensure helpful content more weight in SERPs (Search Engine Ranking Positions).
Google have said that the update will “ensure people see more original, helpful content written by people, for people, in search results.” Google’s own article says that more attention will be paid to content that is written toward humans. This means that people who make content should write for people, not for SEO or machine algorithms. Google have said they will reward websites if a visitor has a good experience, and content that didn’t meet a visitor’s expectations would get a bad rating.
How Does Google Decide What’s Helpful?
Google uses a number of different signals to rank pages right now. In this update, Google will use signals that can automatically find content that “seems to have little value, low-added value or is otherwise not particularly helpful to those doing searches.”
So how does Google figure out what information is useful?
Is the content written for real people?
This is exactly what it says. Who are you writing for?
Does it show that you know and understand a lot?
This experience could come from actually using a product or service or from knowing a lot about a certain topic.
Is it reliable?
Reliability was a buzzword in SEO that was often used to rank a page. This update adds that the content needs to be reliable to the person reading it.
Google says “Any content — not just unhelpful content — on sites determined to have relatively high amounts of unhelpful content overall is less likely to perform well in Search, assuming there is other content elsewhere from the web that’s better to display. For this reason, removing unhelpful content could help the rankings of your other content.”
How Can You Make Helpful Content?
Google have given us a list of things you can do to ensure sure your content is useful. Here are just a few:
- Google have said that they don’t have a preferred number of words. So get rid of the word count!
- Answer the question. If you are writing a blog about something specific, you need to make sure that your article covers the topic (and if the title is a question, answer it).
- Don’t write about a subject just to write about it. If it seems like everyone else is writing about a certain subject, don’t. Write about what you know and what you’re good at.
- Write about what you do best. What’s your niche? What do you know about from your own experience? For example, as a Chesterfield web design agency, we know about designing and building websites and a number of digital channels. Therefore we write about a wide range of related topics, such as Website Optimisation, SEO, PPC, and social media marketing.
What Can You Do?
Even though Google has explained the rollout and given tips on how to do it best, we won’t know for sure how it will affect your search engine rankings until the rollout is done which should be within the next two weeks. For now, we suggest that you follow the above guidelines to ensure sure that your website has content that is interesting and focused on people.