On August 18th, Google Search announced a new update to its search algorithm called the ‘helpful content update’. This is another step in Google’s effort to provide users with access to websites with original, helpful, and handwritten content in search results pages. Let’s take a look at the updates and what content creators need to know.
Focus on people-first content
This update will focus on rewarding websites with content that users find impressive, while also trying to eliminate results for websites that don’t impress users. Content that will be included in this update must be content that is created to meet the needs of “searchers”, not “search engines.” Content creators must focus on creating content that will impress and benefit those who search, while also using SEO principles to allow bots to access this content faster. Want to know if your content meets the criteria of being “people-first content”? Try checking the following points:
- Do you think there are viewers who would benefit from your content?
- Do you think your content clearly demonstrates first-hand expertise and in-depth knowledge (e.g., expertise gained through actual use of the product or service or visits to locations)?
- Does your website have a clear purpose and focus?
- Do you think users will be sufficiently informed after watching your content?
- Do you think people who watch your content will be impressed?
Avoid creating search engine-first content
Creating people-first content doesn’t mean not adopting SEO best practices – at the end of the day, creating content that’s SEO-friendly is still beneficial, but creating content that’s too SEO-focused can often clash with user preferences, so we recommend that you make changes to these areas to accommodate incoming updates.
- Creating irrelevant content in the hopes of getting your website on SERPs
- The use of computer-aided automation tools enables the production of large amounts of content.
- Summarizing other content by adding more valuable content.
- Writing content in a specific number of words because you heard a rumor that writing this number is good for SEO (which Google has denied as being true, as they never specify the ideal number of words for content creation).
How are the updates?
As for the update to Google’s helpful content algorithm, it was officially and fully announced on August 27th, and will be applied to English-speaking websites worldwide first, before being rolled out to other languages. Google also recommends that if you have a website that you consider to be unhelpful content, you should remove it to help improve your ranking. Although it doesn’t specify how it will identify this content, it does say that the assessment will be done programmatically, which is one of Google’s many signals for assessing content rankings, and it does not use people or spam.
We hope this information will be useful for content creators who want to get their content on the first pages of Google. If you are one of those who are interested in online marketing, contact TBS Marketing.
Data source: https://developers.google.com/search/blog/2022/08/helpful-content-update
