If you produce online content, then you’ve probably heard a lot about the Helpful Content Update recently. What is the Helpful Content Update, exactly, and how might it affect your business? What kind of changes will you need to make in the future to ensure you’re producing helpful content in line with Google’s new guidelines?
In this guide to the Helpful Content Update, we’ll take a look at what the update is, when it rolled out, what kind of content has been impacted, and what kind of content is being prioritised. We’ll also dive deeper into tips and tricks for producing helpful content to future-proof your online business against this update.
What is the Helpful Content Update?
The Helpful Content Update is a change to Google’s algorithm that aims to prioritise and rank websites based on how helpful their content is. Google has always had a main focus on providing users with the best possible information in search results. With this update, they are taking things a step further by making websites that produce helpful content a priority.
The Helpful Content Update looks for content that adds value to the reader. Google is prioritising content that answers questions and provides solutions for real-world people, rather than content that has been produced for the main purpose of improving SEO.
When Did it Roll Out?
The Helpful Content Update has been rolled out in two phases. In September 2022, Google confirmed that the update had been finished rolling out. It took fifteen days, starting on August 25, 2022, and completing on September 9, 2022.
The next phase of the Helpful Content Update occurred in December 2022. It became more notable and visible on December 6, 22, and like other updates, took several weeks to roll out completely, despite initial plans for it to take two weeks. The December update improved the classifier and now works across all content globally, in all languages.
What Content Has Been Impacted?
Essentially, any content that is published online can be impacted by this update. However, certain types of content have seen a bigger impact than others. Blog posts and articles, in particular, have been impacted – particularly those written for the main purpose of improving SEO results, rather than to provide value and information to the reader.
Certain industries, such as healthcare and lifestyle industries, are more likely to produce this kind of content compared to others, which has led to some fields and niches being disproportionately affected.
If you have been hit by the Helpful Content Update, it can take several months for your site to recover if you make changes to your content over time and stick to the new guidelines. Some things you can do to recover from the Helpful Content Update if your site has been affected include:
● Focus on Your Audience
Google wants pages and content to be designed and created with audiences in mind, providing their users with a satisfying and positive experience when they click on a search result. Keep this in mind when updating your content, and focus on demonstrating expertise, authority, and knowledge.
● Start Early
If you have been affected by the Helpful Content Update, then it’s important to get to work as early as possible. The algorithm classifier may take several months to ensure that you have adapted to the update and are not going to fall back into old bad habits with unhelpful content.
● Don’t Hide Bad Pages
In the immediate aftermath of the Helpful Content Update being announced, there was a lot of chatter around ways to mitigate it. One such option included taking low-quality, unhelpful content and isolating it in a subfolder or on a subdomain, or no-indexing it. However, doing this is not helpful – if you plan to refurbish your content, the best option is to take it down and publish new versions.
● Be Cautious With AI-Generated Content
While there has been a huge push by AI writing companies recently to promote their tools, it’s important to be aware that publishing this content on your website is not always the best idea. While some AI tools can come up with decent enough content, it may not be enough to be classed as helpful content under the new updates without extensive human editing.
● Delete Recycled Content
There are a lot of sites out there that seem to only exist to cover topics that have already been covered extensively before. If you have any content that is just a slightly revised version of something that has been done before, there’s not much value in it and it’s probably best deleted as it’ll be hit sooner or later.
● Get Rid of Spun Content
Spun content has always been a problem in the SEO industry, and it’s just not worth doing or having on your website in 2023. Any low-quality or spun content should be removed immediately to improve your website and boost your chance of recovery.
What is Helpful Content?
Helpful content refers to any content that provides value to the reader. This kind of content solves problems, answers questions, and provides information or insights that the reader did not have before consuming the content. According to Google, content that is deemed helpful should provide the user with everything that they wanted to know when they made the search, without the need for them to go and search elsewhere after reading or consuming the content.
Helpful content is not just about creating content that is likely to rank well with search engines. It is all about providing content that will resonate with your audience and provide them with something useful and valuable.
How to Produce Helpful Content
Producing helpful content always begins with getting a solid understanding of your audience. When you understand your audience, you will have a better idea of the questions that they have, the problems that they are trying to solve, and the information that they are looking for. Once you have this information about your audience, it becomes easier to start creating content that addresses and meets their needs.
Some tips to keep in mind when it comes to producing helpful content include:
● Focus on Quality
Helpful content should be high-quality. Focus on creating content that is well-researched, well-written, and informative. It should always provide up-to-date, accurate information that readers can rely on and trust.
● Use Visuals
Add to the quality of the content you publish by using high-quality, informative visuals that improve the value it provides to the reader. Visuals like charts, graphs, and images can help you illustrate your points, provide clearer answers to your readers, and make your content more engaging.
● Be Concise
People have short attention spans, so it’s important to write your content in a way that gets the point across and provides answers and solutions as concisely as possible. Even if your content includes complex ideas or information, understanding how to explain it all in layman’s terms in a way that is easy for anybody reading to understand is crucial. This will go a long way when it comes to making your content Helpful Content Update friendly.
Google has released a series of questions that you can ask to determine how helpful your content really is. Some of the main ones are:
- Are you writing content only to attract people from search engines? Are you focusing too heavily on keywords and techniques to make your content rank without considering if readers will actually find it helpful or valuable?
- Are you producing content on lots of different topics? It’s important to choose a niche and stick to it. Even if you don’t rank immediately, keep going – it’s always better to be an expert in a certain area, rather than producing a lot of random content on different topics just in case some of it ranks.
- Are you summarising existing content? Inspect your content to determine if you are adding any value to the topic. One of the biggest mistakes that you can make is only summarising existing content, rather than providing anything new.
- Are you writing about trending topics for the sake of it? Trending topics can be worth writing about – if they are relevant to your audience and what you offer. One mistake to avoid is writing about trending topics that you wouldn’t touch otherwise, just because they are trending and with the hope of ranking with it.
- Will readers need to search again when they get to the end of your content? One of the main hallmarks of helpful content is that it provides readers with everything that they were looking for when they made the search. Google is looking to prioritise content that leaves readers satisfied and without the need to search again after reading.
- Are you writing for a niche you don’t know much about? It’s important to stick to writing on topics that you are knowledgeable about. The Helpful Content Update prioritises content that’s expert, well-researched, and informative.
The Helpful Content Update is not a core Google algorithm update like Penguin or Panda, however, it’s set to have just as big of an impact in the content marketing world. Understanding what Google’s looking for, what to avoid, and what kind of content you’ll need to remove from your site is crucial.