This could be massive for a lot of website owners…
Google just announced the launch of an upcoming search engine ranking signal called “helpful content update.” This new signal should start rolling out around the 25th of August 2022, and this is a site-wide signal.
Google has published a detailed guide about this upcoming “helpful content update.” Here I have summarized Google’s post, along with some of my tips to prepare for this upcoming algorithm update.
What’s Google’s helpful content update all about?
This update is all about rewarding content that focuses on people first. According to the official page
The helpful content update aims to better reward content where visitors feel they’ve had a satisfying experience, while content that doesn’t meet a visitor’s expectations won’t perform as well.
Google has long recommended publishers to create high-quality content while keeping SEO in mind. However, lately, we have seen the rise of AI writing tools such as Jasper that could generate automated content that looks real and is SEO friendly, but at the same time offer bad advice, as it is machine-generated.
At the same time, some publishers are working with low-quality writers and generating only SEO-friendly content without having any real value. In my opinion, this new signal is targeted toward all such content, which is written only for search engine and does not add real value to the users like you or me.
How to know you satisfy Google’s helpful content updates?
Google has published a set of questions, and if you answer “yes” to them, then you are on the right track. Here are those questions:
- Do you have an existing or intended audience for your business or site that would find the content useful if they came directly to you?
- Does your content demonstrate first-hand expertise and a depth of knowledge (for example, expertise that comes from having actually used a product or service, or visiting a place)?
- Does your site have a primary purpose or focus?
- After reading your content, will someone leave feeling they’ve learned enough about a topic to help achieve their goal?
- Will someone reading your content leave feeling like they’ve had a satisfying experience?
- Are you keeping in mind our guidance for core updates and for product reviews?
Let’s decode some of the questions listed above.
- Question number 2: It seems to reward people who create content based on experiences. Using actual product picture, travel photographs, and personal anecdotes should give a better signal to Google.
- Question number 3: This IMO is for niche websites, as multi-niche websites do not have a primary focus. There
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This article was written by Harsh Agrawal and originally published on ShoutMeLoud.