What is the update?
Starting on the week commencing 22nd August, Google has released a new ‘helpful content update’, which aims to better connect people to useful information. This change is important for anyone in the world of SEO, as this update could change how Google views your content and how high it ranks your pages in the search results.
Google says that it wants to connect users to helpful information in the search results. To do this, they say the update will look more favourably upon content that is written by people for people rather than the content being written for search engines in mind.
How to Write Helpful Content
Firstly, you’ll want to assess your current content to see if it’s helpful to any users who visit your site. Will they learn anything new by reading your content? If not, then it could be due a refresh.
To write helpful content in Google’s eyes, it needs to have a people-first focus. You should create valuable and insightful content that also follows SEO best practice. In it, you should be showing your first-hand experience and depth of knowledge.
You’ll also want to identify your target audience and write content for them rather than adopting a generic approach. Also, removing unhelpful content from your site could help rankings for other content on your site improve.
What you should look to avoid is creating content just for Google summarising what has already been done by others. Be original and be new.
Also, you should avoid deviating from core topics in one piece of content. Instead, identify where separate content needs to be created and use this as an opportunity to target other keyword clusters and utilise internal linking.
What Our SEO Experts Say
“Essentially, this update is meant to flush out content written for search engines like Google instead of users, as well as content that adds little to no value for its reader. If this update is successful in what it’s trying to achieve, we expect to see huge changes in the search engine results pages (SERPs).” – Jade, Senior SEO Executive & Account Manager
How DNRG Can Help
Here at DNRG, we’ve already been following these guidelines, and the latest Google update stresses the importance of having relevant content written for your site by human beings.
If you think you may be negatively affected by the latest update, then we offer a comprehensive SEO service – including the creation of written content – which aims to boost you back up the search engine rankings.
