7 Ways to Utilize Google’s Helpful Content Update
Google always focus on connecting the right people with helpful content whenever they try to find the answer to their query via a Google search. “To this end, we’re launching what we’re calling the “helpful content update” that’s part of a broader effort to ensure people see more original, helpful content written by people, for people, in search results”, Google says.
This initiative is to promote people-first content over content for search engines. If you focus on creating people-first content, you are making sure that you write for people and not for search engines. It doesn’t mean in any way that you disregard SEO practices that are crucial for the page to grow. Following Google’s SEO guide surely helps you to rank better in front of your target audience.
Here are the 7 signs that you are getting the best out of the Helpful Content Update by Google-
You are sticking to your expertise
Adding to your expertise and then talking about it in different forms shows that you are learning and then presenting that on the go. It’s far better than posting randomly about stuff you are coming across.
A highly-researched recipe article might be useful for the audience but it won’t make any sense on a skin-care website. If you genuinely want to write about entirely different topics, create multiple websites for multiple niches.
Asking these questions, yourself will help you realize what are you doing wrong-
- Are you just hoping on trends unnecessarily?
- Is your main target audience people or search engines?
- Do you have enough expertise in the niche topic that you chose?
Even if you want to include the current happenings in your blog, include it diligently and don’t go too far from your topic.
You are focusing on delivering the first-hand experience
Let’s accept this. You can be the best at rewriting stuff in the best manner but there’s no big thing than writing the first-hand experience by talking to people.
For example,
If you are writing a blog on how helpful it is to have a great personal brand and you just put 7 such ways to do that, it would hardly make any difference because people have already read that online.
What different you can do here is talk to 5 people who have built their personal brand over years and now have expertise in it. Ask them to share their views on the same and quote them in your blog.
It would eventually make that blog 2X more useful for the people reading it and you will get some marketing from the people you have featured. It’s a win-win. Writing about what you have experienced and experimented with is what we call having a first-hand experience. If you are someone who focuses on writing more real-life case studies instead of writing already available content in a different manner, congratulations, you are heading in the right direction.
Don’t write content for search engines. Write for living people who are going to read it, get some value out of it, and then might become your customer or visitor for the short-term or long-term.
One secret sauce that may help you to go viral is to being updated with the latest happenings in your industry and keep churning out content to be a go-to person for your audience and relevant to the trend too. Don’t just write to perform well on search engines, write to perform well for your audience, the former will come as a by-product.
You answer what people are asking for
Instead of cooking imaginary questions and answering them, ask your audience. There is no better thing than giving solutions to real-life problems.
Observe and ask these questions to yourself-
- Does the user feel that they have learned something after reading your content?
- Do they think your content has answered their questions?
- Are you messing up with your user’s experience just to stay within a so-called word limit because you think Google says so?
Give honest answers and improve where it’s needed.
You provide the best overall experience to your readers
Not just content, if you care about the overall experience a person would have on your website, you are on the right path.
Including blurry or irrelevant images will destroy the overall experience for the audience, no matter how good you are with the content. P.S. This update is applied to the entire website and not to any particular page, hence if you are not able to provide an overall satisfying experience to the customer, it may be flagged and would reach fewer people.
You prefer factual data over guesswork
Remember, we discussed how providing a first-hand experience to your audience is necessary and how it changes the entire game. Similar is the case of fact-based conversation which always takes over any experimental value.
You follow major updates by Google to be in the game for long
King makes the rules and if you follow them correctly, you will be more liked by the king.
Similarly, if you are following the Google guidelines and algorithms as soon as they get released, you will have the first-mover advantage and will be able to accommodate yourself with the updates.
You can read the entire update history by Google here.
Drop an email to us at info@aristasystems.in or contact Arista Systems and know how you can best use Google’s Helpful Content Update and make your rankings better while securing a sweet spot in your audience’s mind.