Have you ever wondered how Google determines which content is helpful and which is not? And on what basis does Google find helpful content? Let’s first understand the Google update for valuable content.
Google Search is constantly working to provide helpful and relevant content to its users. In August 2022, Google announced that it would launch a “Helpful Content Update” to ensure users see more original, helpful content written by people, for people, in search results. And this update started to roll out on 25 August 2022.
Articles or blogs that do not address people’s questions are frequently ranked by search engines and receive significant traffic, but they were taken down after Google’s recent update. Many articles lack Expertise, Authority, and Trustworthiness (EAT), causing user dissatisfaction. Google created a site-wide ranking indicator to identify websites with low content. It uses machine-learning models to evaluate new and continuously existing sites.
Google said recovery will take time if the new signal ranks your site as unhelpful. It can take months to recover your rankings after removing unhelpful content or improving your content for Google.
What Makes Content Helpful for Google Search?
We all know there are some key points the Google algorithm follows to show your content on the search engines.
Let’s talk about those points:
- Relevance: Google tries to show you content that is relevant to your search query. For example, if you search for “mall near you,” Google provides a list of nearby malls in your location rather than a pizza outlet.
- Quality: Google prefers people-written content for the people, which should be informative and trustworthy. The content should answer the user’s questions.
- Uniqueness: Focus on EAT practice while writing the content. High-quality content ranks faster. Google prefers to present multiple perspectives rather than simply repeating the same information.
- Freshness: Google tries to show recent data on topics like news and technology. These topics are ever-changing, so Google focuses on providing users with fresh and clear content.
- Effectiveness: Content that provides an answer to a query or resolves an issue is highly valued by Google. If you are searching for information on how to bake pizza at home, Google will present you with a recipe website with ingredients and detailed cooking instructions.
- Engagement: Pages with higher interaction levels and share counts are frequently regarded as having more excellent value. This suggests that people find the information interesting and engaging.
Creating Content that’s Useful for Google Search
We all want our website to bank on Google but need somewhere in between. Although we have an SEO-optimized website with a great UI and UX, we still need to understand what content to show on search engines. For that, we need to understand what kind of content to publish on our website so Google starts showing it up on the search engines.
Here’s how to make proper and easily discoverable content:
- Understand Your Audience: Always provide content according to your audience’s needs. What questions and answers are they looking for? What issues are they attempting to solve? Customize your content to match their demands.
- Research Keywords: Users type short-tail or long-tail keywords to find the answer to their query on the Google search engine. Perform keyword research relevant to your niche. Find relevant keywords and include them in your article or blog; a human should write them.
- Be Informative and Clear: Your content should convey essential information straightforwardly and understandably. To make your content more engaging, break up long paragraphs with headings and bullet points and use visuals such as images or videos.
- Valuable Links: When other reliable sources offer value to your article, include links. This shows Google that your content has been thoroughly researched and is trustworthy.
- Stay Up-to-Date: Update your content frequently to remain current and relevant. This is especially necessary when discussing issues that change regularly, such as technology or news.
- Mobile-Friendly Website: Ensure that your website and content are mobile-friendly. Google favors mobile-friendly websites in its search results.
- Track Your Performance: Use tools such as Google Analytics to track your content’s performance. Pay attention to analytics such as page visits, time on the page, and bounce rate to determine what works and needs improvement.
Why Is the Helpful Content Update Important?
A helpful content update is important because, after the emergence of Chat GPT, Gemini, and many more AI tools, people have started to write AI-generated content, so Google cannot provide relevant and valuable content to users based on their search queries. After the update, Google improved the quality of search results by giving genuine and human-written content to relevant users.
After the update, Google reduced the low-quality content and enhanced the user search experience by providing informative content. This update promotes freshness, quality, and effectiveness and encourages website owners to write valuable content that genuinely serves the audience.
Ultimately, this update aims to provide what the user is looking for and satisfy the user based on their searches.
Conclusions
Focusing on these steps and writing genuine, high-quality content will help people find what they are looking for. Follow these aspects to rank your content higher on Google search results. By following these guidelines, you can develop content that ranks well in Google search results and adds value to your audience. The update encourages content writers as their job is safe, and people who started writing with the help of AI tools content will not rank because this update focuses on human-written content for humans.
