What is Helpful Content?
In this new update, Google, in its official announcement will make use of AI to rate content on how helpful it is to people. Content that is written strictly to rank but does not provide useful information will be penalized by demotion in search results.
What do you need to do?
Well, if your website content has been written for people and not for Search Engine BOTS, nothing. That is exactly the kind of content Google will promote in rankings. If that doesn’t describe your game plan, then you will need to change things up. This update seems like it will have as large an impact on rankings as Panda, which targeted low-quality content, and Penguin, which targeted webspam.
Take action now
The first thing you need to do is, to be honest with yourself. Have you been writing content just to get it to rank? If the answer is yes, there is something you can do.
- Keep the focus of your website as tightly focused as possible. If you try to cover an extremely wide range of topics that are not closely related, rethink what you want your website to be about.
- Write content for people, not BOTS. You must create original content that helps people understand your topics while utilizing SEO best practices. Google has published guidelines to help content creators understand what matters.
- Keep your content up to date. Thing are constantly changing, and if your content does not reflect that, you can not expect it to be found relevant by Google and to rank well in search engine results.
- Review your tone and style. Are you communicating in a way that is still relevant and appropriate for your audience?
If you can say yes to all of those questions, then you should be just fine. If not, we need to talk.
Get a free audit of your website to see how you are doing. The results might surprise you.