Everything you Need to Know about Google’s Helpful Content Update

We all have been in a situation where we are looking for the best search results on Google but all we get are random pages with mediocre information stuffed with keywords. It is very annoying especially when you have to run solid research on a particular topic, right?

Lately, we have seen that Google searches are not helpful or authentic because it has become easier to rank a page if you pay a good amount and have strong SEO services in the backend. This works badly for the legitimacy of Google, more so, when it is considered the encyclopedia of everything. Optimizing your content for a good search ranking is nothing wrong but over-optimizing it neither helps the business page nor the readers.

Amidst the whole over-optimization fiasco, Google “Helpful Content Update” came in as fresh and the most-anticipated action. But what is the new Helpful Content Update? What does it do? Let’s talk about it

What is Google’s Helpful Content Update?

The Helpful Content Update is one of the wisest decisions Google has taken as a search engine. It is the method of diversifying the results for the readers and writers. According to Google, it will help reveal more genuine and helpful content written for people. It will improve the overall quality of the ranking page and give its users a satisfying experience.

The update is set to launch in the next week for English searches and aims to filter out the genuine content from the content written typically for SEO purposes. Many researchers said that this is the reward Google has for its readers to demote the type of content that shows the results of high-end SEO services. The update will help Google evaluate the quality of specific content and also identify how it helps the overall website.

Google has made it very clear that the soon-to-launch update will not be validating the best methods of SEO because it is aware that SEO services are helpful when they are used for people-first content. The update solely targets the systems that have gamed their way up to the search results containing no helpful information or have a merit to be on the top.

As for the SEO service providers who believed that this will be a penalty, the search engine clarified that the update is not a punishment for a badly performed SEO but a “signal” like many other ranking signals of the search engine. However, if your website is impacted by the signal, you may as well feel like it’s a penalty and try to improve.

How to Check your Content for This Update?

Google is considerate about the content that may get affected by the update when it is launched. Therefore, for content producers and SEO service providers, it has given a list of evaluation criteria so that their piece of content doesn’t get affected by the new signal.

1. Search Engine First Content

SEO is the best ranking activity only when it is applied to people-first content and completely covers Google’s SEO guide. However, when the content is produced primarily for ranking purposes and has no meaningful substance, that’s when you know that the content will be the first target of the new Helpful Content Update.

So, what you need to do is say goodbye to your search engine-first approach and reevaluate how your content comes across your site.

2. Plenty of Content

In case you are producing heaps of content with the hope that some might perform well, let me tell you it is the wrong strategy. Quantity never matters, quality does. One good quality content is better than hundreds of mediocre ones. A chain of low-quality content will give your website no benefit.

3. Self-Assess

There is no better judge for your content than yourself. So, ask yourself a few questions. What do you think of your write-up? Does it seem up to the mark to you? Does it have answers and solutions to your target audience’s problems? Does your content satisfy your readers so that they don’t have to check other pages? Is it your best work or do you write it just for the sake of a certain word count to complete SEO service providers’ demands?

4. People-First Content

People-first content is written with the focus of developing it for the readers. It is something that helps them, gives them a solution or is based on putting their need first. It means instead of prioritizing your business page, you are choosing the people reading the content and instead of bad SEO services, you are using the right guidelines.

If you want your piece of content to not be impacted by the Helpful Content Update, you have to create audience-oriented content. Do you think after reading your content people will feel satisfied? Will the readers feel like they have learned enough about the said topic?

5. Summarized Content

It is fine to research the given topic. Everyone does that. But, when you only summarize other’s content without making an effort of adding value, that is when it looks like a chunk of some mediocre information right off the random pages. To make your content seem more genuine, you must try to add a personal touch; something that your audience can relate to. The summary of everything present on the internet should not be your strategy.

Types of Content to be Affected by The Update

Google Helpful Content Update will not be targeted to any particular niche. It is a general algorithm for all English search results. However, some of the types of content that can have a larger impact on the update include

Tech-based
Online educational pages
Arts
Entertainment pages
Online shopping

If you are wondering why these pages will be more affected than the rest, you have to understand that these topics have been written on several search engines over and over again for years. So, the chances of redundancy are more here than in others.

Will The Update Have an Impact on Organic SEO?

It has been clarified many times that Google Helpful Content Update is not an attack but an action to promote genuine content. If your page is built with the idea to benefit the audience and not just the ranking, you have a good chance of not getting affected by it.

It is important to understand that the Helpful Content Update works sitewide instead of checking individual pages or sections. If the Google crawler spots too much unhelpful and meaning less content, it will have a drastic impact on the search engine rankings no matter how important that part of the content is for the website. This implies that it will eventually have an effect on the organic SEO services.

Therefore, it is suggested that if you are aware that you have a good quantity of useless content on your website, either rewrite it or remove it before it damages your ranking altogether.

What to Do If the Update Impacts Your Ranking?

Google will soon launch the Helpful Content Update; so, it will not impact your search results immediately. However, if it happens to you in the future, the first thing you need to do is keep calm. You will need to come up with a solution, not a reaction. If you panic and react too much, you may cause more damage.

What you can do is collect all your data and analyze it. Read everything to understand what needs to be updated. Google suggests that if an update hits you, remove the useless or unnecessary content from your website, it may help the ranking. Moreover, you can try to add more value by any means; take your time, it won’t happen overnight.

What you should understand about this update is that once it classifies your site as the one that builds content typically for search engine ranking, the sitewide signal will affect the rest of the content on your website too. So, if you have a big quantity on your website with bad SEO, you will experience a considerable decline in traffic in the next few months. Hence, updating and removal of unnecessary content is the only option for recovery for you. However, if your site gets hit by the update, it may take several months to recover.

The Bottom Line

It is important to understand that Helpful Content Update is not targeted to the SEO Company in Pakistan or it’s not a punishment for anyone. More so, it is an algorithm that will run automatically to help give the due recognition and ranking to the content that deserves to be on the top. So, keep calm, the update is not launched yet meaning that you still have a lot of time to enhance your website. In case you were already planning on updating your business page content, there is no better time to do that than now. All you need to do is focus on the quality, produce people-first content, and take the help from the best SEO service provider following the best SEO practices.