How to Create Helpful Content & Why It’s Worth Doing
Understanding Google's Helpful Content Update
In August 2022, Google announced a new update emphasizing “helpful” content. This update, which finished rolling out on September 9, is designed to provide searchers with more original, authentic, and useful content. It introduces a site-wide ranking signal used (along with many others) to evaluate pages for ranking purposes. In other words, it's an effort by Google to “unspam” the web by pushing irrelevant and low-quality content further down in the search results.
Google's mission is to ‘organize the world's information and make it universally accessible.' Ultimately, this update is just another way they're working to achieve that mission—encouraging website owners/content creators to take a people-first approach to content and offer real value to searchers.
So, what exactly is helpful content? And why is it so important? Let's take a closer look…
What Is Helpful Content?
Helpful content is simply written for and provides value to readers. It answers questions clearly, assists people in solving a problem, and satisfies search intent. Moreover, helpful content is well-written, accurate, and error-free.
Some additional guidelines for creating useful, people-first content are as follows:
- The content is useful to your site's intended or existing audience.
- It demonstrates firsthand experience with and significant knowledge of the subject.
- It provides enough information for people to then achieve the desired goal.
- It delivers readers a satisfying experience overall.
- The content is relevant to your site, which has a primary purpose or focus.
- It follows Google's guidance for core updates and product reviews.
It's also worth noting that help content can take many forms, including pages, blogs, guides, and more.
Why Is It Important?
Ultimately, creating helpful content is important for your audience and for SEO purposes.
1. It's what searchers are looking for.
When someone performs a search on Google, they're generally looking for an answer to a question or a solution to a problem. If your content can provide that, you're more likely to earn their click, their trust, and—eventually—their business. On the flip side, if people don't see any originality or value in your content, they'll ignore your result, immediately leave your page, or simply avoid going any further into the funnel.
2. It's one of the best ways to earn organic traffic.
As mentioned previously, Google's ultimate goal is to provide its users with the best possible experience. And this recent update is just another means of doing that—by weeding out poor content. If your content is beneficial, it's more likely to rank higher in search results and drive more traffic to your site.
Here's something else to keep in mind…
For those who have historically put all their focus on optimizing for search engines—and using AI-generated content to do so—this update isn't good news. With Google's helpful content update, a new site-wide signal will be used to determine if content is irrelevant, unhelpful, or low-value (the type of content usually produced when the focus is on search engines rather than people). And those sites that have a lot of unhelpful content will have their rankings driven down in the results. It could take months for this to be resolved (or longer if steps aren't taken to remove the unhelpful content).
According to a recent poll about the effects of Google's update, only 20% have noticed ranking changes in either direction. However, the rollout was just completed, so we may see more effects down the road.
How to Create Helpful Content
Now that you know why helpful content is so important, you're probably wondering how to create it. Google's decision to prioritize it in search results is a major shift that has far-reaching implications for content creators. This update means that, more than ever before, creating content that is truly useful and valuable to your audience is crucial.
So, what makes content helpful?
Here are some basic best practices:
- Make sure your content is original.
- Educate your readers on a topic they're interested in.
- Focus on demonstrating knowledge and expertise.
- Lay out clear directions for solving a problem your readers face.
- Incorporate your own experiences and quotes from your team.
- Inspire readers with stories and examples.
- Answer questions clearly.
- Offer value beyond what's already out there.
Further, you should avoid publishing largely automated/AI-generated content, scraping content from other sources, merely rewording what someone else has written, or making false claims.
7 Steps to Include in Your Helpful Content Strategy
Although the section above highlights the dos and don'ts of creating helpful content, it's also worth discussing some basic steps you should take. With every piece of content you produce or update, you should make sure you've covered all your bases. After all, being strategic about content yields the best results!
1) Know Your Audience
This may seem obvious, but it is essential to understand whom you're writing for and what information they need. So, take some time to research your target audience and their needs. Find out what problems they're struggling with, what goals they want to achieve, and so on.
2) Start with a List of Topics
Brainstorm a list of potential topics your target audience might be interested in. Make sure they're relevant not only to your audience but also to your business. Once you have your list, you can start doing some research to find out which topics are the most popular.
3) Do Your Research
Use Google and other search engines to see what kinds of content are already out there on your chosen topics. This will give you a good idea of what's popular and what's already been covered. Additionally, you can use a tool such as Semrush for a deeper dive into keyword and topic research.
4) Find a Unique Angle
After you've conducted your research, it's time to find a unique angle for your content. Remember, helpfulness is critical here—as is originality. So, try coming up with a topic or angle that hasn't been covered in depth. This will make your content stand out and deliver greater value to readers.
5) Create an Outline
Creating an outline for your content can make the writing stage much easier. It ensures that you format your piece properly and cover all the main points. So, map out your content once you've decided on your topic and found an appropriate keyword to optimize for. Note that you can make your outline as comprehensive as you want.
6) Write Quality Content
Once you have your outline, it's time to start writing! But don't just churn out any old thing—make sure your content is beneficial and well-written. The key is to write helpful content geared toward readers that is still well optimized for search.
Additionally, take the time to edit and proofread your work before you hit publish.
7) Promote Your Content
After your content is published, it's time to start promoting it. Use social media, email, and other channels to get the word out. The more people see and consume your content, the more helpful (and successful) it's likely to be.
Takeaway
As Google's helpful content update has taken effect, creating valuable content is more important than ever. That's why, if you're not already doing so, you need to take a person-first approach to content. Although you should still follow SEO best practices, you must strive for balance by producing content that resonates with readers. It will help you not only earn organic traffic from Google but also build trust and credibility with your audience.
If you approach content with a people-first mindset, you'll be well on your way to developing useful material that will benefit both your readers and your business.
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