As a blogger, you put a great deal of effort into crafting meaningful content for your target audience. At the same time, Google is frequently updating its algorithms to ensure they deliver the most current and accurate search results, and website traffic and rankings tend to fluctuate due to these changes. Recently, Google has announced an update that could have a huge impact on your blog’s rankings. In this article, we will explore exactly what the changes are and how you can use them to optimize your search engine optimization (SEO).
Google’s ‘helpful content’ update
Google Search’s helpful content system is looking for original, helpful content written by people, for people. Essentially, they aim to better reward content where visitors feel they’ve had a satisfying experience, while content that doesn’t meet a visitor’s expectations won’t perform as well. This classifier process is entirely automated, using a machine-learning model, and works globally across all languages.
What does Google consider to be ‘helpful content?’
Google considers helpful content to be content that is easy for consumers to understand and use, as well as original, accurate, informative, and relevant to the query. Helpful content should include useful analytics, data, and visuals when available; videos and images can also enhance user experience. Ultimately, Google is looking for reliable sources of information that will help users make more informed decisions and improve user experience.
How can you write blogs that Google considers ‘helpful content?’
Focus on people-first content. People-first content means content that’s created primarily for people, and not to manipulate search engine rankings. By focusing on people-first content, Google seeks to provide more relevant search results, while also helping content creators reach their target audiences more effectively.
Make sure your content is well-researched. Quality content with valid sources and accurate information will show up higher in Google’s search results, as this gives users an assurance that the content being viewed is reliable and trustworthy. Well-researched content also adds authority to your website, making readers more likely to act such as signing up for a newsletter or purchasing a product.
Continue to optimize for SEO with keywords, relevant headings, subheadings, backlinks, meta descriptions, etc. Some things remain the same! Google still needs to properly rank websites in search results when users type in queries. SEO content allows Google to identify important information and understand the website’s relevance so that it can ensure searchers are seeing the most accurate and helpful results for their query. By utilizing SEO, Google will be able to provide a better user experience and help people find the information they need easily and quickly.
Include links to external sources, proper citations, and HTML tags. Content with external links and proper citations gets more credibility from other authoritative sources. HTML tags also help Google spiders better crawl your website and understand the structure of each page on your site. This, in turn, gives your pages a better chance of appearing in relevant search results. Plus, linking to reliable websites helps build an online presence and boost your PageRank, which is important for SEO success.
Keep language simple and as jargon-free as possible. Google wants to process content that is easily interpreted to generate relevant results for web users. If the content is filled with industry-specific words, difficult terms, and hard-to-grasp concepts, highly qualified users might not understand what the result represents. By shunning jargon and making its search results easier to interpret, Google helps make the internet more useful and accessible.
What are some examples of company blogs that meet Google’s new algorithm?
Stomadent – In addition to being a full-service dental lab that services Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Oregon, and Washington, Stomadent offers optimized educational blogs to help dental practices excel during their transition to digital dentistry.
The Print Authority – The Print Authority has grown from a local printing and design company into a diversified, modern digital and offset commercial printing enterprise serving clients across the United States and beyond. Their blogs focus on printing trends, industry updates, and answers to questions about graphics, fulfillment, and digital printing.
Charter Capital – this family-owned and operated commercial finance broker provides businesses with equipment and technology leases and loans. They are far more interested in building relationships and becoming resources of their community, which is reflected in their blog: how-to financial guides, pricing breakdowns, and solid business tips for success.
Trupath – TruPath provides businesses with a culturally aligned talent for key positions in the biggest industries, including manufacturing and the semiconductor industry. As a trusted recruitment source for more than fifteen years, they share their industry knowledge through blogs on trending careers, recruiting strategies, and high-profile industry position breakdowns that include salary, job duties, and benefits.
Google’s new algorithm update will have an immense impact on search engine rankings. Therefore, if you want to ensure that your blog continues to appear at the top of search engine result pages (SERPs), it pays to become familiar with these updates and make some changes in your future blogs.