Have you heard about Google’s ‘Helpful Content’ algorithm?
If you’ve been following Google news recently, you’ll know they announced a helpful content update a few months ago. Google will begin prioritizing people-first content to limit content written primarily for search engines and SEO. This update is sitewide, meaning it has the potential to impact all pages.
The intent behind this update is to ensure visitors to sites are receiving content that is written for searchers. In other words, useful content written by people for people.
In this blog, we have provided six things you should do to put the people first.
- Stick to your area of expertise.
The content you create for your website should be for your existing audience. It may be tempting to write about trending topics that attract people from search engines, but Google advises you to stay away from this behavior. Be consistent, relevant, and applicable in your area of expertise. Stick to what you know.
Google advises you consider these questions in your content creation process:
- Is the content primarily to attract people from search engines, rather than made for humans?
- Are you writing about things simply because they’re trending and not because you’d write about them otherwise for your existing audience?
2. Add your own value and experience.
Your site content should demonstrate your first-hand experience with the products and services you offer. It may help to include graphics and images to support your case. You shouldn’t summarize what others say without adding your own input or value.
After all, if you have no prior experience with a particular product, how can you convince someone else to invest in it? Your efforts would prove futile.
3. Build your site around one subject area.
Don’t produce a lot of content on different topics hoping that some would perform well in search results. The key word here is niche.
Stick to your subject area and continue providing useful content to your audience.
Tip: Think of any areas where you’re producing content on different topics that you hope will rank on search engines and alter accordingly.
4. Provide sufficient answers to searchers’ questions.
People come to a search engine with the aim to quench their thirst for knowledge.
When writing content for people, you should help them answer a question or resolve a concern that led them to your website in the first place.
You don’t want your readers leaving your site feeling like they have to search further for better information, so create precise and valuable content.
5. Think about the overall reader experience.
Content diversification. Need we say more?
While some searchers may appreciate the textual content, offering other visual demonstrations of your product would complete the experience.
Think about how you can incorporate videos, photos, and animations of your services on your site. Visual examples provide a ‘real-life’ demonstration of how your products work, thus increasing interest and participation from your audience.
Remember, you want your visitor to have a positive experience, so putting yourselves in their shoes may help stir up creative and effective ideas.
As Google asks: Will someone reading your content leave feeling like they’ve had a satisfying experience?
6. Make claims that are factual.
If you’re writing about something that’s rumored or inconclusive, make that point crystal clear to the reader.
Google might caution your website if your content proves to be incorrect or misleading, so scan your website for material that isn’t factual.
We’re here to help
So you’ve listened to our advice and created content that checks all these boxes. But perfection often comes at a cost…
You may be worried about the quality score of your website or landing pages and the potential impact it will have on your CPCs. Or perhaps, you need more visibility to your competitive landscape by seeing what your competitors are using from a creative perspective. Like their offers, incentives, and calls to action. Maybe you are worried about your competitors stealing your clicks by bidding on your brand terms. Most likely, you’re thinking about all three of these things and a hundred more. So what next?
Adthena is here to help you with your paid search strategy by leveraging Adthena’s Market Trends, Spend Efficiency, Creative Insights and our new brand protection tool, Auto Takedown. The feature gives you insights into competitor activity around your trademark, so you can act fast and protect your most valuable asset. All with the swift push of a button.
Read more about Auto Takedown and how you can align your PPC and SEO strategies to dominate the search engine results page (SERP).
