- Why your business must produce ‘helpful content’
- Were you aware of Google’s latest Helpful Content Update?
- If so, do you understand and follow their content guidelines?
If not, I hope this blog post clears things up.
In August 2022, Google launched a Helpful Content Update, which was ‘part of a broader effort to ensure people see more original, helpful content written by people, for people, in search results.’
In the update, Google spelt out, loud and clear, its preferred type of content. So, as Google is king of the online world, if you’re a business owner wanting to stay relevant and rank highly in its algorithm, it would be rather silly to ignore it!
Read on for a handful of the latest guidelines to comply with:
Niche down
To put it bluntly, if you don’t already have a well-defined niche, Google will not be your friend. Long gone are the days when ‘lifestyle’ bloggers could post about everything from food and fitness to travel and animals, Google wants content creators to pick and lane and stay in it.
Essentially, if you want to rank well on Google, you need to niche down and be a specialist on one subject rather than a jack of all trades.
Write for a specific audience
Regardless of the platform, for maximum results and effectiveness, it is crucial that the tone of voice, subject and aesthetic of your content is entirely tailored to your audience. In keeping with the point about niching down, vague, generalised content will lack impact and therefore get lost in the crowd, and trust me, it’s a vast crowd to get lost in!
If you haven’t already, drawing up a pen portrait of your target market including as much detail as possible is a great place to start. This will make it easier when it comes to content creation as you’ll have a distinct understanding of the type of person you’re targeting.
Add value
Google has asked: Are you mainly summarizing what others have to say without adding much value?
As a content creator, it’s very tempting just to regurgitate what others have created, but let’s face it, that’s not very creative!
Google wants you to bring something new to the table. If you want to stand out from the crowd, you need to think outside the box and produce something unique and creative that hasn’t been published before.
Show off your expertise
The male peacock doesn’t have beautiful, vibrant feathers just to keep them tucked away and hidden all day, so why would you not flaunt the area you’re an expert in?
Google wants to promote content written by genuine experts who know what they are talking about!
Unfortunately, there are heaps of people out there who write about things they have no clue about. So, if the content is coming from an expert, authoritative, trustworthy source, then there is a much greater chance of featuring at the top of Google’s search results.
Actually write your content
The impressiveness of the AI copywriting tools can’t be denied. But whilst this may seem like the best, time saving technology to invest in, think again! Google is now favouring copy that has been written by humans, for humans. And trust me, it can tell the difference!
Whilst the AI copywriting tools might seem like a genius idea due to their ability to pick out and incorporate key words, they are by no means experts in the topic at hand. They work by regurgitating copy found across the web and, often, the copy it produces includes factually incorrect information.
In a nutshell, despite their time saving appeal, they will not produce content that will rank in the way that human copy would. Plus, there’s a chance you could be penalised for it!
Write content of the appropriate length
When it comes to the length of content, Google has said the following: ‘Are you writing to a particular word count because you’ve heard or read that Google has a preferred word count? (No, we don’t)’.
If we are talking specifically about blog posts and articles, there isn’t a magic number that copywriters should be aiming for. Instead, the blog post should be long enough to cover the topic fully so that the reader is left feeling educated and satisfied but waffling or going off on a tangent is an absolute no no!
Need help with achieving the above? This is exactly what I’m here for! Get in touch today and I can produce helpful content that will please Google, so that you rank highly and reach your target audience.
