Google always has prioritized users’ requirements by introducing updates time and again. Recently, it rolled out a new update named Google Helpful Content Update. The update aims to enhance the user experience by helping them find helpful content, not something stuffed with keywords, solely published for SEO purposes.
Content marketing is one of the effective ways for eCommerce businesses and website owners to drive relevant website traffic and increase conversion rates. The Google Helpful Content Update will impact everyone involved in SEO practices.
Therefore, read this blog to discover how Google Helpful Content Update will help you take your business to new heights.
Google Helpful Content Update August 2022: What is it?
In SERPs, some pages do not provide any value and are just for ranking purposes, while others have high-quality content that helps users answer their questions. The helpful content update by Google detects such low-quality pages and downgrades them to help users efficientlhttps://outreachcrayon.com/blog-writing-service-for-ecommerce/y reach their desired webpage containing valuable content.
Google Helpful Content Update, the fifth update by Google in 2022, primarily aims to identify web pages or websites with low-quality content written to rank well on SERPs and reward content that provides a satisfying user experience.
The helpful content update has created panic amongst content creators as it significantly impacts their businesses future. Let’s have a look at the impact of the big Google update on popular websites:
- There was an 8.72% month-over-month drop in total keywords of the Backlinko website.
- 11.1% drop month-over-month of total keywords on Moz.
- 8.55% month-over-month drop for total keywords on HubSpot.
- 11.97% drop month-over-month for the total keyword on Search Engine Journal.
Google update, this time, has emphasized people-first content. People-first content refers to top-quality content that provides relevant information written after thorough research. In contrast, the low-quality content is poorly written, with keywords stuffed unnecessarily with the motive to make it to the top of the SERPs.
The Google Helpful Content Update impacts languages all over the world. This helps the system recognize and disregard any invaluable content on the SERPs designed for search engines only.
Tips to Transform your Content Strategy with the Google Update
We have compiled a list of a few tips that will help you transform your content strategy that will abide by the Google Helpful Content Update. Let’s have a look at it:
Find Your Niche & Stick to It
If you want to make it big in the market, start by establishing a niche and sticking to it. This is a time-taking process as there are so many ideas out there that will make this a daunting task.
Make sure to choose a niche, not because of money but because you are genuinely interested in it. Analyze which areas of business fascinates you and start working on them. Finding a niche you love will increase productivity tenfold and help you narrow down your target audience.
Satisfied User Experience
With Google Helpful Content Update, Google wants website owners to provide the audience with the finest user experience. This is the key to enhancing your ranking and making the audience re-visit your website.
At times, the customer gets agitated when the website does not have relevant content, takes too much time to load, has too many ads, etc. Hence, you should upload quality content and optimize the website to retain your customers on the website and meet their requirements. Because if a customer leaves the website unsatisfied, it will harm your sales of products or services.
Give Enough Information to Customers’ Query
Whenever a customer visits a website, they expect to find the answer to their question. But what happens is that they leave the website without getting any solution.
You must be wondering why so?
Well, it is because most website owners publish content just for ranking. But the content should be written keeping the human-first approach in mind and supported with statistics, real-life examples, etc. Do proper research and provide your precious customers with as much detailed information as possible. This will make customers feel valued, and they will not go to other sources to fetch data.
Do Not Write Just to Rank
Whenever you are creating content for the website, you must follow the practice of not writing it just for SEO purposes. Overstuffing your content with keywords and not relevant information will harm your website. People will not indulge in such content, which will downgrade your ranking in SERPs.
With the Google Helpful Content Update, Google has given “content” the utmost priority. Therefore, website owners must focus on publishing content with a people-first approach and, at the same time, ensure it is SEO optimized. Do not go overboard with keywords; instead, try to insert them naturally in the content to provide the user with a satisfying experience.
How to differentiate whether your content is helpful or unhelpful?
The website owners have been panicking since Google integrated Helpful Content Update. They have started working on their website to match it to the new guidelines issued by Google.
However, they still need clarification on differentiating whether their content is helpful or unhelpful. Well, do not fret. We are here to help clear this confusion.
Helpful content is content written keeping audiences’ needs in mind. On the other hand, unhelpful content is written and published to enhance the website’s ranking.
To get more clarity, you can take the help of the questions released by Google. Here are some of the questions:
- Do you publish content on different niches expecting some to appear in the search engine result pages?
- Are you writing content that leaves the user unsatisfied in a way that they need to visit other sources to get information?
- Are you writing duplicate content without providing any helpful insight?
- Do you publish content without proper research just for the sake of traffic?
If you have answered ‘Yes’ to all the above questions, you have unhelpful content on the website. Therefore, you can do either of two things with unhelpful content: remove it from the website or improve it as per Google guidelines. The choice is yours.
Impact of the Update
On eCommerce Businesses
If your businesses follow a white-label SEO strategy, then you are in the safe zone. However, suppose you use AI-generated content, copy your competitor’s content, or publish content to increase ranking only. In that case, you must make significant changes to your website.
The Google Helpful Content Update targets websites consisting of content stuffed with keywords, generic content, and content leaving customers dissatisfied, etc. Therefore, you would want to be careful and invest in optimizing your content to be part of Google Helpful Content Update.
You can do so by following the steps mentioned below:
- Do proper research and develop evidence, screenshots, and analytics to support your content.
- Write content that provides relevant and valuable information to your customers.
- Make your content SEO friendly by putting keywords naturally.
- Remember to give priority to quality content instead of quantity. This will help you boost your website ranking along with providing helpful content.
On Website & SEO
The Google Helpful Content Update has become a boon for website owners who follow genuine content writing and marketing strategy. Google will prefer content with a people-first approach. And those who write content with the motive to be on the first page of search results will be penalized by Google.
In September 2022, Aleyda Solis posted a survey on Twitter to analyze who all have been impacted by Google Helpful Content Update. Well, here is the result:
To maintain the website’s credibility, you must ensure your content is well-researched and written to provide value to your customers.
You would want your customers to gain knowledge and get a solution to their questions from your website. Right? Then as a website owner, it is your responsibility to figure out how to make the content right to provide the best user experience.
How will the update benefit eCommerce brands?
Google has always preferred websites with high-quality content written for the benefit of users and not search engines. And this has come to action with the new Google Helpful Content Update.
The new update has become a blessing for eCommerce businesses who have put effort into their website to make it as per audience requirements. Let’s have a look at some of the benefits of the update for eCommerce brands:
- The update has enhanced the user search experience focusing on people-first content. People will be able to find the product they are searching for efficiently.
- The algorithm has mended issues that searchers faced with eCommerce platform search results, including product variations by different sellers, generic or no description of products, automated content, descriptions containing affiliate links, and much more.
The Helpful Content Update will eliminate those websites using duplicate content or content overstuffed with keywords. This will give privilege to eCommerce brands or websites that have heavily invested in creating the best content for a great user experience. The time has come for eCommerce brands to taste the fruits of success.
5 Things to Correct on Your eCommerce Store
With Helpful Content Update, Google has ensured that people only see the results that will be useful to them, so they do not have to go through various sources to get the information or product they are looking for.
You must be curious about the best way to optimize your eCommerce store to make it helpful for your customers. We have mentioned some beneficial tips you could apply to your store to compile with the new algorithm.
Detailed Product Description
The first and foremost thing to correct on your eCommerce store is to make the product description as detailed as possible. This doesn’t mean you include irrelevant content just to increase its length.
The product description should demonstrate what the product is, the benefits of the product, how it is helpful for the customer, etc. The content should be written to encourage the customer to make the purchase without sounding too pushy. Hiring expert services to create relevant product descriptions for your e-commerce site would be the first step towards making your website better.
Meet Customer’s Requirements
Before designing the content, businesses must thoroughly analyze their audience. Every business must get to know its customers and their requirements to ensure its products and services are compatible with their needs.
After all, the customer is the king of the market. Without them, businesses do not serve any purpose. Therefore, the key to your business success is in your hands.
Follow Google Guidelines
On your eCommerce store, ensure you write content per Google’s guidelines. Here are some of them:
- Creating reliable, helpful, and people-first content.
- Evaluate your content with “How, Why, and Who”.
- Avoid writing content with a focus on search engine ranking.
- Remember E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness)
By following it, you are increasing your chances of ranking higher on the search engine result page.
Also, this will help you boost conversion rates by making your products appear to the relevant audience.
Do Not Use Automation To Produce Bulk Content
You are wrong if you think you can get away by producing automated content for your eCommerce website. With the Google Helpful Content Update, Google will target those websites which produce content specifically for ranking purposes. That content doesn’t serve any purpose and misleads the customers with false information.
Therefore, the best way to win over Google and its customers is to produce genuine content with detailed product information for your eCommerce store.
Write Quality Content
Lastly, focus on your content, as the new update is about helpful content. Google has launched Helpful Content Update to make people’s search experience effective and efficient.
Hence, you must be careful while uploading content to your eCommerce store. The content should be unique, valuable, detailed, and high quality.
Conclusion
Google Helpful Content has been a boon for businesses who have invested in their website and produced genuine content for their customers but a bane for those businesses whose purpose is to get their websites to rank on SERPs. Hence, it is time for website owners and content creators to up their game and focus on publishing helpful content only.
The new update has resulted from readers’ frustration with Google for not finding the content they are looking for. Some websites ranking on the first page of search results often do not contain valuable information. This makes the audience visit several other pages just to find the answer to their question.
If you want to be in the good books of Google, you must keep these points in mind while working on the content strategy for your website.
- Design content to meet customer expectations.
- Do not write content for SEO purposes only.
- Ensure your content delivers a satisfying user experience.
- Remove or improve any unhelpful or irrelevant content on the website.
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