Helpful Content Update
What’s the fuss about?
Google recently performed another core update.
This means they changed the way they calculate where your website will appear in their search rankings. If at all.
Now, Google makes changes all the time. (in one year?as many as 9 per day on average) and they don’t usually say anything.
So when they make a fuss about it, the search community tends to sit up and pay attention.
Before having a good chinwag about it throughout the aftermath.
The last time we wrote about something similar was back in June 2021.
If you haven’t already seen it, you should check out?Rumble in the Rankings?because it is still relevant today.
But right now we’re going to discuss this latest set of changes.
We’ll discuss how it could affect your website rankings and give advice on what you can do to improve things.
Let’s get started.
What’s new this time?
This Google update is called the?Helpful Content Update?(HCU).
Kind of gives you a hint as to what it’s all about, but let’s dive into a little more detail.
What’s in a name?
While we’re big fans of the odd animal appearance here at Nettl, previous updates named Hummingbird, Panda and Penguin don’t give you many clues.
The title of this update is more in keeping with previous ones like ‘Page Experience’ and?‘MobileFriendly’.
Some people say it helps Google appear more helpful in itself. But perhaps it goes even deeper than that.
In fact, not only did they give it a nice straightforward name but they also approached this differently.
That last one is important because it’s a clever marketing tactic often used to help get your message out there.
In fact, you can use the same approach if you’ve got a special upcoming announcement.
Leaking news ahead of time to influential people in the industry means they’re more likely to report on this ‘exclusive’.
So Google seemed particularly keen to educate everyone on their new development.
Maybe it’s just their age. Or maybe they’re looking for the message (and guidelines) to resonate much deeper than your usual industry gaggle.
Perhaps they’re hoping to get their message directly across to the website owners. The content producers.
Perhaps they’re hoping to reach YOU.
And as you’re reading this then they can chalk that one up. Score!
What is the Helpful Content Update all about?
As they’ve gone out of their way to be transparent, let’s hear it from the horse’s mouth.
“The helpful content update aims 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.”
Ooo, that’s interesting. They said ‘had’. Past tense.
How do they know if someone has had a satisfying experience?
Well, Google can count upon user signals such as
Plus, their?Core Web Vitals?data helps make an educated guess.
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So the advice is not new.
But maybe Google is better prepared to mark your score sheet.
What else has Google said about the Helpful Content Update?
In a nutshell, they want to reward content written for humans. Not bots.
So that content creators will focus on helpful, people-first content.
Avoiding writing purely for search engines.
And not using extensive automation to produce content on many topics.
What impact has the HCU had so far?
In all honesty, not much. Most reports suggest this update hasn’t caused as many shockwaves as previous ones.
Everyone is different of course. Some website types appear to have been hit harder than others.
If that’s the case, why should I care?
Well, in general, ranking changes certainly seem to have been less volatile.
But that’s only so far.
Google has specifically talked about this update being part of an ongoing process.
So it’s likely they’ve only just started to lay the foundations. Or the first floor at any rate.
Either way, when Google start down a path like this, they’re unlikely to dramatically change course.
In fact, they’ve been tweaking the same ‘user-experience’ narrative for decades.
This 2010 article?discusses their?HEART framework?for measuring user experience on a large scale.
(Hmm, feels like we should expand on this in a future post…)
But for now, to briefly summarise, here are five metrics used in the HEART framework:
Remember, Google search users aren’t YOUR customers. Not yet anyway.
They’re Google’s customers. (Or Google’s product, depending on how you look at it).
But either way, Google will do whatever it can to serve its users.
How? By recommending the most relevant, helpful, and trustworthy websites related to the user’s query.
Align your goals with Google’s goals and you won’t be too far off-target, whatever update is next.
How can I make my content more helpful?
Simply be of service to the best of your ability.
First, you’ll need to understand your website visitor to be able to understand and cater to?search intent.
That’s about aligning user goals with your website capability.
Or, to put it simply,?making sure users can easily do what they came to do.
Once you understand this, it becomes all about mystery shopping yourself. And your competitors!
Look for ways to better satisfy the user.