What is google helpful content?

Google Helpful Content is the latest update launched by Google, which has been live since August 25th. Currently, it only affects English searches, but there are plans to expand it to as many languages as possible in the near future.

The purpose of the update is to better position content for users and to make content created for Google bots or other search engines as inconspicuous as possible.

Content for users

To understand what user-centric content means, Google has provided a series of questions to help evaluate the quality of articles or pages on your site. Below are the most important ones:

• Would you trust the information you’ve added to the article if it weren’t yours?
• Is the article written by someone who knows the field or topic very well?
• Does your site have articles that address the same topic in a superficial way?
• If it weren’t your site, would you be comfortable entering credit card information?
• Does the site’s content contain grammatical errors, incorrect data, or typos?
• Does the content provide real added value compared to other sites ranking for the same topic?
• Is the content of the article quality-checked before being posted?
• Is the site recognized as an authority on this topic?
• Does the site have a primary focus?
• Is the content written by a person or are automated writing tools used?

The connection between Google Helpful Content and BERT + EAT

For several years, Google has focused on the idea of quality content for SEO and the use of artificial intelligence systems to better understand and evaluate that content. It initially started with Rank Brain which introduced the concept of artificial intelligence into Google’s operating algorithm. Then there were updates aimed at validating quality, such as E-A-T (Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness) și Medical Update, which emphasized the trust and authority of individuals/sources of articles or page content.

In 2019, Google introduced BERT, an advanced artificial intelligence module with the ability to fully understand context, sentiment, and entities within content. Essentially, Google has the capability to understand content in a way that’s almost human-like.

Returning to the connection between these updates and the Google Helpful Content update, we now have an „add-on” that will sift through the multitude of articles and pages where descriptions loaded with keywords, articles with keyword stuffing are used.

How do I prepare for the Helpful Content Update?

The fact that the update only affects English searches is an advantage for other markets, giving them more time to prepare. However, if you work in or do SEO in an area where it takes effect, here’s what you should do:

1. Audit your website content and see if it adds value or is just added to rank. If it’s solely for ranking purposes, see if you can modify it to provide added value. Use FAQs where they make sense. For articles, identify what questions your readers are searching for and think of them as a good source of information. Tools like AHREFS, SEMrush, Alsoaked, and Answer The Public provide this data, which you can use to provide answers to all questions.
2. Focus your article on a single topic, rather than chasing multiple topics, and provide as much information as possible for that topic.
3. Demonstrate authority and expertise in the field you’re addressing. In your blog, use schema markup for blogs and include Persona markup to provide the engine with extra information about authors. Develop an about the author page with as much information about them as possible, including biography, LinkedIn, etc.
4. Use references and external sources to strengthen the authority and expertise of the article. Don’t be afraid to „build links” to other articles; this will help you just as much if the references are valuable and useful to readers.
5. Understand the intent behind a search. It’s no longer enough to have a list of high search volume keywords; it’s important to understand the intent behind the searches to see what Google users want to find in their searches. The easiest way to do this is to perform searches on Google yourself and see what results you get and what information the sites on the first page provide.
6. LSI (Latent Semantic Indexing) refers to adjacent words that generally appear in articles/pages with the chosen topic. These can be used in your article as a „keyword strategy.” You can also use tools to show you LSI words.

What to do if you notice a drop in rankings following the update?

If you were caught off guard by the update, you should do the same thing as if you were preparing for the update:

• Evaluate your content.
• Replace poorly performing content with content that provides more value to users.

Since it’s an automated module, it will check the site over a longer period to make sure you don’t revert to old habits. Google mentions a period of 6 months before content can return to better performance.

Conclusion

Although the Helpful Content update may not seem highly significant at first glance, it’s a sign that Google is increasingly focusing on quality content and its ranking.

We’re moving more and more towards a natural SEO zone where keyword manipulation or even topics lose value, and quality and information provided to users are more important.