As the world’s largest search engine, tech giant Google has continuously evolved to maintain its place. With an astounding share of almost 90 percent in the internet search department, Google dominates the search engine market. However, it not only evolves to maintain its leadership.
The second factor and most important one is user interest.
Google’s search is built for people who come to the search engine for answers. That’s why the search heavyweight continuously improves its algorithms to put user interests at the core of its services.
What You’ll Learn Today
In today’s blog, we’ll see some details about the two most recent updates to Google’s algorithm
- The ‘Helpful Content’ update and
- Renaming ‘Google Webmaster’ to ‘Google Search Central’
We’ll see what Google intends to achieve through them and what digital marketers should keep in mind.
Let’s begin with the first one.
The Helpful Content Update
Released in August 2022, the ‘Helpful Content’ update is another effort towards connecting users to helpful information and not just random irrelevant content. The update aims to rank content at the top of search results that is written by people, for people.
Some Do’s and Don’ts
Google repeatedly stresses the fact that it wants people to create content for people and not search engines. To that extent, it has laid out some pointers that content creators must keep in mind to ensure that their content is helpful to users.
- The content should have a people-first approach and must have an existing or intended target audience for the business or website. The audience must find the content valuable if they come directly to you.
- The content should demonstrate that you have in-depth knowledge about the topic being written.
- The website should have a primary purpose and should not be all over the place.
- The reader should be satisfied after going through your content and learn enough about the topic to enable them to achieve their goals.
- The content should be aligned with the guidance provided by Google regarding the core updates and product reviews.
There are some don’ts as well that Google has put out. Adopting the people-first approach does not invalidate following the best SEO practices, as it’s still an integral part of the search when used in collaboration with helpful content.
Here are some things that Google needs you to consider to avoid falling into the unhelpful content category:
- The content should primarily not be made for search engines rather than for humans.
- The content should not be written for different topics in large amounts, hoping to see it perform well in search results.
- The content should not use extensive automation.
- The content should not leave the reader with a feeling to search again for the same information.
- The content should have real expertise and research behind it and not just be made because a topic is trending.
The Process
Once the update rolled out completely, it added a new site-wide signal to the list of signals that help Google rank web pages on its platform.
The system will utilize a machine-learning model to identify low-value, unhelpful content and put them at the bottom of search rankings. Websites with helpful content will see their content rank better on search.
Google has recommended that website owners remove any unhelpful content to help their websites perform better. It will be first applied to English searches and then to other languages as well.
The Second Update
In October 2022, Google renamed ‘Google Webmaster Guidelines’ to ‘Google Search Essentials’ in an effort to make the platform more user-centric. The Google Search Essentials comprise web-based content like webpages, videos, images, or other materials.
To get your website to rank higher on Google searches, you need to pay attention to three main criteria:
- Technical requirements – These include the bare minimum technical specs, such as the page is working, has indexable content, and Googlebot isn’t blocked, needed on a webpage to show it in search results.
- Spam policies – The tactics and behaviors related to your webpage or website should not be like those mentioned in Google’s spam policies. If they are, it can result in lower rankings or complete omission from Google Search. That’s why helpful content is necessary to get your website ranked.
- Key best practices – These are some SEO best practices that site owners must implement to impact their website’s search performance positively. Some of them are creating helpful content, using relevant keywords, making links crawlable, focusing on the UI/UX of the website, and controlling how your content appears in Google Search.
Keeping Up with the Latest
Suppose you have an online presence and are running a business. In that case, you need to ensure that your internet marketing follows Google’s guidelines to prevent your digital presence from being pushed to the end of the line or completely thrown out. As part of the digital marketing community, it’s vital to stay aware of the latest announcements to perform better in searches.
The SEO and Content Marketing teams at Bharat Arpanet realize this and are constantly changing their strategies to offer more value to our clients. With a comprehensive digital marketing approach, we ensure that your website scores high on all the ranking signals to provide actual value to users and rank high on the search engine.
Contact us today to grow your online presence and business with the best digital marketing practices applied.
