Why have my website rankings dropped since Google’s Helpful Content Update?

In order to answer this question comprehensively, first we have to establish what kind of content Google deems as being “Helpful”.

Our Take:

The good folks over at Google have stated that they want to present searchers with more useful information that contributes to a better experience.

The purpose of this is to stop spammers from creating 1000’s of pages of Ai-driven content that adds little to no value to the end-user.

For years now SEO’s and Webmasters have been spamming the Google SERP’s, placing unhelpful content onto previously expired domains and buying a whole bunch of backlinks from PBN’s.

The advancement of using tools like Chat GPT has created even wider problems with the sheer availability of low quality spammy content created by SEO‘s to then push out in a hit and hope manner.

So to fight back, Google has now set-up new and improved spam protocols to make sure that the poorest quality content is kept out of their SERPs, while factoring this in to their Core algorithm.

What is Helpful Content?

Its been known for many years now that Google prioritises websites and webpages that offer uniquely written, original, and very insightful information that take the user on a journey through their website to answer the kind of questions users are asking every day.

Different types of content serve different purposes, therefore it can be pretty challenging to establish whether or not your marketing team / agency are creating the best possible content that Google will a) Crawl b) Index and c) Rank.

Helpful content is unique content that has been created for a specific audience, that aligns with the needs of the keyword search conducted, that is credible, and finally that carries E-E-A-T (Experience > Expertise > Authoritativeness > Trustworthiness).

Helpful content should be credible, well-researched, and have no factual errors or spelling mistakes.

How Can I create Helpful Content on my Website?

Audience Targeting:

Who are you creating content for?

Take the time to understand your target persona and create unique and valuable content that allows then to carry out the interactions that they have visited your website to achieve.

This could be a product purchase, or to ask a question, to search for something or to read a specific piece of information.

Search Intent:

In order for your website to achieve this content utopia, first you need to establish what are the search intents that your target customers trigger when they carry out their search on Google. e.g. see below:

• Informational = “I would like to know some background information”
• Navigational = “I would like to discover more on the subject”
• Commercial = “I would like to know more details before I make a purchase/conversion action”
• Transactional = “I would like to make a purchase/conversion action”

Keyword Targeting:

Next up, draw up a keyword matrix based on the above search intent levels and align this with keywords that you want to target for your website.

Your keyword matrix should also be aligned in a natural way with your on-site metadata document covering the Title Tag, Description Tag, and H1-H6 tags.

Content Strategy and Creation:

Then you can plan out the type of content that you want to create and align this with your target keywords and your audiences search intent. This way your organic search engine optimisation strategy is focussed and structured around the goals of your business.