Content and Google – Elevate Your Website’s Ranking: The Importance of Quality Content
Google’s commitment to enhancing the user search experience remains unwavering. Last month, the tech giant introduced another significant content update to further streamline the search process for its users. However, the key takeaway here is that simply creating helpful content isn’t sufficient. Your existing content’s quality plays an equally pivotal role and can significantly impact your efforts.
The Google Perspective
Google’s official stance on this matter is crystal clear: it’s not just unhelpful content that can hinder your website’s performance. Sites with a considerable amount of low-quality content, regardless of its helpfulness, are less likely to shine in search results. Google aims to display the most valuable content available on the web, and if your site falls short in this regard, your rankings may suffer.
Beyond Creating Content
To enhance your website’s ranking and visibility, focusing solely on creating helpful content is only part of the equation. Equally important is the need to address and rectify any subpar content that might be lurking on your site. To accomplish this, consider the assistance of a digital marketing agency like ours.
Our Agency’s Solution
Our agency specialises in content audits and content strategy development. We can help you identify areas of concern in your existing content and work with you to create a strategy for improvement. To get started, all you need to do is schedule a call with our dedicated team.
Content Audits: A Deeper Dive
A content audit is a comprehensive examination of all the content on your website. It involves assessing the quality, relevance, and effectiveness of each piece of content. By conducting a content audit, you gain insights into which parts of your site are excelling and which ones need improvement. This data is invaluable for making data-driven decisions about your content strategy.
Creating a Content Strategy:
Once you’ve identified areas that need improvement through a content audit, the next step is crafting a content strategy. A well-defined strategy sets the direction for your content creation efforts. It includes guidelines for creating new content, optimising existing content, and ensuring consistency in tone and messaging across your website.
Decoding the Helpful Content System
The helpful content system is Google’s way of ensuring that users have a satisfying and valuable experience when they interact with search results. It operates on the principle that content that meets a visitor’s expectations is rewarded, while content that falls short won’t perform as well.
This system generates a site-wide signal that becomes one of the many factors considered by Google’s automated ranking systems. It’s essential to note that this system is not based on manual actions or spam penalties; instead, it’s driven by an automated machine-learning model. This system is global, working across all languages and regions.
What’s noteworthy is that any content on a site, not just unhelpful content, can influence a site’s overall performance in search results. Sites with a significant amount of unhelpful content are less likely to rank well. Therefore, removing unhelpful content can positively impact the rankings of your other content.
If your site hosts third-party content, this content may be factored into site-wide signals, including the assessment of content helpfulness. To maintain control over your site’s reputation, it’s advisable to block third-party content that is largely independent of your site’s purpose.
Implications for Your Site
If your website consistently produces helpful content, the implementation of the helpful content system is beneficial. It is designed to reward websites that prioritise user satisfaction and provide valuable information.
However, if you’ve observed a decline in traffic that you suspect is related to this system, it’s essential to assess your content. Google’s help page offers valuable insights and questions to help you evaluate your content’s helpfulness and relevance. This self-assessment is a proactive step to ensure your website aligns with the helpful content system’s objectives.
One common question is how long it takes for a site to see improvements after removing unhelpful content. The timeline can span several months as the system continuously evaluates websites. As it recognizes that unhelpful content has been addressed in the long term, the previous classification will no longer apply.
Google periodically refines how the classifier detects unhelpful content. Major updates are communicated as “helpful content updates.” After a significant update is fully implemented, if the refined classifier sees improvements in content quality, the unhelpful classification from the previous version may no longer affect your site.
Please note:
Successful marketers continually revisit and refine their content and campaigns, adapting to the changing digital landscape. For those running paid ad campaigns, we have a valuable tool to help you streamline this process.
