Google has released a helpful content update aimed at improving the quality of search results for internet users. This step was taken to filter out content that has little value, even though it ranks high in search results.
This update is expected to make it easier for users to find and access quality content relevant to the questions or topics they search for. However, how does the helpful content update affect affiliate marketing practices?
As an affiliate marketing blogger who relies on promoting specific content to earn commissions, you need to improve the quality of the content written and published on your website. Check out the ACCESSTRADE article below for more information on helpful content!
What is Helpful Content?
Helpful content is a type of content designed and created with the primary goal of providing benefits and added value to users. This content focuses on providing solutions, answering questions, or providing relevant and useful information to its audience.
Google announced the concept of helpful content on August 18, 2022, with changes starting to roll out on August 25, 2022. The update aims to address low-quality content that focuses more on search engines than on user needs.
The content Google targets lacks user experience, expertise, authoritativeness, or builds trustworthiness with users (E-A-T). Despite ranking high in search results pages (SERPs) and receiving significant search traffic, this type of content often fails to provide satisfactory answers to users, leading users to continue searching for additional information on search engines.
In the context of digital marketing and SEO, helpful content is not only a content strategy to meet Google's standards but also to build strong relationships between affiliate marketing bloggers, the brands promoted in the content, and your website's audience.
Content that helps solve problems or provides useful information is more likely to be accessed and read by users, thereby increasing a website's visibility and authority in search engines.
Helpful Content vs. Unhelpful Content
Helpful content is a type of content that provides significant added value to users by providing relevant, accurate information that meets their needs and search intent. This content tends to provide solutions to users' problems or questions, is in-depth in its explanations, and is easy to understand.
Conversely, unhelpful content is content that is less relevant, inaccurate, or does not meet users' search needs. This content may be too general, lack detail, or provide no useful or satisfying information for users, making it less likely to sustain user interest or significant engagement.
There are several common reasons why content doesn't generate much traffic, even though it's well-thought-out. Let's examine some factors that can affect a piece of content's performance in reaching a wider and more relevant audience:
1. Content Doesn't Offer Something New
Users are looking for fresh information or new perspectives. If content simply rehashes existing content without adding value or new insights, users may be less inclined to visit or share it.
2. The Intro Is Too Long and Doesn't Get to the Point
If the intro is too convoluted or too long, users may lose interest before they get to the actual information. An intro that teases too much without providing a quick answer to a user's needs can lead them to move on to another source.
3. Content Doesn't Match User Intent
For your information, Google is becoming increasingly sophisticated at understanding user search intent. If content doesn't fully satisfy or answer a user's actual query, the search engine may not rank it high in search results.
Sometimes, Google gives preference to certain types of content, such as long-form articles, videos, or infographics. If your content isn't tailored to these preferences, it may not receive optimal exposure in search results.
4. Better Competitor Content
If competitors offer content that is more comprehensive, relevant, or easier for users to understand, they are likely to get more traffic. Therefore, it's important to conduct market research and competitor analysis to understand why their content is more engaging for visitors.
How Google Helpful Content Works
Before we delve into the Google Helpful Content Update, it's important to understand how Google Helpful Content works. The Google Helpful Content system strives to provide the best content to ensure a seamless experience for website visitors.
Consequently, content that doesn't meet visitor expectations will not perform well in terms of search engine performance.
Google's system is able to identify content that appears to have little value or doesn't offer any solutions to the audience. This classification process is fully automated using machine learning and will filter all content across multiple languages.
What is helpful content according to Google?
With a focus on providing added value to users, helpful content is not only the foundation of a successful digital marketing strategy but also key to creating a positive experience for the audience accessing your website.
Google's guidelines for helpful content are generally divided into four areas. Here are the details of helpful content according to Google:
1. Is the Content Created for a Specific Audience?
Content published on affiliate marketing websites often serves as the basis for communication between the writer and their specific audience. Some important questions to ask before creating affiliate marketing content include:
- Do you have a target audience for your business or website, who will benefit from the content if they visit your site directly? If not, check out our review on How to Identify Your Target Audience and Steps to Implement It.
- Does your website have a specific primary goal or focus?
- Is the content primarily aimed at attracting people from search engines, not created for humans?
- Are you producing a lot of content on different topics, hoping some of it will perform well in search results?
- Are you using extensive automation to generate content on multiple topics?
- Are you writing about something simply because it seems to be trending, rather than because you would write about it for your existing audience?
- Are you writing to a certain word count because you've heard or read that Google has a preferred word count?
When creating content, focus on the needs and interests of your existing or desired audience, not solely on meeting search engine standards. It's also important to evaluate whether the content you create is truly relevant and useful to your specific target audience.
2. Is the Content Created by Experts in the Field?
When discussing content quality, it's important to consider whether the content was created by experts in the field. Here are some considerations that can help you determine whether the content was created by experts in the field, including:
- Is the content written by an expert or enthusiast who knows the topic well?
- Does your content clearly demonstrate firsthand experience and in-depth knowledge (for example, expertise gained from using a product or service, or visiting a location)?
- Does the content provide in-depth analysis or interesting, unusual information?
- If the content references other sources, does it not simply copy or rewrite those sources but instead provides substantial added value and originality?
- Does the content provide substantial value compared to other pages in search results?
- Are you simply summarizing what others have said without adding much value?
- Are you deciding to cover a particular topic without having specific expertise in that niche, simply because you think it will generate search traffic?
As an affiliate marketing blogger, it's important to ensure that the content you create truly adds significant value and is written by an expert or enthusiast with in-depth knowledge in the field.
3. Is the Source Trustworthy and Credible?
When searching for information online, your affiliate marketing website audience will assess whether the source of the information you provide is trustworthy and credible. Here are some considerations that can help you determine the quality of content, including:
- Would you trust the information presented in this article?
- If you researched the site producing the content, would you get the impression that the site is trusted or widely recognized as an authority on its topic?
- Does the content contain easily verifiable factual errors?
- Does the content provide original information, reports, research, or analysis?
- Does the content provide a substantial, complete, or comprehensive description of the topic?
- Does the headline and/or page title provide a descriptive and useful summary of the content?
- Are the headline and/or page titles not exaggerated or surprising?
- Is this the kind of page you'd want to bookmark, share with friends, or recommend?
- Would you expect to see this content in or referenced by a print magazine, encyclopedia, or book?
- Does the content have spelling or style issues?
- Is the content well-produced, or does it seem sloppy or hastily put together?
- Provide evidence, such as visuals, audio, or other links from your own experience with the product, to support your expertise and strengthen the authenticity of your review.
- Explain what sets the product apart from its competitors.
- Include links to other useful resources (your own or from other sites) to help readers make informed decisions.
- Consider including links to multiple sellers so readers have the option to purchase from their preferred seller.
By considering the above, website readers can make more informed and informed decisions when assessing the trustworthiness and credibility of online content sources, especially the affiliate marketing content you write.
4. Does the Content Meet User Needs?
When considering the quality of content, it's important to assess the extent to which it meets user needs. Here are some important considerations that can help you when producing content, including:
- After reading your content, will someone feel they've gained enough information on a topic to help them achieve their goals?
- Will someone reading your content feel like they've had a satisfying experience?
- Does your content make readers feel compelled to search for better information from other sources?
- Does your content promise to answer questions that don't actually have answers, such as suggesting a release date for a product, movie, or TV show when the release date hasn't been confirmed?
By considering these factors, you can evaluate the extent to which the content meets user needs, which is key to producing quality affiliate marketing content that is valuable to your audience.
Key Points of Google Helpful Content
To help you better understand Google Helpful Content, here are some key points to learn:
- Increased Priority for Helpful Content: Google now favors displaying content that provides relevant and useful answers or solutions to users. Content that answers frequently asked questions, provides step-by-step guides, or offers practical solutions has a better chance of ranking higher.
- Prioritizing User Experience: Various user experience factors, such as website load time and mobile responsiveness, are increasingly being taken into account in rankings. You need to ensure that your business website offers a good user experience.
- Prioritizing Content Quality: Informative, original, and high-quality content is also prioritized. Google strives to identify content that provides added value and accurate and relevant information. All content must be well-written, following Search Engine Optimization (SEO) guidelines and presenting clear and useful information.
- Pay Attention to Relevance: Content that is relevant to the topics or queries searched for by a specific niche has a better chance of ranking higher. Even when using specific keywords, relevance and topicality remain important aspects of content writing to help increase your visibility in search results.
How to create helpful content?
To write helpful content, there are several strategies you can implement to ensure the information you convey is truly beneficial to readers. Here are some tips to help you create impactful content:
- Create Topic Clusters: Organizing your content into topic clusters helps users find related information easily. Connect your articles with internal linking to improve navigation and usability.
- Avoid Redundancy: Ensure each article or post offers unique added value. Don't repeat information already available elsewhere, but add a new perspective or more in-depth details.
- Get to the Point: Start by providing an answer or solution that is directly relevant to the question or problem your readers are facing. Use a compelling opening paragraph to grab their attention from the start.
- Support Your Claims: Use references, data, or case studies to support every claim you make. This not only increases reader trust but also enhances the credibility of your content in the eyes of search engines.
- Go Beyond the Basics: Find out what's already out there and add value. Provide in-depth insights, practical solutions, or innovative thinking that isn't often covered in similar content.
Impact of the Helpful Content Update on Affiliate Marketing
Google's helpful content update has had a positive impact on affiliate marketing. One crucial element of an affiliate marketing strategy is the creation of informative and valuable product reviews. In this context, the quality of the product reviews produced is crucial, as it can influence users' trust levels when reading the content.
Previously, affiliate marketing practices often focused on attracting visitors and generating clicks using SEO techniques that didn't always prioritize content quality. However, with Google's introduction of helpful content, it's crucial for affiliate marketing bloggers to adapt their content strategies.
More helpful and high-quality content for readers is prioritized by search engines, so product reviews should go beyond mere product promotion to provide added value to readers.
By considering the criteria required for helpful content, affiliate marketers need to ensure that the content they create is informative, relevant, and provides solutions that meet users' needs. This will help increase user trust in the product reviews written on your website, thereby increasing the likelihood of generating conversions and earning commissions from the affiliate program.
Furthermore, by focusing on more useful content, affiliate marketing can also build better relationships with your audience. By providing useful information, your website can become a trusted and valued resource for users, helping to increase long-term user loyalty and engagement.
Conclusion
Google Helpful Content refers to a type of content that provides significant added value to users. This content not only provides relevant and accurate information, but also addresses users' search needs and intent in a useful and satisfying manner.
Google consistently prioritizes content that answers users' questions, provides solutions to their problems, or provides in-depth and detailed information. Google Helpful Content is key to winning the hearts of both users and search engines. Still confused about Google Helpful Content?
