Helpful content isn’t just good for your business—it’s necessary for any business that hopes to land on the first page of Google search results.
In Google’s August 2022 “helpful content update,” the search engine giant reaffirmed its “effort to ensure people see more original, helpful content written by people, for people, in search results.”
The primary takeaway from Google’s end-of-summer update? If Google determines that your website contains a high quantity of unhelpful content, none of your content will perform well in search.
But what does this mean for your company’s digital content strategy?
Unhelpful Content Will Not Succeed
To be clear, Google has always sought to connect people to helpful information, and the latest update only strengthens that purpose.
However, the “helpful content update” could have major implications for your business if you’ve been posting low-quality, unoriginal content willy-nilly without any real digital content strategy in place. From website copy to blog articles to public social media posts, all your content should be helpful, or it will almost certainly drag down your rankings in search.
The Problem with Most Thought Leadership Content
Lately, audiences have been devouring thought leadership content at an astonishing rate, yet 71% of executives say less than half of the content they consume is helpful. To create helpful content, you need more than a writer. You need original ideas.
But ask any content creator, and they’ll tell you: entirely too many content briefs include nothing more than a word count, a handful of keywords, and—if they’re lucky—a quick summary of the content’s purpose. Who took the content out of content marketing?
Content creators who research your topic on their own will discover the same top-performing articles that always hit the first page in Google’s search results. As a result, the article they write for you will likely be a repackaged amalgamation of buzzwords and filler content.
And that’s not thought leadership.
How to Turn Your Original Ideas into Helpful Content
Here’s what we know so far:
- Helpful content is high-performing content
- Original ideas shape helpful content
- Keywords are not original ideas
So how do you convert your original ideas into digestible, high-performing, helpful content that deserves a top search engine ranking?
Trust your team
Your organization’s internal subject matter experts are excellent content contributors.
Take note of who has ideas and insights to share. You may be surprised to find that almost everyone on your team has something original to contribute!
Explore your archives
Your business is collecting content ideas all day, every day—and you probably haven’t realized it! Whether it’s a client testimonial, an incredible internal presentation, or an in-depth email exchange with a client, your company is almost certainly chock full of content inspiration.
Make your existing assets part of your digital content strategy, and you’ll reap twice the rewards for half the work.
Review your current content
Take an objective stance and read through your company’s existing content as if you were a complete stranger to your brand.
Would you re-share that social media post? Would you comment on that blog article? Would you subscribe to that newsletter? Is your content truly helpful, or is it just more noise? Use these takeaways to inform your future content.
Embrace a people-first strategy
Too many companies invest enormous sums of money into keyword strategists, leaving nothing for the content creators themselves. But no one reads, shares, or saves an article because of its keywords!
Keywords are a vital part of a successful content strategy—not the strategy itself. A people-first strategy leads with a strong message, not keywords.
Review your metrics
If you want to know how your content is currently performing, review your metrics. Is your content drawing visitors to your site? Are those visitors bouncing off the page or sticking around for a while? Is your content earning engagement, like blog comments or newsletter replies?
Remember: your content represents your business and your brand. As such, you should be proud to share it and certain of its helpfulness to your audience.
Invest in great content creators
Not every subject matter expert is a content mastermind. And they don’t need to be—they’re already really good at something else! However, an experienced content team knows exactly how to turn your original ideas into successful thought leadership content.
At Every Little Word, we use Content Conversations™ to create high-value blog articles, newsletters, social media posts, website copy, and more.
Helpful Content Is High-Performing Content
You’ll never go wrong publishing content that answers questions, solves problems, and gives your audience a healthy dose of inspiration. What else do you think potential customers look for when searching Google?
Ultimately, the most important question shouldn’t be, “What does Google want?” but rather, “What does our audience want?” With this update, the answers to those two questions have never been more similar. So isn’t it time to switch to a people-first approach that’s helpful, engaging, and authentic?
Talk to Every Little Word about how we can help you create helpful, high-performing, original content. Book a Discovery Call!
