Helpful Content Update Sep 2024: what lessons can we learn for our next content strategies?

On September 14, 2023, Google Search Central's X (Twitter) account announced late in the evening the launch of an SEO results update based on Helpful Content criteria. The Helpful Content Update completed its work on September 28, according to an official announcement. Since then, several other announcements have been made (October Spam Update, October Core Update), but that doesn't prevent us from taking a closer look at Helpful Content's impact on current and future content strategies.

Defining useful content

Utility is a very relative notion. There wouldn't be any frustrated webmasters if we all agreed on the criterion of usefulness. Just look at the arguments that can arise during spring cleaning or in an IKEA store! No, not everyone agrees on the notion of utility. We even tend to overestimate the value to the rest of the world of something we own or have created ourselves. 

The nuance between "helpful" and "useful" may be important. Help" implies someone stepping in to select information to provide. Something "helpful" might be off the beaten track, bringing new visions to bear on a subject. Useful" could be summed up as utilitarian and practical. But these are just semantic assumptions. It's a safe bet that nobody really has the time to ask themselves these questions. Yet another illustration of the notion of relative utility. On his personal account, John Mueller indicates that the launch of this Helpful Content Update would be a good time to do some pruning.

Content pruning is a very literal method of pruning a website's tree structure. This allows you to sort and concentrate your page rank on selected parts of the site.

Usefulness and uselessness factors for a website.

Sorting content allows you to take a fresh look at the value of your content, and of your pages in general. Content pruning also simplifies the structure of your website for even greater efficiency. Here are some ideas to explore:

Useless?	Useful?
Indexed pagination without mastery. Empty author pages. Identical tag pages. Faceted navigation without specific filter content. Content plagiarized from another source without citing it. Internal content duplication. Pages dealing with localities with no real presence in the area concerned.	Meet a current need around a popular, well-known search query. Responding to a niche topic is less frequent or popular, but no less relevant. Unique information whose relevance is supported by authoritative criteria. Feedback, advice, recommendations. Consistency between the page content, the title and the way the content is meshed into the website structure.

According to the Helpful Content System documentation, a single page that is less relevant or useless, or even of poor quality (dare we say it), can impact the whole website. This means that a domain could be penalized in an update, or automatically, because a few pages on offer disappointing content. This is an automatic weighting of the authority criterion. The notion of "people-first content" is also one of the criteria that Google insists on.

Tip: Promote a predictable website structure. 

Although we're all familiar with the existence of Quality Raters and manual penalties, it's clear that search engines work mostly automatically. This is essential if they are to meet the challenge of crawling, indexing and analyzing the entire Web. One might also assume that the application of spam filters and developments to improve the relevance of results are merely ways of sorting out the amount of data to be managed. Is Content Helpful Update the Marie Kondo of the Google results page? Even if Marie Kondo has given up the fight.

Don't underestimate or overestimate the relevance of your content.

It's relatively unlikely that your idea is absolutely exceptional and that you thought of it first, if we look at it from the point of view of humanity as a whole. However, you may still have the good idea, before others, to communicate about your idea.

Communicate with the robot by setting up a comprehensible semantic ecosystem.

The robot knows how to learn. In fact, that's all it does. It makes associations between ideas and cross-references tons of data and information linked to user expectations. Although we're dealing with increasingly complex algorithms, because they're becoming more and more sophisticated, the overall logic is relatively predictable. So, instead of expecting the robot to think like a human, let's think like a robot and use it to demonstrate the added value of our own websites. 

Even if the robot doesn't know whether what we're telling it is relevant or not, we can take it for granted that Google learns (not the company, the search engine). Let's take them by the hand and make the robot's learning process as easy as possible. Of course, all this is to convince the robot that our content, our website, is the most relevant in its field.

In the end, this is undoubtedly the real work of SEO: putting in place everything we can technically and editorially so that the robot understands the site and gives it the value it deserves.

The ongoing Helpful Content Update feature, which progressively updates the ratings given to websites, is a step in this direction. Useful content that isn't highlighted today may well be tomorrow, as the engine learns.

Encouraging you to think of your website as a whole

Behind the idea that a website could be penalized because of a single page, we encourage you to think of a website as an overall experience.

A number of internal linking strategies have already been developed to encourage the robot to move from one page to the next, in order to transmit popularity. But as in so many cases, points of view and strategies can complement and oppose each other... at the same time.

Semantic environment around "Dissertation" by creating a Semantic Cocoon in YourText.Guru.

1 page, 1 keyword, 1 search intent, 1 URL

The notion of uniqueness of content often leads us to design a page as if it were a free electron: an independent item that should contain all possible science on the subject in question. In the same way, we frequently recommend putting the page into context for the user, by reminding them through design elements, menus or inserts of the type of site they're on. All paratext is useful. Among other things, this ensures that users aren 't surprised by a CTA if they've already identified that they're on an e-commerce page.

But contextualization is also useful in cases where the page receives traffic from SEO or a social network. It would be misleading to believe that a person necessarily starts from the home page and then navigates through the website in a scholastic fashion, as if unrolling the outline of an essay.

Yes, retaining the best practice of specific content for a URL is a good idea. It's also a recommendation subject to over-interpretation. Quite often, we come across situations with customers who don't want to mention a topic, because it could create a duplicate. In such cases, we have to work with the customer to explain the nuance between a topic and an angle. In the same way, we need to force ourselves to see our own website through the eyes of someone who doesn't know it. The questions that seem most important to us are not necessarily the ones that web users are asking, and vice versa.

Demonstrate your site's relevance to search engines 

The motor learns like we do, and is designed to do so. It observes and then makes deductions. This just goes to show how important it is for a search engine to have the technology to browse and process vast quantities of data. 

Search engines are becoming increasingly sophisticated in their ability to analyze content. But that doesn't mean we should give up optimizing. In the vast majority of cases, all the optimizations we can recommend are in the interests of both the robot and the user. Why not optimize content by setting up a summary and internal linking, if this helps the robot to locate pages with strong semantic proximity while at the same time leading the user to complementary information?

Show us how you're the most relevant entity on the Web. How could we know without you telling us how easy your site is to navigate? How can we be convinced of the relevance of your services if you don't tell us about them? With the right people? What's the value of your network and expertise if we never read a single sentence from one of your most prestigious partners?

Consider each format and editorial content as a tool for demonstrating its relevance

Here are 15 content formats you can put on a website, presented according to their challenges.

1. Home page

- General presentation of the brand and website objectives. Identify it: e-commerce, rental service, educational resources?

- Internal linking to the most strategic pages. The home page evolves according to current events.

2. Services page

- A description of the service pages.

- Skillfully combine brand message, user experience and SEO optimization.

3. Product page

- A precise description of a product.

- Provide sufficient technical information to remove disincentives to purchase, then encourage sales. Beware of duplicating internal content.

4. Blog home page

- Listing of articles and internal meshing according to a predefined order. Antechronological order is the most common. Highlighting of specific articles is a skill.

- Change the mesh to deeper pages according to current events, to lead the robot and the user to strategic pages. Watch out for internal content duplication, which is frequent depending on tag management and pagination via CMS configuration.

5. Blog post

- Content a priori dated and therefore content may become obsolete.

- Opportunity to evolve content and demonstrate its relevance by updating it. We differentiate between publication and editing dates.

6. About us" page (Authority)

- Presentation content. It can present the history, values, objectives and ambitions of a person or an association, a company...

- Relatively free format. You can indulge yourself. Content to reassure and affirm your authority in your market or your career path. Similar "brand content" is an opportunity for stories and chronicles.

8. Guides and evergreen content

- Cool content that, unlike a blog, is less affected by the passage of time.

- Interesting format to be broken down so as to allocate a page to a search query. Stand out from the competition with new sources. Internal linking is essential.

9. FAQ

- Content that can have its own section or be integrated into existing pages.

- Answering simple questions, often linked to search queries or after-sales service requests.

10. Testimonials and case studies

- Demonstrating the quality of our services and products.

- Encourages the involvement of outsiders with concrete, tangible information. Ideal for partnerships.

11. Guest blogging and forums (Expertise)

- Guest content from experts in fields complementary to the main theme. Enhanced site relevance.

- Network enhancement.

13. Video content

- Multimedia content. If hosted on your own site, pay attention to loading times.

- Promotes visibility via various media (Google video, Youtube, etc.). Transcription and subtitles add textual content.

14. Infographics

- Graphic content. Can be presented as one large image or as a combination of text and image formats.

- Content has become complex in Responsive Design. Focusing on images requires transcription equivalents.

15. Podcasts

- Audio content, in the form of episodes or not. Broadcasting on multiple channels possible.

- Real or generated voice playback provides a very interesting alternative to text-based content of all sizes.

In a nutshell

In September 2023, Google Search Central launched the Helpful Content Update, marking an evolution in SEO. This update emphasizes the need to provide useful, quality content, prompting website owners to rethink their approach to content. Content pruning becomes essential to prune useless content and concentrate Page Rank. Every content format, whether it's home pages, blog posts, testimonials, videos or infographics, must contribute to demonstrating the site's expertise. What's more, it's crucial to understand that search engines are constantly learning from the content they analyze, which reinforces the importance of creating a coherent semantic ecosystem. In conclusion, Helpful Content Update encourages content creators to think holistically, provide relevant information and demonstrate their value, while adapting to SEO developments to optimize their online visibility.