Helpful content is content created with the user as the primary focus, designed to inform, educate, or provide value. It stands out by being original, insightful, and comprehensive, ensuring that the reader’s needs are fully met without any hidden agendas of manipulating search engine rankings.
This is a new metric which website content is assessed for as part of Google's August 2022 helpful content update which has significantly impacted what sites gets indexed and ranked for Google Search.
What is Helpful Content?
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People-first approach: Helpful content is crafted with the intent to solve a problem, answer a question, or provide value to an audience that already exists or is likely to find it useful. It is not written just to attract search engine rankings.
- Original and valuable information: The content offers something new—whether it’s original research, detailed analysis, offer a fresh perspective or be formatted in a more useful way for website visitors. It should not merely summarise what others have written or be a copy & paste.
- Demonstrates expertise: Whether it’s through personal experience, professional knowledge, or detailed research, helpful content should show the writer as having a clear expertise and understanding of the subject matter. For example, a product review might include first-hand usage and detailed testing.
Why Is It Important?
- Google prioritizes helpful content: Google's ranking algorithms are designed to reward content that is reliable and created for people. This means helpful content is more likely to perform well in search results, leading to increased visibility and traffic.
- Builds trust and authority: When users find your content helpful, they are more likely to trust your site and return for future information. Over time, these metrics helps establish authority in your niche and are used as part of the search algorithm
- Encourages engagement and shares: Well-written, insightful content is more likely to be bookmarked, shared with others, or reverenced to with a backlinked which helps SEO.
What Does Helpful Content Look Like?
- Comprehensive and detailed: Helpful content covers the topic thoroughly, answering common questions, providing in-depth information and linking to high quality external resources as appropriate. It shouldn't leave the reader with half an answer wanting more or searching elsewhere for better answers.
- Descriptive and honest titles: The main heading or title should clearly reflect the content without exaggeration or misleading claims. A title like "10 Proven Ways to Improve Your SEO" should offer exactly that—proven strategies, not vague AI generated text broadly on the subject.
- Well-structured and easy to navigate: It’s important that helpful content is formatted in a way that makes it easy to consume. This might include proper use of headings, bullet points, and clear, concise language. A well-organised structure allows users to find the information they need quickly and navigate throughout your site using internal links.
What Is Not Helpful Content?
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Search engine-first content: Content written purely to attract search engine traffic without considering the user’s needs is unhelpful. For example, articles stuffed with keywords but lacking substance or offering shallow insights only frustrate users which leads to high bounce rates and ultimately the search engine penalising you in favour of more reliable links for its customers.
- Affiliate Links: Google has been cracking down harshly on Low quality articles designed only to generate Affiliate Revenue or stuffed with outbound affiliate links which does not offer anything new to the customer. If going down this path, you should be ensuring you are writing useful content.
- Mass-produced or automated content: Content that is produced in large quantities by automated systems or with minimal human which is repetitive, lacks depth, and provides little real value is likely to be detected and ranked harshly. If using AI content, be sure to expand on it with knowledge and rewrite it to be useful.
- Misleading or clickbait content: Content that exaggerates or misrepresents its subject—such as promising answers to unanswerable questions (e.g., "leaked release date for an unconfirmed product")—is considered unhelpful. It misleads users and damages trust in both the content and the site.
- Content lacking expertise: Writing about trending topics without a real understanding or expertise in the subject can result in shallow, unreliable content. For example, creating medical advice content without a health expert’s input may misinform readers and harm the site's credibility. 'Health' is an example of a subject Google is critical on and wants to only rank pages from Authoritative sources.