Marie Haynes – Creating Helpful Content Workbook
Google uses an AI driven system called the helpful content system to reward content that gives users a satisfying experience and demote content that is less likely to do so. This demotion is site-wide, which means that your mediocre content may be making it difficult for Google to want to rank your great content.
If your traffic has been declining since the rollout of a helpful content update, it is possible you have this classification on your site. The good news is that for some sites, it can be removed and you can recover. With that said, it will take a LOT of hard work for sites to recover from the September helpful content update. I believe many will not.
The key is to align with the criteria their AI models are designed to consider helpful. They are outlined here and further expounded upon in the Quality Rater Guidelines. The bad news is that it is not possible for all sites to recover. Especially if your key to success in the past has primarily been SEO.
This guide contains my advice based on my experience, along with several checklists to help you improve your content. It aims to increase the likelihood of Google considering your site as the best option to show searchers.
What You’ll Learn In Creating Helpful Content Workbook
- Understanding Google’s helpful content system
- How to know if you are impacted
- What it takes to recover
- Thoroughly understanding user intent as described in great detail in the QRG
- Removing content
- Improving Page Experience
- Demonstrating E-E-A-T, especially experience
- The importance of popularity
- What to expect in terms of recovery