Content Helpfulness: Write Meaningful Content & Recover Penalties

May 9

Good news at Content Land - the latest content helpfulness update improved my organic traffic!

This March 2024 core algorithm update aimed to reduce spam and unhelpful results by 40%.

If you were hit, don’t panic. It’s probably not your fault. It’s probably years of outdated SEO techniques, ancient blog posts, or hundreds of product pages that need updating. And all of this is fixable.

Regardless of the cause, you can build a remediation plan by changing how you produce new content and updating anything that dropped.

This article covers the principles I incorporate to maintain content quality, methods I use to help pages comply with Content Helpfulness guidelines, and how I implement these methods at scale.

5 steps to produce quality content that ranks

The basics are second-nature to SEO specialists, but we shouldn’t ignore them. Remember to include these steps in content production:

Keyword research
Meta titles and descriptions
Keyword-optimized URL
Keyword-optimized headings
Schema markup
Alt tags
Authors and bios (for blog posts)

In addition to hygiene checklists (as mentioned above), follow these content quality guidelines to get to page 1.

1. Offer a truly unique perspective

Google wants to rank a variety of content on page 1, giving users options. Stand apart and offer something different to increase your chances of ranking.

Unique information can come from:

Raising fresh takes or controversial opinions
Providing proprietary research
Offering a template, download, or tool
Breaking down complex topics with unique processes, information groupings, or diagrams.

2. Incorporate proof points

Link to authoritative sources and provide plenty of examples to prove your statements. Google recognizes quality outbound links.

According to SEMRush:

“The quality of your external links matters… Only link to websites that are credible and professional. If you link to websites that have clickbait content or low-quality information, you’ll lose the trust of your readers and Google. Which hurts your reputation and your SEO.”

3. Reduce excessive language

SEO writing is much more than a grammatically correct article full of LSI terms. It’s about writing sentences that go beyond the obvious (or the boring), offering real value. That means, you can’t rely on ChatGPT to spin up a blog post.

Stop repeating yourself and including blanket statements in your writing. Get to the point and make sure every sentence has a purpose.

4. Organize content like a pro

Organizing content into sensible headings and lists is a skill. Anyone with industry expertise can spew 1,000 words on their unique opinion. But only an SEO specialist will know how to break that up in a way that is friendly to users and search engines.

The best way to do this: make sure headings are descriptive and add value. Do you see how the headings in this article make a nice little summary? Brief two-word headings do nothing more than add space.

A heading should:

Anchor a reader in web pages so they know where they are
Help them scan lengthy articles to locate the information they need
Give them a decent overview of what’s covered

5. Incorporate unique graphics

Unique images do so much more than provide a resting spot in content. They also provide opportunities to rank in image results, help readers scan content, support your points, and add credibility.

Here are some examples of useful graphics from Content Land:

You could follow the guidelines above to try to address penalized content, but that could mean complete overhauls. Next, we’ll get into a more direct approach to add truly helpful content.

How to update penalized content

If you were penalized for unhelpful content, Google (obviously) wants you to be more helpful. But that’s easier said than done.

Unfortunately, it can be hard to anticipate how to help people. We can guess what they want through asking customer-facing teams. We can take a look at what keywords they’re searching. We can see which keywords actually convert. We can then take these findings to test ad messaging… but all of that’s a very round-about process.

1. Lean on forums to gather customer data

The best way to directly find what people want is to look in forums. That means Reddit, industry-specific discussion forums, or maybe even LinkedIn.

For example, see what they write about when trying to choose a product or service that you offer. What key terms stand out among the threads? Do they want something affordable, do they look for a specific factor to prove trustworthiness, or is there a specific feature they like?

Now that you’ve reviewed forums; you can address questions, ease concerns, and provide the information they’re really looking for on your product pages.

2. Analyze top-ranking websites

Look at top-ranking websites for ideas. What type of content do they provide - general information, product comparisons, how to, or something else? Make sure you’re matching keyword intent.

And beyond the content they write about, consider their layouts. How are they conveying data, and how are they breaking up complex information so it’s easy to understand?

Now think about how you can embody all of these factors while finding ways to stand apart. You’ll have to go the extra mile to rank!

3. Implement findings at scale

As you’re reviewing forums and competitors, be sure to document all of your findings to uncover patterns. Trends in the first few reviews prove these factors are relevant across other pages.

For example, you might find:

Forums highlight the value of third-party testing for products
Forums say that the cheapest options are often a scam
Top-ranking pages use detailed imagery of product offerings
Top-ranking pages have competitor comparison grids
Top-ranking pages have interactive tables of contents built-in
Top-ranking pages have “Our Process” sections
Top-ranking pages have 2,000 words

If there are any repeatable sections of content you can create, or any template tweaks that will give you an edge, prioritize rolling these out to large groups of pages.

Relearning to write for Content Helpfulness

If you were penalized in March/April 2024, look at it as an opportunity. SEOs can be nervous to touch web content that was written by subject matter experts (especially if it’s already ranking). But now it should be easy to get buy-in on updating web content. And since Google is valuing human-centric writing over keyword stuffing, it’s also a win for site users.

If you have the time and willpower to tackle all of the mentioned steps in your SEO writing, you’re going to perpetuate a website that maintains rankings and converts buyers.

Take the latest updates as your sign to slow down production and focus on quality.

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