Google’s latest update went live at the end of August, with a clear emphasis on encouraging genuinely helpful, people-first content. This has been on the search giant’s agenda for some time now, with the most recent changes forming another major step in the journey away from bloated, keyword-stuffed websites, and towards something far more useful and authentic.
So, what does this mean for you? You may have experienced some volatility in your traffic numbers and search results in the aftermath of the update. This is universally to be expected, regardless of how healthy your ranking was before, but we find that things usually settle back down within a few weeks. If you’re following best practice (or if you’ve asked us to manage this for you), you won’t see a negative impact overall.
If you’re managing your own SEO, and you’re concerned about your ranking or still noticing issues, it’s worth taking a cold, hard look at your content through the lens of Google’s latest recommendations.
1. Put people first
When you’re creating content, ask yourself the following question: who’s my audience? Is it my customers, and potential customers, or is it search engine users? Your content should always be written for people first, and crafted in a way that’s natural and engaging.
This doesn’t mean that you can’t choose to write for both people and search engines; it’s perfectly fine (and even sensible) to optimise your user-focused content with strategic keywords, but this shouldn’t be your main aim, and it shouldn’t be done in a way that’s blatant. With this update, Google is working to eliminate sites that are full of links and keywords, so use both only where they’d naturally occur.
Another tactic to avoid is overly relying on AI to create content. If you do want to use it, do so sparingly and ensure you’re always proofing and editing to be sure the copy feels human.
2. Stay within your niche
Google cautions against ‘producing lots of content on different topics in hopes some of it might perform well’. Instead, it prefers websites that have a clear niche and stick within it. One of the main reasons this latest update hasn’t hit dentists particularly hard is that they tend to create content that sits within a defined area. Dentistry is a clear and specific topic in its own right, so the content you create will be very different to that produced by a local hotel, for instance, which might be writing about everything from live music events to wellbeing, to family friendly travel.
Nevertheless, it’s worth taking a step back and considering if there are any off-topic blogs that might be skewing your focus. Even something like the link between back posture and oral health is probably stretching the point a little too far, as these subjects are just not closely related enough. There’s plenty to write about within your field, if you dig deeper. Google asks, ‘Do you have an existing or intended audience … that would find the content useful if they came directly to you?’ Therefore, if you’re lacking inspiration, try to think of common patient queries, and consider building your content around these.
3. Don’t jump on the bandwagon
‘Trending’ topics are to blame for many an erroneous website page. It’s easy to see these popular, high-volume topics as an easy way to get visitors onto your site, but it rarely works out that way. In fact, you may even get penalised. Unless a trending topic just happens to be conveniently within your area of interest (for instance, if there’s a celebrity craze around Invisalign), writing about it will only cause a high bounce rate (where a user visits your site and leaves without doing anything else), and a dilution of your core message (as mentioned in our previous point).
So, tempting as they may be, it’s better to leave trends, national days and seasonal miscellany (for instance, relating pumpkin spiced lattes to dental health) well alone.
4. Offer original images and insight
As part of the drive to prioritise genuinely helpful experiences, Google wants websites to offer original content (as opposed to repeating and re-using what’s already featured elsewhere). This means that where you can, you should try to feature your own imagery and write fresh content, avoiding anything that’s duplicate.
It also means providing original insight on a topic; sharing thoughts on the things you’re an expert on, or offering details of a first-hand experience (such as a new product review), rather than summarising what’s already out there. This may take a little longer to produce, but it will add real value, and will also help you to write within your niche. One of the questions Google recommends asking yourself is: ‘After reading your content, will someone leave feeling they’ve learned enough about a topic to help achieve their goal?’ The main aim is therefore to write about your topic so well that users won’t need to look elsewhere for more.
To do this, use as many words as it takes – one of the interesting things to come out of this update is that Google has confirmed that it’s not looking for a particular word count. This doesn’t mean that it’s fine to create a lot of super-short articles; you won’t be pushed down the rankings for their length, but if they’re consistently brief, they’re unlikely to be very useful.
5. Take a holistic view
This is a good point in time to pause, step back, and take a look at the content you’ve got in place. Bearing in mind what’s just been said, is there anything that doesn’t seem relevant, or doesn’t need to be there? Don’t be afraid to cull old additions to get your website to a core of helpful, well written and on-topic content.
The ultimate goal is that readers leave your site having had ‘a satisfying experience’. Much of what we’ve considered here is simple best practice for content, and it’s reassuring to know that if you’re working within these guidelines, you’ll be well on the way to good visibility. However, if you’re concerned about loss of rank, get in touch. We can run an audit of your site and its content, and make some recommendations to get you back on track.
