You’ve likely heard that content is one of the most significant components of most search engine optimization (SEO) efforts, but simply publishing blog posts won’t guarantee success. It takes a carefully developed and implemented strategy to leverage content to drive traffic and establish your website as a credible resource in your industry.

This article is an SEO guide touching on the future of content in search optimization, especially in terms of content clusters and topic authority. By the end, you’ll understand these concepts and gain actionable content SEO ideas to help your business excel online.

What are content clusters?

Imagine yourself in a library. You’ll see bookshelves containing books grouped together by a common topic. For instance, books on history typically go to the same bookshelf, while science books have their own designated area. Organizing them this way makes it easier for readers to find and access the necessary information.

Content clusters are comparable to bookshelves in a library, serving to organize information around a central topic or theme. Here’s how they work:

• Pillar content refers to the main piece of content covering a broad topic in detail. For example, a pillar page could be a post entitled “The Ultimate Guide Troubleshooting HVAC Issues.”

• Cluster content pertains to shorter, more focused articles diving deeper into specific subtopics related to the main content. With the above example, cluster content could cover “Common HVAC Problems and How to Fix Them” or “The Importance of Regular HVAC Maintenance.”

• Internal links connect the pillar page and each cluster piece, creating a network of interlinked content.

An interconnected structure makes your website more user-friendly and signals to search engines that your site is a comprehensive resource on a given subject.

Why are content clusters crucial in SEO?

Search engine algorithms have evolved and no longer rank websites based solely on individual keywords. Rather, they evaluate your site’s ability to effectively and authoritatively answer users’ questions. Content clusters help in these regards by:

• Enhancing user experience. When users land on your website from the search engine results, presenting them with well-organized content helps them find the information they seek. This encourages them to stay on your website longer, which is a positive ranking signal for search engines.

• Demonstrating authority. A network of interconnected content on a specific topic shows your expertise and authority, making users more likely to trust you and return for more information. To search engines, this signals that your website is a credible source and worthy of high rankings.

• Increasing relevance. Internal linking between your pillar content and cluster pieces indicates to search engines that your content offers comprehensive and relevant information. It also allows you to rank for broader topics and leverage more long-tail keywords.

• Bolstering your SEO strategy. Targeting broad and specific keywords helps you cater to users at different stages of their search journey. This enables you to target more users and drive more traffic to your website.

For small and medium businesses, a well-planned content cluster strategy ensures that your SEO and content marketing efforts help you stand out, attract more customers, and grow your online presence.

Why does topic authority matter?

Topic authority refers to your website’s ability to be seen as a trusted and go-to resource for information on a specific subject. The more in-depth and high-quality your content, the more likely search engines are to recognize your site as authoritative.

Here are content SEO ideas to help you build topic authority:

• Dive deep into topics. Cover all aspects of a subject. If you run a plumbing service, for example, you could create content on everything from “Unexpected Signs of a Leaking Faucet” to “10 Tools to Have for DIY Plumbing Repair.”

• Strive for consistency. Stay relevant and competitive by regularly publishing new, high-quality content related to your chosen topics.

Leverage data and expertise. Demonstrate that you know your stuff by backing up your claims with facts, statistics, and expert insights,

• Engage your audience. Answer questions your target audience may have. Consider what they search for online and create content to address those queries.

Becoming a trusted source of information doesn’t just help you attract website visitors; it can also help build trust and loyalty. When your audience trusts you, they are easier to convert into paying customers.

How can you get started?

Here’s how you can take your SEO and content marketing to the next level through content clusters and by boosting your topic authority:

1. Identify core topics. Consider the main topics your business revolves around. For an electrician service business, this could include “Electrical Safety” or “Lighting Installation.” These topics should align with your business goals and target audience’s interests.

2. Craft your pillar content. Choose one of your core topics and write a long-form piece of content on it. For instance, you could write a post on electrical safety, entitled “The Ultimate Guide to Electrical Safety in Your Home.”

3. Develop cluster content. Think of related subtopics and write content for each one. For the previous content, you could write articles on “How to Protect Your Home from Electrical Fires” or “Why You Should Hire a Professional Electrician for Installations.”

4. Link your content internally. Connect each cluster piece to the pillar page and vice versa using internal links.

5. Monitor and optimize. Use analytics tools like Google Analytics to track which topics are performing well and adjust your strategy as needed.

Content remains a vital part of successful SEO, but the strategy for using it must evolve as search engines update their algorithms. This is how you can create a website that ranks high, stands out, and connects with your audience.

But as this SEO guide may have told you by now, content marketing requires plenty of time and effort. If you don’t have the resources to write and update content on a regular basis, consider hiring a professional SEO agency instead. An SEO company can create a robust strategy and has writers who can produce high-quality content for your website. This way, you can reap the benefits of content marketing while remaining focused on growing your business.

Boost your website with a good content strategy today!

Do you ever feel like Internet users are too impatient? Well, that’s because they are. With such a vast amount of information and content available just a few taps away, users have become used to getting what they want nigh instantly.

This has translated into their browsing habits as well, with studies showing that most users will abandon your mobile website if it doesn’t load within three seconds. Such behavior can increase your site’s bounce rates and negatively impact its search engine optimization (SEO) performance.

So, how can you prevent your website from falling victim to this impatience? Here are 10 proven website optimization tactics to improve your page loading speed:

Get website performance insights

Before you begin optimizing your site, you need to know where it stands in terms of performance. You can use Google Search Console to conduct a website SEO audit to uncover issues potentially slowing down your web pages’ loading speed.

Go to Search Console’s “Experience” section and navigate to the Core Web Vitals report. It evaluates key areas like loading speed, interactivity, and visual stability, giving you a clear idea of which technical and SEO improvements to implement.

Optimize images on web pages

Images make your web pages more attractive, informative, and engaging, but they can also slow down your website. This often happens when you use images in an incorrect format or very large file sizes.

When using images, ensure they’re in formats like JPEG and PNG, which are compatible with web browsers and compression tools. If your images are too large, use tools like TinyPNG to compress them without compromising quality.

You can also implement responsive images through the “srcset” attribute. Responsive images automatically adjust their format and dimensions according to the user’s device. This keeps images on your website looking great and loading fast, whether viewed from a wide desktop monitor or a small smartphone.

Take advantage of browser caching

When users visit your website, their browser retrieves files from your server to display the page’s contents. This process can take time, especially if your website has many elements.

Browser caching temporarily stores static assets on your website, such as images and Javascript, on the users’ browsers. The next time they visit, these assets are retrieved from their browser instead of your server, cutting down on page loading time.

Reduce the number of HTTP requests

An HTTP request happens when site visitors perform specific actions, such as clicking a link, leading to their browsers retrieving assets from your server. The more elements your page has, the more requests are made. Unfortunately, each request adds to your page’s loading time.

Consider removing unnecessary elements from your web pages as a website optimization tactic. You can also combine CSS and Javascript assets to reduce the number of files that need to be retrieved.

Use a content delivery network (CDN)

Distribute your content across a CDN, a network of servers located in different geographic locations worldwide. Whenever someone accesses your website, they are served content from the closest server, reducing the time it takes to load your web page.

Minify your website’s code

Your website’s CSS, Javascript, and HTML code can have comments, white space, and formatting that help make it easier to read and debug. However, these features can make your website’s code bulkier and your pages slower.

You can use tools like Minify to remove unnecessary white space, comments, and formatting from your code. CMS platforms like WordPress also have plugins that can automatically minify your code, making the process more convenient.

Implement the lazy loading feature

Lazy loading prevents images and videos on your web pages from loading until the user scrolls to them. If users don’t scroll down, the elements at the bottom of your page won’t load, reducing the page’s overall loading time.

Enable Gzip compression

Another website optimization technique you should consider is Gzip compression, which reduces the size of your website’s files during transmission. This process compresses assets like CSS and Javascript files, making them smaller and faster to load.

Remove render-blocking resources

Render-blocking resources are elements on your web page that prevent the page from displaying until they’ve loaded. These resources can include CSS, Javascript, and fonts.

One way to remove render-blocking resources is using asynchronous loading for your scripts. This allows different parts of your page to load simultaneously, reducing overall loading time. You can also use the “defer” attribute in your script tags.

Tools like Google Lighthouse can help you identify render-blocking resources in your web pages. Like Google Search Console, Lighthouse offers visibility into your site’s Core Web Vitals and is a handy tool for website SEO audits.

Clean up your code

Your website’s code can have errors and inefficiencies that can slow down your web pages. These include broken links, unused code, and invalid HTML tags. Regularly conducting technical SEO audits on your site can help you detect redundant or outdated code, allowing you to clean it up and improve your website’s overall performance.

Your website’s page loading speed may seem like a small detail, but it’s critical to providing the best experience to users. When visitors find the information they seek quickly and efficiently, they’re more likely to stay on your site longer, increasing your chances of converting them into paying customers.

Additionally, fast loading makes your site appear more reliable, leading to higher search engine rankings and better overall SEO performance. These are some of the top reasons that make page speed optimization one of the most important technical SEO improvements you should make on your site.

However, implementing the steps above requires some tech know-how, so consider hiring a dedicated technical SEO company if you don’t have the expertise to do it yourself. They have the necessary tools and knowledge to help you optimize your website for better page loading speed and overall user experience, leading to improved rankings, traffic, and conversions.

Don’t let a slow website hold back your online success. Optimize your site’s page loading speed today.

Mobile technology has come a long way since the first brick-sized cell phones were introduced in the 1980s. Today’s smartphones are miniature computers that allow users to communicate with others, access information, earn money, be entertained, and make purchases.

Improvements in mobile technology have also made smartphones more affordable, with models obtainable for different budget points. As of 2024, there are almost five billion smartphone users worldwide, with nearly 300 million in the United States alone.

In fact, more than half of all Internet traffic today can be traced back to mobile devices. It isn’t a stretch to assume that these figures will only continue growing rapidly in the next few years.

For small and medium business owners like yourself, making mobile search engine optimization (SEO) an integral part of your digital marketing strategy is simply no longer an option—it’s a necessity. In this post, we’ll explore why mobile SEO will be all the more important in 2025.

Why mobile SEO matters in 2025

Several new and existing trends make iOS and Android SEO a priority in 2025, including the following:

Younger consumers

Many mobile users come from younger generations who will eventually age and make up the bulk of future consumers. Optimizing your website and online marketing strategies for mobile devices is crucial in reaching and engaging with this growing demographic.

Voice search

Newer smartphone models have built-in voice-activated assistants like Siri and Google Assistant, making it easier for users to search the Internet hands-free. Over 40% of adults in the US use voice search daily, and this number is expected to continue rising in the coming years.

Your SEO strategy should incorporate both mobile and voice searches to ensure that your website appears at the top of the results for voice searches.

Mobile-first indexing

When ranking websites on the search engine results page (SERP), Google prioritizes the site’s mobile version over the desktop one. This became the standard as early as 2021, and it will likely remain in place until further notice.

Mobile-first indexing means you should never neglect mobile optimization when building or updating your small or medium business’s website. Your website may look and work excellently on desktops, but its search performance will likely be lackluster if it’s not mobile-friendly.

User experience (UX)

Your website’s ability to provide a smooth experience to mobile users affects how Google ranks your website. If your website loads longer than three seconds and looks clunky on mobile, users will get frustrated, leave, and never return.

This increases your site’s bounce rates and lowers your engagement numbers. These signal to Google that your site is unable to provide interesting and relevant information to users, leading to a drop in its search rankings.

Mobile e-commerce (M-commerce)

The COVID-19 pandemic and resulting lockdowns caused more people to shop online, and many did so using their mobile devices. M-commerce now accounts for over 70% of all online purchases, a 20% increase from 2018’s figures.

Convenience is one of the predominant reasons why people shop on mobile. As potential customers browse products on your website, making it effortless to add items to their cart and check out can positively affect their purchasing decision.

Social media

No mobile SEO guide would be complete without mentioning social media and its effects on your site’s rankings. Social networks are among the best tools to generate awareness and traffic for your website through shareable content and social proof.

Incidentally, social media platforms are generally designed for mobile devices, with most users accessing them through their phones. Creating easy-to-share content and ensuring your site is mobile-friendly makes it easier for users to visit your website through social media.

AI and machine learning

Google and other search engines are increasingly using AI and machine learning to accurately track user behavior, natural language usage, search intent, and other key ranking systems. As your website’s technical SEO strategy moves toward mobile-friendliness, it’ll likely be more favored by these search engines’ changing algorithms.

How to improve your mobile SEO in 2025

Here’s a mobile SEO guide to boost your digital marketing efforts:

Design for mobile

Instead of designing for desktops, you should prioritize developing a mobile-friendly version of your website first and foremost. This keeps it aligned with Google’s mobile-first indexing standard. Ensure your website is mobile-responsive, which means it adjusts to different screen sizes and remains functional even when viewed through smartphones and tablets.

In terms of design elements, you should ensure that your content is easy to scan and read in any screen size. This means avoiding large blocks of text, using bigger font sizes, and incorporating images to break up the text.

Optimize for speed

Your website’s technical SEO strategy should focus on improving page loading speeds. A technical SEO audit will help uncover elements slowing down your site, including large media, unnecessary plugins, and bulky code. It can also give you ideas on how to speed up your site for mobile users, such as enabling browser caching and compressing images.

Ensure mobile-friendly navigation

Mobile-friendly navigation follows different rules from desktop navigation. For instance, menus and submenus are often reduced to a drop-down format accessible through a hamburger menu icon. You should also ensure clickable elements are far apart enough for users to tap with their fingers without accidentally clicking another link.

Optimize for voice search

As most voice search queries are in question form, your content should be structured to answer these types of queries. Create FAQ pages, listicles, and how-to guides to cover various topics related to your products or services. Additionally, use long-tail keywords and natural language in your content.

Focus on UX

Prioritize a positive experience for mobile users by ensuring your website is easy to use and provides relevant and engaging content. Use internal links to guide users to other pages on your site and make it easy for them to find the information they need.

Create shareable content

Whether you’re optimizing for iOS or Android SEO, your strategy should include high-quality content. Prioritize content that users can easily share on social media, such as infographics, videos, and blog posts. This can improve your site’s traffic and boost its rankings on search engines.

Optimize for local SEO

As a small or medium business, your customers are primarily composed of people in your immediate area. Optimizing your website for local SEO means your business will appear in local search results, making it easier for potential customers to find you on their mobile devices.

This matters because 76% of customers contact or visit local businesses they find during a mobile search, and nearly a third of such visits result in a purchase.

Without a doubt, mobile technology will become more sophisticated and its users will increase in the coming years. As a small or medium business owner, it’s vital that you consider mobile’s impact on your website’s SEO and make the necessary adjustments to stay relevant in 2025.

If mobile SEO and adapting to its trends overwhelm you, consider partnering with a professional SEO agency. An SEO company employs teams of search engine optimization experts and content creators who can help improve your site’s online presence and ensure it’s filled with content that engages and converts visitors. Start optimizing your site for mobile today!

When you think about it, the Internet is nothing more than a vast collection of content. Whenever a user posts anything online, whether a blog post, web page, or social media update, this already expansive ocean of information gets even bigger.

Considering the amount of content on the Internet, how then do you ensure your small or medium business’s website and its contents stand out? The answer is search engine optimization (SEO).

To be precise, you need to create and publish SEO-friendly and unique content that provides value to your target audience. This article will look at how you can do exactly that.

The importance of content in SEO

Around 98% of Internet surfers use search engines like Google to find information, including details about the products and services they need. SEO helps your website appear in the search results for queries relevant to your keywords.

Content plays several essential roles in this process.

Relevance to search queries

When someone makes a query, search engines go through the pages on their database and deliver those relevant to that user’s search terms. They rank these pages using an algorithm, placing higher-ranked pages at the top of the results. Relevance is a prominent ranking factor—the more closely aligned your content is to the user’s query, the more likely it is to appear at the top of the results.

For example, someone does a search for “How to fix a leaking faucet.” If your blog has the article “10 Simple Steps to Fix a Leaky Faucet,” search engines will consider it relevant to the query and likely display it in the search results.

Opportunities for keyword optimization

Keywords are the words and phrases people use when doing a search engine query. You can incorporate these keywords into your SEO content to help search engines understand what your page is about and match it to related searches.

Authority and expertise

Search engines also assign a high rank to authoritative and knowledgeable content. By publishing high-quality and informative content, you can establish yourself as an expert in your niche or industry. Besides improving your website’s visibility in the search results, it will also help build trust with potential customers.

Backlink potential

Yet another way for search engines to rank a page is by looking at the number of reputable websites linking to it. If your pages have well-made and unique content, other websites will be more enticed to link to them, helping boost your search rankings.

Positive user experience (UX)

Imagine you ask someone a question, and they give you a garbled or unrelated answer. Wouldn’t you be annoyed and consider asking somebody else?

Similarly, users expect to find high-quality answers to their search queries. When they land on your website and find your content uninteresting, irrelevant, difficult to read, or doesn’t provide value, they will likely leave. This behavior tells search engines that your page isn’t relevant or helpful, which can negatively impact your rankings.

Furthermore, well-optimized and informative content can entice visitors to visit other pages on your site, giving you more opportunities to convert them into paying customers and boost your bottom line.

Creating high-quality SEO content

Coming up with SEO content that ranks and appeals to your target audience takes more than simply publishing something. It’s a strategic and continuous process that consists of several crucial steps:

Understand your goals and target audience

Ask yourself what you want to achieve with your content. Do you want to educate, build credibility, or sell your products or services?

You must also understand your target audience to ensure your content matches their search intent. Find out their pain points and the challenges they face that might cause them to search for a solution on Google. Addressing these pain points with your content helps establish your website as a reliable and valuable resource for your target audience.

Do your keyword research

The best keywords to use are those that are relevant to your content and your target audience’s search intent. For example, if you run an HVAC repair business, you could use keywords like “air conditioning repair,” “heating system maintenance,” or “emergency HVAC services.”

But how do you know which keywords your target audience is actually using during their search? Tools like SEMrush, Ahrefs, and Google Keyword Planner can show you which keywords are popular with users and which your competitors may not be using, allowing you to target them and potentially rank higher.

Do a competitor analysis

Analyzing your competitors can provide a lot of helpful information, including which keywords they’re optimizing for, the types of content on their websites, what content promotions they’re doing, and more. You can then incorporate this information into your SEO strategy or create more valuable content and outrank them.

Develop a content calendar

Search engines favor active websites with fresh and regularly updated content. A content calendar helps you plan topics and schedule your content’s publication, ensuring a consistent flow of fresh and relevant content on your site. It also lets you prepare for content promotions, such as guest blogging and social media posts, and stay on top of your marketing efforts.

Create engaging and informative content

Whether it’s written or visual posts, make sure your content is well-crafted, informative, and optimized with the right keywords. However, avoid overstuffing keywords, as doing this can result in a search engine penalty.

Make sure your content is engaging and not boring. When posting written content, incorporate visual elements like videos, images, and infographics to make them more appealing to readers. Use bullet points, short paragraphs, headings, and bolded text to make your content easier to read.

Finally, provide actionable insights, facts and supporting details, and examples to build authority and increase users’ trust in you.

Incorporate internal and external links

Link to related pages on your site. For example, in the above sample article on fixing leaky faucets, you can link to another blog post on the common causes of leaks or must-have plumbing tools. This helps users find more relevant information and signals to search engines that your site has valuable and interconnected content.

You should also link to high-quality third-party websites to build credibility and authority. Using the same leaky faucet content as an example, you may link to a government website on water conservation or a reputable plumbing association. Just make sure the links are relevant and provide additional value to your readers.

Optimize on-page SEO

Ensure your keywords are in your content and other on-page elements, such as page titles, meta descriptions, and alt tags for images. These elements help search engines understand what your content is about and how relevant it is to a user’s query.

You can also conduct an SEO audit to identify technical issues and opportunities to optimize your content. For example, an audit can uncover broken links, duplicate content, missing alt tags, or slow page loading speeds that can negatively impact your search rankings.

Content is considered king for a reason. In the age of the Internet, it keeps users informed and helps businesses like yours reach the right people. By creating unique, informative, and well-optimized content, you can stand out from the competition and increase your chances of converting visitors into paying clients.

That said, content marketing isn’t a one-off effort— it requires continuous monitoring, analyzing, and updating. If you want to stay on top of your SEO strategy, consider working with a professional SEO company. The best SEO agencies have experts who can create high-quality pieces of content and optimize them for search engines and users alike.

They can also perform competitor analyses, SEO audits, and other crucial processes to keep your strategy up-to-date and effective. Partner with an SEO agency today and start boosting your online presence!

If you’ve looked into search engine optimization (SEO), you’ve probably heard of link building and the importance of having quality backlinks. After all, backlinks are often considered among the most powerful tools for enhancing your website’s ranking and visibility to potential customers.

For small and medium business owners, understanding how backlinks work and how to use them effectively is a must, even if you’re not the one developing and implementing your SEO strategies. This article will discuss these and help you understand the quality versus quantity debate when building backlinks.

Backlinks and why they matter

In simple terms, backlinks are links from other websites to yours, which is why they’re also called “inbound links.” You can think of them as seals of approval indicating that other sites trust your content or consider it high-quality. For search engines like Google, backlinks signal that your content is relevant and valuable.

Because search engines want to deliver the best results to users, they prioritize reliable websites by ranking them highly on the search engine results page (SERP). The higher your website’s ranking, the more visible it is to users, which could translate to enhanced traffic and more people finding your products and services.

Quality versus quantity in link building

SEO linking strategies used to focus on quantity. This was in the early days of the Internet when having hundreds or thousands of backlinks—regardless of their source—was the best way to dominate the SERPs.

Today, such a tactic is ineffective and may even be counterproductive. Google’s algorithm updates have since prioritized quality over quantity. Linking with spammy websites can result in penalties, lower search rankings, and even the removal of your site from the search results.

A single backlink with a highly respected, authoritative website is worth more than several from low-quality sources. Here are some telltale signs of a high-quality backlink:

• It connects to a website whose content is related to your business or industry.

• It’s positioned naturally within meaningful content, such as an informative article or blog post.

• It connects to a website with a high domain or page authority.

• It’s attached to a relevant and descriptive anchor text. For instance, if you’re talking about electrical tools, a suitable anchor text would say “best affordable long nose pliers” instead of “click here.”

Regularly conducting a backlink audit can help you differentiate between high- and low-quality backlinks. If you find any harmful links during the audit, disavow them or request their removal to ensure your backlink profile remains aligned with Google’s guidelines.

Building a strong backlink profile

Even though quality is now more important than ever, quantity still matters. A handful of quality backlinks is good, but having more can only benefit your website. Here’s how you can increase your links and build a solid backlink profile:

Create well-made, shareable content

Content is the cornerstone of any effective link-building strategy. Other websites consider informative, engaging, and entertaining content to be of high value, making them more likely to link to it.

However, always remember who you’re posting for. If you create content solely to build backlinks or appeal to search engines, you might end up with something that sounds unnatural and might turn off your audience. Make content that addresses your target audience’s needs, and you’ll be more likely to attract quality backlinks naturally.

Network within your industry

Building relationships with other people, websites, and bloggers within your niche or industry can open opportunities for link building. For example, you can be a guest blogger, wherein you write content for other websites in exchange for a backlink to your site.

Leverage local SEO

Local SEO can have powerful benefits for small and medium businesses like yours, as your customers are usually within your immediate area. Reach out to local directories, newspapers, community bloggers, and websites to secure backlinks that boost your online presence in your immediate area.

Conduct regular backlink audits

Regularly conducting an SEO audit, which often includes a backlink audit, ensures that your backlink profile remains strong and free of harmful links. This helps protect you from penalties that can adversely affect your search rankings.

Backlinks remain a crucial factor in increasing your website’s visibility in search results and establishing your online presence. They might seem overwhelming, but as long as you focus on building quality links through valuable content and meaningful industry connections, you’re likely to see positive results before long.

If you want to see great returns on your SEO strategies while having the time to run your business, consider hiring a professional SEO agency. SEO companies have experts who can manage all aspects of optimizing your website, from SEO audits to link building to monitoring performance. This gives you enough bandwidth to serve customers and focus on growing your brand.

Partner with a reputable SEO agency today and make your website more visible to your target customers.

Google updates its search algorithm frequently to deliver the highest-quality and most relevant results to Internet users. Understanding these updates, what they entail, and how they impact your website is critical to boosting your small or medium business’s visibility to potential customers.

If you’re looking for ways to bolster your search engine optimization (SEO) strategy, you need to look into Google’s Helpful Content Update. This article is an SEO guide explaining this update and how it impacts your website’s search performance.

What is Google’s Helpful Content Update?

Launched in 2022, the Helpful Content Update is one of the relatively recent changes to Google’s search algorithm. Among its most predominant features is favoring content created for people over one made for search engines. It prioritizes helpful, relevant, and expertly created content instead of something written solely to carry keywords and rank high in the search results.

There have been some misconceptions about the Helpful Content Update, including that it’s among Google’s core updates in 2024. Perhaps this is partly because it has continued to evolve, with Google refining the algorithm to reward engaging and well-crafted content. You should take this opportunity to provide your audience with content that answers their questions and delivers advice from people who know the topic well.

Why does the Helpful Content Update matter?

The Helpful Content Update means Google’s ranking system now prioritizes user-focused content more than ever. Shifting your SEO strategy’s focus from quantity to quality should help generate the following outcomes:

Improved search rankings

You’re more likely to see improved Google rankings by creating content that genuinely helps and engages users. As long as you focus on creating and publishing people-first content, you’ll likely see positive outcomes even with limited marketing resources.

Higher audience engagement

Users who find your content helpful will likely engage with your site. They may stay longer, explore more pages, and even share your content with others. Google tracks these behaviors as indicators of valuable content, which can further boost your rankings.

Increased credibility

People are more inclined to trust websites that consistently provide helpful information. If users consider your site a credible source of information, they are likely to repeat visits and have a higher chance of giving you their loyalty. Additionally, search engines will recognize your authority in your industry and rank your site higher for relevant search queries.

How should you take advantage of this update?

Here’s an SEO guide on how to make your site benefit from the Helpful Content Update:

Create content for people

Focus on creating content specifically for your target audience, not ones designed to perform well in search rankings. Instead of simply carrying keywords, your content should answer potential customers’ questions and concerns, address common issues, and provide solutions from a knowledgeable perspective.

For example, if you provide home maintenance and services, consider publishing content on plumbing repair and DIY tips for homeowners. Blog posts like “How to Fix a Leaky Faucet” or “Top 10 Tools Every Homeowner Needs for Basic Repairs” are more likely to help and engage your audience than something like “Best Plumbing Services in Town.”

Avoid clickbait tactics and keyword stuffing

There was a time when clickbait articles were the easiest way to farm clicks and engagements, but Google updates have made these tactics less effective and even counterproductive. Instead, focus on creating useful, informative content that accurately represents the title and meta description.

You should also avoid using keywords excessively throughout your content—a tactic called keyword stuffing. This not only makes your content seem unnatural and unhelpful, but it can also go against Google’s guidelines and result in penalties.

Write content matching your expertise

The Helpful Content Update also considers the credibility of the content creator. Content created by someone with firsthand experience or in-depth knowledge of a topic tends to rank higher. One way to take advantage of this and outshine your bigger competitors is by posting content that reflects your perspective as a small or medium business owner.

Use clear and accessible language

Remember that not everyone in your audience will have the same level of expertise or understanding about the topic you’re posting about. One of the best ways to make your content accessible is to use clear and straightforward language.

Avoid jargon and technical terms unless necessary, and always provide explanations. This makes your content easier to understand, increases users’ willingness to stay on your page longer, and helps you appear more knowledgeable.

Be consistent with quality

Make sure you consistently create high-quality content. Regularly posting content that aligns with Google’s standards builds trust over time. Develop a content calendar to ensure you post consistently and cover topics that matter to your audience. This gives you ample time to conceptualize and craft your content instead of rushing to meet deadlines, leading to subpar outcomes.

It’s crucial to stay updated with Google core updates in 2024, but you should also pay attention to older changes that can still significantly impact your website’s SEO performance. The Helpful Content Update is a good example, with its release resulting in businesses performing strategic SEO updates to maintain or increase their search rankings.

Keeping pace with Google’s updates may seem overwhelming, but hiring the best SEO agency can greatly help. These agencies have teams of professionals who can develop and implement SEO updates to help make your website and business visible to your target audience.

Furthermore, the best SEO agency will monitor your website’s performance and provide insights and recommendations to keep your content relevant and engaging. Partner with a trustworthy SEO agency today to be ready for any Google update.