Another week, another third-party update: Cue Google

And this week, we're talking all about Google's SEO update...
Creatively named the “helpful content update”, this update is part of Google's much broader effort to ensure people see more original, helpful content. Written by people, for people, in search results.

Now, we know you've got places to be and people to see, so we'll keep our overview short and sweet. Because ultimately it boils down to two things:

Focusing on people-first content

Avoid creating content for search engines first 

Simply put, it's all about creating content real-life people want or need to read. Something we, as a digital marketing company, have been championing for a long time.

So what's all the fuss about then?

We caught up with Chris Alderman, Head of SEO & DPR for Brave Bison Performance, to see what he had to say:

'Ultimately, the goal of Google in organic search is to provide the most relevant content with the best user experience available to each search. In that sense, the helpful content update is just a continuation of Google's ethos going all the way back to Panda 10 years ago.

It sounds like the old ways of SEO creating sites to gain traction on unexploited niches will be devalued against those who are passionate about those topics but may not have the SEO chops to optimise. What will be interesting to see is if this starts to weed out high-ranking review sites where the author clearly never touched the product they were reviewing. 

With so many SEOs creating huge amounts of content to simply to “get more traffic” and with the increase in cheaply accessible copywriters, we’ve seen an upsurge in mass spammy content over the past few years.

SEO strategies such as creating five articles a week will likely drop in effectiveness and it will be important for agencies to focus on collaboration and understanding their clients’ customers better.

As is always the way with Google updates, there is a huge amount of speculation with very little firm information from Google so time will tell how impactful this will be. But it certainly pays to audit your existing content and re-evaluate your SEO strategy'

Ok, so what now?

Naturally, you may have a few questions about what this means for your website and its content. But fear not, Google have a pretty savvy guide, and we're on hand to help whenever you need it - no judgement, ever. Simply head to our contact page or slide into our DMs: hello@bravebison.com
Until next time... 
BB