Google's Helpful Content Update: A Pathway to Better Web Practices

So, you’ve been hit by the HCU; I feel you!

That’s why I put together this short guide to help you; some of these tips you may already know but combined with the overall strategy may help your website recover; after all, if it is already in decline, what do you have to lose?

Let's jump in!

Content decay

It refers to content that has been literally ‘abandoned’ ’ or neglected over time, leading to a gradual decrease in its relevance and freshness.

What happens is that if you don’t update old content, your competitors will start outranking you in search results; perhaps they build backlinks or make their content more ‘resourceful’ than yours. I know it's painful but think of it as if you were still in school.

Today, you are the best in your class, but if you stop studying and learning, others who continue to work hard and improve will eventually surpass you.

Also, another important factor is that if your pages don’t get any clicks, can pull your entire site down; those pages are, in fact, considered ‘dead weight pages’

Google hates wasting the crawl budget on unhelpful pages that don’t get any clicks.

So what do you do? In my opinion, you should update those pages; I know that some people out there say that if updating those pages doesn’t work, then you should delete them altogether.

This is where it gets controversial because a recent case study from Easy Blog Networks, mentions the following:

80% of deindexed blogs have 30% or more of all traffic redirected to the homepage.

90% of indexed blogs have less than 5% of all traffic redirected to the homepage.

And it makes absolutely sense!

If you have too many redirects, why would Google trust your site? It signals a lack of stability and consistency in your content structure.

Now, I would try the following if your site doesn’t show signs of recovery: First things first, update old pages and use screaming Frog to help you streamline the process. I know is expensive, but I haven’t found any other quick solution for it.

So here’s how you do it:

Open Screaming frog
Go to configuration > API access > Google search console > Authenticate with your email address.
Go to search analytics and select 12 months; in this case, I selected six because the site is still a baby.
Select the export format HTML and click on export.

Now, once you’ve done that, import the file into your Google sheet. Click file > import. Done? Awesome, now, this sheet will show you a lot of data; you need to focus on clicks and impressions, so move all the way to the right side of the sheet.

If you have a lot of pages with 0 clicks and 0 impressions, leave them for now; don’t REDIRECT to the home page. I know that Google HATES wasting crawl budget; I’ve said this earlier.

But, it’s important to approach this issue strategically. Rather than hastily redirecting these pages, take the time to analyze why they are underperforming. Ideally, once you’ve updated the pages with high impressions and low clicks, you want to wait 3-4 weeks, minimum.

Now highlight the page, create a filter, and sort them by Z to A so that you can start optimizing those pages with high impressions and low clicks.

I use Query Hunter to optimize those pages. It is the most affordable solution I found for now, and also many successful bloggers I know use it, so it comes highly recommended.

This tool helps in identifying key areas where your content can be improved to rank better in search results.

It's particularly effective for pinpointing specific queries that your audience is searching for, you already have this data in GSC; the only difference is that without this tool, the job is WAY more tedious.

2. You haven’t covered enough topics within your category

What do I mean by that? Well, you may be already aware that topical authority is key in establishing your site as a go-to resource in your niche.

If your content only scratches the surface of your category, you're missing out on the opportunity to demonstrate comprehensive expertise. Search engines, like Google, favor websites that provide in-depth coverage across a broad spectrum of related topics.

The way you check if you have enough topical coverage is by typing on Google this:

site:yoursite.com intitle:category

In my case, I only have 58 results. So there’s a lot to improve.

You should have at least 500 articles per category if you want to establish topical authority.

3. Backlinks are more important than what you may think

Let’s be honest: not all of us initially realize the crucial role that backlinks play in SEO and the overall visibility of our websites.

We ALL have the same tools available on the internet, so how does Google know if your article is more helpful than mine? BACKLINKS!

They function as a vote of confidence from other websites. When a reputable site links to your content, it's like they're saying, "This is a valuable resource."

Search engines interpret these backlinks as indicators of the quality and relevance of your content. It’s not just about having a large number of backlinks, but more about the quality and relevance of those links.

However, you don’t want to build backlinks from low-domain or high-domain sites, because low domains ‘below 20’ don’t add enough ranking strength to the site, and from the other end, you don't want to waste your resources chasing sites with 70+ domain authority. So, you need to find the sweet spot, which I find to be between 20 to 70.

Now, you’ll need to set up an email outreach campaign to reach out to other website owners and ask for a guest post in exchange for a backlink.

I have built a GPT tool that creates outreach email templates; let me know if there is anything you would like me to improve. I'm open to feedback!

That’s it for now.

I will keep you posted if my outreach campaign is working or not.

Until next time, peace!

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