Google Helpful Content Update Recovery Guide
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Are you one of the thousands of site owners that has been affected by the September 2023 Google Helpful Content Update?
The truth is Google pimp slapped so many site owners and caused their traffic to drop 50% or more overnight.
I, too, experience a big decrease in Google organic traffic but managed to increase my blog’s traffic by posting more frequently, sharing my content on social media, updating old content, and deleting thin blog posts with a low word count.
By following Google’s tips on creating helpful content, I increase my website traffic and revenue just by implementing everything together and writing for people first and Google 2nd.
I’m going to share what I’ve done to increase my traffic step by step so you can save your online business and avoid going back to the 9 to 5 grind in search of a job.
Google Favors Big Websites with High Domain Authority and Fresh Updates
It seems like the rich get richer these days online as smaller publishers lose their traffic and rankings to larger, more established websites.
Mike at Niche Twins shared how Reddit’s traffic surged during the September 2023 update as Google now prefers forums and community with tons of user generated content.
I use Reddit daily for keyword research and scanning different points of view in the comments.
There is nothing you can do to stop this shift in preference from the Google search team. I predict smaller publishers will get pushed out of the SEO game just like what happened during Google’s first big Panda Update.
I’ve been blogging since 2006 and have seen this happen time and time again so it’s nothing new.
You have several choices depending on your business goals and personal savings:
- Quit blogging and SEO altogether and search for a job
- Hire a Google HCU recovery team to analyze your site and fix what’s wrong
- Make massive changes to your website by updating old content and publishing fresh content more regularly
- DO nothing and watch your traffic and rankings continue to fall
I assume all of your reading this blog post want to gain your rankings back so you can stay in business and avoid firing a portion of your staff.
Here’s what I’ve done personally to actually increase traffic and regain (some) of my rankings over the past 2 weeks.
Update Your Website More Often and Make It Fresh
Think for a moment about the world’s most popular websites such as Reddit, Facebook, Quora, WSJ, etc. They attract millions (if not billions of visitors) by posting tons of fresh content on a daily basis.
Their audiences keep coming back for new fresh content to consume throughout the day. If your website hasn’t been updated over the past week then you are going to struggle moving forward.
Daily website updates is the #1 way to maintain and improve website traffic in the future!
Reddit and Quora stole everyone’s rankings because there are millions of new posts and conversations going on every day.
As a small niche publisher, think about how you can breathe life into your site on at least a weekly basis.
Weekly updates should be considered the bare minimum moving forward.
Update Older Content
A common problem I have as a website publisher is forgetting to update high rankings pages on a regular basis.
Sounds familiar? You work hard on a blog post or page and finally get in the top 3 Google rankings. Time passes by and next thing you know your site has fallen in rankings as other sites steal your traffic.
SEOs are using tools like Ahrefs, Ubersuggest, and SEMrush to find out which keywords you are ranking for and your best performing pages.
They have big teams of writers, higher budgets, and more domain authority to steal your hard earned rankings.
What’s the solution? Update your pages most frequently. I’ve experienced immediate jump in rankings once I updated once high rankings artices.
Here’s a quick guideline for how often you should update your pages based on keyword difficlutly:
- Low Keyword Difficulty: 1 time per year
- Medium Keyword Difficulty: 1 time per quarter (3 months)
- High Keyword Difficulty: 1 time per month
Show the updated timestamp on your website so Google and visitors understand that the content has been updated recently.
Share More on Social Media
Let’s be honest: everyone hands out on social media these days and that’s where your audience can find you easily. This helps you diversify away from just organic SEO traffic and builds backlinks at the same time!
Here’s a list of sites that I use for social sharing:
Gary V recommends sharing 7 to 25 social media posts per day to grow your audience and traffic faster.
What I do is post links to new blog posts plus find unique angles from popular posts then repurpose them on social media.
You can break up each post into 3 to 5 mini social media posts to send more traffic back to your site.
Delete Poorly Written and Thin Content
Some of my earlier blog posts are so terribly written that there is no hope in saving them. Years ago, you could write a couple of hundred words and rank for most keywords only with a few backlinks.
Competition is too great now so that strategy stopped working a long time ago. Quality is everything so don’t be afraid to delete old crappy articles and pages that don’t help your visitors.
Before you delete any page, go to Ahref’s Free Backlink Checker tool and see if any inbound links are pointing to the page.
- 1+ Inbound Links: Update the page with more content or 301 redirect it to a newer, better page
- 0 Inbound Links: Delete it
Hire an SEO Expert If You’re a Beginner
I’ve been doing SEO for 16 years and know how things work. The problem is many of you reading this don’t have time or the knowledge to recover your rankings and save your business.
Your competition is getting stronger every week and you cannot afford to be cheap and avoid hiring a good SEO to save your company.
There seems to be a race to the bottom when it comes to price in the SEO world. People expect massive results on a small budget.
Don’t expect anyone to save your business for cheap. I receive SEO link requests every day from clients who want high quality links for super low prices.
It doesn’t work that way. Most of us are good at what we do and aren’t desperate for money.
We don’t have an unlimited amount of time to spend on your business if you try to lowball us with cheap crappy budgets.
Pay up for a good SEO because you will get back 10x the value if you know what to look for.
I Can Help You for The Right Budget
If you have a decent budget and want long lasting results then get in touch with me.
Leave a comment below or email me at: tarikpierce@gmail.com
Please include your URL and budget.
