What SEO Can Learn From UX About Creating ‘Helpful Content’: Reflections on the Google’s Latest Update
The Google Search experience is getting worse
Google Search has a content quality problem. Brands that have no credible link to a topic outperforming experts; multi-topic news sites owning commercial keywords; AI-generated content outranking expertly written content by and for humans. The list goes on, and it’s having a business impact on Google.
As Google leaks younger users to new discovery-focused platforms, it seems more important than ever for Google to address the elephant in the room: the search experience has gotten significantly worse in recent years, and action needs to be taken.
What the ‘helpful content’ update aims to address
Google’s ‘helpful content update’ marks the latest attempt in the search engine’s history to clean up its search results pages. As we’ve come to expect, Google is pretty schtum on how the update actually works, but the overall intention of the update makes sense:
“The helpful content update aims to better reward content where visitors feel they've had a satisfying experience, while content that doesn't meet a visitor's expectations won't perform as well…. How can you ensure you're creating content that will be successful with our new update? By following our long-standing advice and guidelines to create content for people, not for search engines.”
Will the update deliver on its intended impact or is this more of a veiled attempt from Google to put the onus on the SEO community to manage the quality of content on the web?
Who will the ‘helpful content’ update impact?
Initial reactions within areas of the SEO community to the helpful content update have been mixed, with many rightfully questioning the true intent behind the update and its potential impacts. Many have speculated that the update may be partly intended to reduce the dominance of large, multi-category publishers and news site who historically have ranked for terms that have very little to do with their core purpose. Dan White, SEO consultant and founder of the DMU had the following to say:
“The cynic in me thinks it won’t have much of an impact on large publishers and you would think that every part of their algorithms would deter publishers from doing this already. At the end of the day the authority and size of these websites will probably chug along regardless.”
This sentiment was shared more widely by SEO consultant Adam Brown, who had the following to say:
“I really hope it gets rid of publishers ranking for every term, but it won't happen, they're too big. I'm of the opinion that this is Google’s reply to AI, trying to scare people and weed them out. If they need something to happen, they sell it as an update: need a faster internet to save their resources? Say an update is coming that uses speed.”
Charlie Williams, SEO consultant and owner of chopped.io, shares a similar view, that in fact this may be the latest in a long line of updates where the job of creating a better, ‘more helpful’ internet, is placed on the shoulders of publishers and not Google:
“There’s a real possibility of this being Google trying to get the web they want by telling us there’s an update. Page Speed update did practically nothing but save Google a bit on their biggest cost (crawling the web costs more than their wage bill)”
Whatever ulterior motives Google may have, the signal coming from Google remains clear: create content for people, rather than Search engines. But what does Google really mean when they talk about adopting a ‘people-first’ approach to content?
Unpacking what Google means by a ‘people-first’ approach
I’ve written elsewhere about how Google might evaluate what a ‘satisfying’ Search experience looks like, so won’t go into that here. Instead, I’d like to get into the idea of ‘people-first’ content. As someone that bridges the gap between SEO and UX, I think this is a concept worth unpacking a little bit.
Let’s be honest, SEO hasn’t historically been about satisfying user needs first and foremost. While that’s much less the case now, much of the industry is still caught up in the notion that SEO is about optimising for the search engine, rather than how people use it.
As Google’s algorithms have improved in areas like natural language processing, their ability to detect user intent has improved massively. Updates like RankBrain have been pretty key to this. In turn, these updates have (thankfully) forced SEOs to think differently about their role in the marketing mix.
I’ve argued for a long time that SEO is increasingly the confluence of ‘traditional SEO’ tactics (keyword research, link-building, technical optimisation) and user experience design. And with the latest update, I’d go as far as to say that if we’re honest, a truly ‘people-first’ approach to content requires a different mindset and skillset than what many SEOs are used to. A skillset and mindset more closely aligned to UX or content design. Really, a user-centred mindset.
‘Content for people’ has to start with understanding people
Google’s guidance for content creators states that their focus should be on “creating satisfying content, while also utilizing SEO best practices to bring searchers addition value.” The latter half of that is straightforward.
I’d like to think we are pretty clear on what ‘SEO best practice’ encompasses. However, I think it’s much less clear what Google means by ‘satisfying content’ or indeed how to create it. With that in mind, I wanted to share some thoughts from the perspective of UX design - a discipline dedicated to designing for user needs.
Whether you’re in the business of designing websites, applications or creating content, you’re really in the business of solving customer problems. To create content that’s helpful and useful, it follows that you have to take time to really understand your customer base and their needs. That’s where user research comes in.
User research is the structured, systematic process of inquiry we use to understand users’ needs, contexts and problems. Keyword research is a great example of a quantitative approach we can take to user research, as it gives us insight into things like the demand for specific products and services, or the growth trajectory of a specific topic. However, keyword research isn’t so great at helping us understand what customers don’t know they don’t know. Let’s unpack that a bit.
The limits of keyword research for understanding users
Keyword research reveals users’ explicit needs - that is, questions or problems they are able to articulate in the form of a search. However, user research is about more than just understanding these expressed needs, it’s also about getting to tacit needs.
Tacit needs are customer needs that are hard or impossible to express in words. A bit like a nagging feeling that you can’t express, but know is there. And because they’re hidden, we can only really access them through explorative methods research like user interviews or user testing.
Thinking about this in the context of content creation, if we rely only on keyword research, we can only ever deliver value on what people know they don’t know. But this misses a huge area of opportunity and added value: helping users understand something they didn’t know they needed to know. If that sounds a bit abstract, let’s look at in context.
Tacit needs in context: pensions
Pensions are an example of something that everyone knows is important, but few actively engage with. In my experience talking to dozens of pension customers over the years while conducting user research, people’s lack of engagement often stems from the fact that they don’t know what they don’t know, and therefor don’t understand their value. For example:
Many people don’t know about the tax relief benefits, so don’t think to research them
Many people don’t know their investments might need to change over time, so they don’t think to review these
Many people don’t know they are entitled to a tax-free lump sum at 55, so they don’t think to plan what this might mean for their future
For pension providers to deliver content that’s genuinely helpful and useful, they need to talk to customers to uncover these sorts of gaps in knowledge, so they can design content that goes beyond customers’ known unknowns. These user needs won’t necessarily be apparent when conducting keyword research, as users aren’t looking for solutions to the problems they don’t yet know they have.
How UX research methods can help with content planning
There are many qualitative methods we can use to understand how our users think about a topic to get to these sorts of insights. Here are just a few examples.
User interviews.
When: usually the early ‘exploratory’ stages of the content planning process, but can be used at any point.
What: a semi-structured interview to explore how users see a particular topic. Makes use of prepared topics and questions, but shouldn’t be seen as a ‘script’.
Why: put simply, user interviews are probably the best way to see the world as our users do. They offer the ability to explore personal experiences, thoughts and feelings at a depth few other methods do.
How: normally 45 minutes to an hour. Requires preparation, structure and being comfortable talking to strangers.
Usability Testing
When: can be used whenever we have a design, solution or pieces of content to be tested. Designs do not need to be high fidelity to test!
What: a structured or semi-structured one-to-one session where users are asked to complete tasks and a moderator observes and facilitates the session.
Why: helps us identify potential gaps in the information we’re providing, or uncover usability issues with how content is actually displayed within our designs. Can also help unearth previously undiscovered user needs.
How: schedule one-to-one sessions for 45 minutes to an hour. Requires scheduling, a discussion guide and potentially software to record the session.
Thinking to the future
I truly hope that this update delivers on its intentions, but the extent to which it does obviously remains to be same. Still, it stands that to create content for our users that’s genuinely helpful and useful, we need to be prepared to dig deeper into our customer’s thoughts, experiences, hopes and expectations if we are to get this right. Keyword research alone won’t get us there, but combined with qualitative research we can certainly get closer to defining what ‘useful content’ looks like.
