On August 25th, 2022, everyone’s favourite search engine (that’s Google, if you’re unsure) announced its ‘people-first’ content update.
So, what exactly does this mean for your business and its website content?
What’s changed?
Google has been moving towards the readability of content rather than how many links and keywords are shoved into it for a while, so this update comes as little shock to us.
Here are the basics you need to know from the update:
- Focus on people-first content. According to Google, its “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”
- Avoid prioritising search engines when creating content. Don’t write a blog for the sake of using keywords and backlinking!
What does that mean for me?
Essentially, you should be writing for your audience, rather than for Google… which we’d hope you were doing anyway!
Whether you have an in-house content writer, use a freelance copywriter, or have a great PR agency (*cough* like J&PR) writing your blogs and website content, they should know about this update already, and if they don’t know you can tell them!
Your website content and blogs will now be ‘judged’ by Google on their readability and how people will feel after reading them. Readers should be satisfied and feel they’ve had their questions answered, rather than having even more questions and feeling like they’ve just had a variety of SEO-friendly terms and links thrown at them.
What do I need to do?
If you’re not already doing so, you should ensure your website content and blogs have a ‘people-first’ focus going forward.
When brainstorming blog topics, drafting your pieces, and pushing your blog on socials, your audience should be at the forefront of your mind rather than the search engines. This means using a friendly, conversational yet professional tone is key.
An excellent way to test this is by getting other members of your team, or other departments, to read your website and your blog drafts and let you know what they think (yes, we do this at J&PR too!).
You may want to have a look through your past blogs, too, if you’ve been a little backlink-heavy (or any other type of SEO trick). Read through any old blogs on your website and make sure they have the all-important people approach.
In fact, while you’re doing that, why not carry out a blog review? We’re not sure anyone does them enough. Here’s what you should be doing:
- Check all information in the blog is correct and, if not, update it!
- Archive any blogs which are too outdated, or the information is no longer relevant. For example, are you shouting about a certain service which you no longer offer?
- Make sure you’re considering Google’s EAT algorithm - are your blogs showing expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness?
Can J&PR help?
Of course, we can - and we’d love to!
We’re a team of wordsmiths (and mostly ex-journalists) who love writing blogs and website content for businesses from a wide variety of industries, so let’s add your business to that list!
If you’d like a professional writer to create your content for you, we can write it, or if you’d prefer to keep your blogs written in-house but would like some top tips and some hands-on help, we offer Two Hour Takeover training sessions which are tailored to your business.
Email us at info@jandpr.com and let’s make some website magic!
*At the time of writing, Google’s update is being rolled out. Make sure you’re ahead of the game and look over your content before the algorithm!
