I checked out their article and wanted to review in depth what they shared to give me a better understanding of what this update entails and why they may be doing it. Any bolding below is added by me, my comments are in italics.

So, what did they share?

“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.”

So, this screams to me of an increase in search user data. CTR, clickbacks, time on site, volume of reader’s scream of delight, facial scan proving delight is legitimate etc etc (I know I tweeted this but I found it funny both times). Not only this but a way to conjoin this information with insights from their crack team of scurrying minions.

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. People-first content creators focus first on creating satisfying content, while also utilizing SEO best practices to bring searchers additional value.

Here Google pretend that they’ve always cared about their search results being of high quality rather than good enough. The truth of the matter is that they’re shit scared that AI created content will 1) Make their search results a mess and 2) Make their ‘advanced’ algorithms look as thick as pig shit as my dear Grandad would have said.

So now they’re going all wholesome. People 1st! They know that this ‘update’ will stall content creators plans to spam the fuck out of the internet with their AI content (however well developed it is). In all likelihood, like everything else, they’ll likely go for the small fry with their generalist ‘niche’ blogs that were selling links anyway.

Do you have an existing or intended audience for your business or site that would find the content useful if they came directly to you?

lol, if you’ve written about a specific topic before then it means that you’re allowed to write about it… It’s an amusing admission from Google that they’re likely showing results that are as useful as a senior social media executive.

Does your content clearly demonstrate first-hand expertise and a depth of knowledge (for example, expertise that comes from having actually used a product or service, or visiting a place)?

Anyone who is making money online via content will already be creating the best content they can already to increase its chance of ranking and show visual trust signals to the user/buyer so I’ll presume they’ll be ok? Demonstrating first hand experience by ‘using’ a product can be easily faked as well as showing a depth of knowledge.

I’ll let you content creators in on a little secret, if you want to learn a decent amount about a topic, use a little known search engine called Google. Most of what you need will be in the top 20 results…

Does your site have a primary purpose or focus?

In a way I kind of get this but there could be many reasons why a skilled and knowledgable person may be sharing their ideas and opinions on a completely different site. Again, I think this is Google trying to control what and where people put information online to make their lives easier (this is an understandable request considering people fall over themselves to do whatever they recommend).

After reading your content, will someone leave feeling they’ve learned enough about a topic to help achieve their goal?

Did the reader click back into the SERPs?

Did our team of minion website reviewers click the happy face or the sad face?

Will someone reading your content leave feeling like they’ve had a satisfying experience?

Not really sure this is much different to above? Unless this is to do with site usability, web design or they really are using those little cameras on your computer. Smile! x

Negative signals?

SEO is a helpful activity when it’s applied to people-first content. However, content created primarily for search engine traffic is strongly correlated with content that searchers find unsatisfying.

I would love to see the data behind the ‘strongly correlated’ point. I mean I don’t really doubt it because a large amount of content online is utter shite but this is the game that Google has created. They have helped shape how people create content and so they have to take part of the blame for why searchers are unsatisfied with their results.

As previously mentioned, it isn’t so much about giving the user ‘amazing’ results (although they’d probably like to) but rather that they give the user enough to ‘feel’ that their search has been satisfied. An interesting distinction.

Answering yes to some or all of the questions is a warning sign that you should reevaluate how you’re creating content across your site:

Is the content primarily to attract people from search engines, rather than made for humans?

Again, the smart bastards have been covering this base for years because it actually ranks better. Who’d have thought that including vital information, answering the questions that people have on a topic and adding your own unique spin would be such a tricky concept?!

Are you producing lots of content on different topics in hopes that some of it might perform well in search results?

Will be interesting to see how some of the authoritative generalist sites like news websites do with this ‘update’ – They obviously tend to cover a lot of different topics and aren’t specialists just because they’ve got ‘journalists’. If the behemoths manage to keep their traffic then you have to ask why they included this part in their commandme… propagan… article.

Are you using extensive automation to produce content on many topics?

And here comes the crux of the matter. The little bit they were just trying to slip in… Extensive automation, now how could that be done? I definitely won’t be doing that!

Are you mainly summarizing what others have to say without adding much value?

I mean yeah, this is the internet. We all steal ideas from one another without adding any value whatsoever. Deal with it Top G. This goes back to adding your own unique spin whether it’s a viewpoint, theory or group of ideas. Added value can be pretty much anything as long as it’s semi relevant because Google doesn’t know any better…

Are you writing about things simply because they seem trending and not because you’d write about them otherwise for your existing audience?

A trend can nearly always be brought back to another ‘relevant’ subject in some way or other, however tenuous the link but yeah, make sure that you only write about rubbish for your waste management client(s) and leave trending topics alone.

Are you writing to a particular word count because you’ve heard or read that Google has a preferred word count? (No, we don’t).

No, you don’t but the SERP’s do. There isn’t a ‘specific’ word count because different topics require different levels and volumes of information. Example, You’re writing 500 word articles for keywords where the results feature 2000+ words then good luck!

Additional information

This update introduces a new site-wide signal that we consider among many other signals for ranking web pages. Our systems automatically identify content that seems to have little value, low-added value or is otherwise not particularly helpful to those doing searches.

I probably should have moved this part higher because a new site wide signal is interesting… Automatically judging low value content as a whole rather than at a specific page level.

Have their minions been able to put patterns together that state that low value content all has *these variables* in common so that they can automatically judge things without looking at the content itself?

This ‘update’ will be rolled out slowly, likely with little feedback until they choose to turn the dial and amp it up a bit.

Any content — not just unhelpful content — on sites determined to have relatively high amounts of unhelpful content overall is less likely to perform well in Search, assuming there is other content elsewhere from the web that’s better to display. For this reason, removing unhelpful content could help the rankings of your other content.

I liked this point. Sites that feature unhelpful content will have the rest of their results ‘diluted’. This is an interesting move and is probably the part that is used as a scare tactic to get SEO’s/content people/whoever to remove or edit content to ‘save’ the rest of their results. Also sounds a bit like Panda v2 to me. Get rid of your shit content because we don’t want to crawl and index it anymore!

A natural question some will have is how long will it take for a site to do better, if it removes unhelpful content? Sites identified by this update may find the signal applied to them over a period of months. Our classifier for this update runs continuously, allowing it to monitor newly-launched sites and existing ones.

Our continuously running tool that can review things automatically will take months to review your shitty site, sorry!

This classifier process is entirely automated, using a machine-learning model. It is not a manual action nor a spam action. Instead, it’s just a new signal and one of many signals Google evaluates to rank content.

Minion and user data —> Machine learning. Refine, adjust, refine. Continuous automatic automation. Should expect huge changes *crickets*

This means that some people-first content on sites classified as having unhelpful content could still rank well, if there are other signals identifying that people-first content as helpful and relevant to a query. The signal is also weighted; sites with lots of unhelpful content may notice a stronger effect. In any case, for the best success, be sure you’ve removed unhelpful content and also are following all our guidelines.

This is the excuse for the newspapers and other large media sites ranking well. Hmmm, what could those additional signals be?

Right, apologies for all that. I wanted to have a deeper think into this update and thought that writing it would be a better way than thinking on it or discussing it with someone. Hopefully it has been of use, even if just for some light comic relief away from your daily grind.

One of the primary reasons that I stopped writing on here was because I stopped finding topics to write about. If I keep my ear to the ground then I might add some stuff on here now and again.

Any additional thoughts? Anything that I’ve missed that is glaringly obvious? Anything that you disagree with? Let me know in the comments or on Twits.

The potential of winning an award or even the idea of doing so was not really on my radar as a young pup but we felt that this particular project was worthy of sharing with the unenlightened masses, gaining us international acclaim and SEO stardom.

Dear reader, if your humble narrator can lay claim to such amazing feats then you too have ‘it’ within you to succeed, in your own little way.

And all without having to pay off one judge!

Salut to all cool new friends!

and…

Apologies to anyone I may have upset, insulted or startled after 9pm. Adrenaline and red wine…

Barcelona, what a city! I will return! pic.twitter.com/sqnNUQYNYC

— Sean (@0_1_1_0_) May 28, 2022

Proof of concept!

Has this idea worked previously and if so, in what way?

Whether it’s shares via Instagram, likes via Facebook, number of links, estimated monthly visits…

Blah blah blah, the same metrics, every time.

Marketers want proof that that an idea within their niche has been successful in the past.

But they’re also…

Driven by the fear that a new, original idea will not gain any traction.

Driven by the potential consequences of a failed project.

Driven by the arse covering that these previous pieces of content and their metrics allow you.

Driven by laziness and a wish for doing something as easily as possible.

And in a way that they already know and can do in auto-pilot.

And they do it again, and again, and again, and again.

This creates a content rut.

Low risk, low reward, low quality.

Nothing to define them from their competitors.

Nothing that excites their readership and makes them think —> “These guys get it!”

Nothing that deserves to rank any higher than the original idea.

I am sure that there are people out there that only do projects that have a proof of concept.

Is this wrong, no.

Are you likely to ‘win’, probably not.

I am sure that there are people out there that come up with incredibly *unique* ideas, go with their gut.

Not backed with data and see mixed results.

Uniqueness is not a guarantee for success.

However by floating in between.

Shards of potential shine through.

I know that what I’m about to write isn’t groundbreaking…

What a surprise for the industry and this ‘blog’.

But the way you can clutch on to your precious metrics

and create something new enough to actually cause a stir within your industry

Is by stealing the general idea that ‘works’ and combining it with:

• Something topical (potential limited shelf life this but it works).
• Something related but not previously seen or mentioned (this joining of dots can be priceless).
• Something very strange (people are used to a certain type of content, this juxtaposition is risky but fun).
• Your brand spankingly new, originally unique, never before thought of idea.

This way you get your metric crutch and your ego lead addition.

Where you can credit your genius if it succeeds!

And point at previous metrics if it fails!

I know reading that back it sounds really obvious.

1 + 0.1 = v1.1

Indulge me. I’m a simple man compiling his thoughts, writing on vapour.

However the way you can potentially take this a step further and gauge the risk

is the degree in which you stray from the original idea!

Think of it along a grid

1st project with a new client? Perhaps it’s best to make something that is likely to work and get adequate results.

1 + 0.1 = v1.1

2nd project? 1st project did ok, nothing impressive but you have room to grow and express your ideas a bit more

1+0.25 = v1.25

3rd project? You have been backed by success, you’re able to take the reigns off a bit and do something more *high* risk.

1+0.4 = v1.4

And this is that format within it’s most basic form.

Be careful out there. You can also gauge the risk of a content project by reviewing the following:

The mentality of the client, the investment involved, the length of time worked with the client, the number of previous content projects, your previous successes, your knowledge of the industry, your contacts within the industry.

There are probably loads more.

I’ve got a bit lost in this article, I just wanted to write again and I felt like I had some points I wanted to share.

If you wish to discuss in more depth leave a comment, send an email or tweet.

Peace.

To vanquish an old dragon!

Over the weekend, a client of ours was hacked into and bombarded with links.

The fiends created a large number of dummy pages.

That featured awful, spammy, computer generated content.

That was being linked to from (in the main) awful looking websites.

With EXACT ANCHOR TEXT (shudders).

This attack was carefully planned, co-ordinated and quickly executed.

Yes, we sorted it out very quickly, aren’t we amazing etc etc.

Within 2 days there was nearly 1 million new links pointing to their new pages.

These pages created visibility to the site, to the tune of 100,000 new keywords.

And not just any old keywords.

Our client ranked 3rd for an entertainment term that is searched 1,500,000 times a month.

They also ranked 1st for another one that is searched 980,000 times a month.

There were loads more. Keywords shooting out of every orifice.

A real horrorshow!

It’s safe to say, the client hasn’t received traffic numbers like this before…

But, this sort of thing shouldn’t *still* work right?

Google *should* be flagging this sort of thing.

Some sort of pattern recognition, aha?

When 1 MILLION new links are pointing to:

BRAND NEW pages.

That include PURE GIBBERISH as content.

On a topic that is TOTALLY UNRELATED to the website.

In a very SHORT TIME FRAME.

And nothing gets pinged?

Does this read like Backlinko?

No flags at all?

Who is writing good content about sEO nowadays?

Nothing?

I wasn’t born yesterday. I didn’t for one second think that this sort of thing could no longer be done.

However I did think that there would be some sort of dampening, penalisation or straight up ignoring

Of Crap like this.

Yes, the time frame was short.

Maybe within a few days it would’ve been nuked.

Yes, there is a chance that it was ignored due to the authority of the client.

And they just let them get on with it.

But maybe I think too much of Google?

Maybe we all do?

Keep testing on your own sites.

I’d recommend leaving the client sites alone for stuff like this…

This shit still works and maybe always will.

I know, I know, it’s been a while.

You may or not have noticed that I’ve been away for a bit? I’ve been working on new things in and out of the marketing world and thought I might write something for da lolz. It’s nice to have the site back to myself again after the SEO fame experienced before.

Anyway enough rambling. Lets get to it.

There are some cool keyword research resources out there but everyone knows about them already and sometimes you’re trying to find areas that aren’t obvious to your 3rd eye. You’re after the ‘secret sauce’ that gets you a unique insight above your competition.

In my absence I have found that there is a ‘real world’ out there and you can do stuff in it!

So whatchyado?

• Watch – Watching videos/films about your subject – How do these people interact, what do they say, what kind of body language do they display? How does this make you feel?
• Discuss – Offline store? Visit it, talk to staff, customers etc. Maybe get dressed up and try and make it obvious that you’re a mystery shopper?
• Listen – Conference? Visit it, mingle, listen, discuss ideas with your fellow man. Orrrr do what I do and go along, learn nothing and talk to no-one. Up to you!
• Read – Follow all big hitters on social media, read their favourite things of interest, what are the topics/mantra’s that are constantly repeated?
• Get out of your head 1 – Go on a run, gain access to subconscious. Do an extremely heavy deadlift and discuss your ideas with God.
• Get out of your head 2 – Take hallucinogens with a product (wrench, 3d printer, fish).
• Competition – Check the #1 site in the market (o.k so the client will say it’s them but check out the real #1 (not always the #1 result for the ‘big term)) – Export a crying toad report and check out what terms they use for page titles. Primarily – Be sure to include these terms in your 3d keyword research zzzzzzzz. Secondarily – Compare it to your site layout, how does it differ? Do they offer products/pages that you don’t? Why? As an aside when you’re deciding on you page title formatting check out the top ten results for 5/10 of your ‘vital’ terms to see how your competitors write them. I guarantee you’ll pick something cool up by doing so.
• Hold a seance – Ask the dead for tips on what they’d search for (you may have to explain the concept of Google and the internet but give it a bash).
• Survey locally – Knock on doors, send letters, spam emails. Whatever. Find out what local people are looking for (even if you don’t sell it yet…) and give it to them. Simple.
• Ask anyone for their opinion – Some resources will tell you that you have to drill down to find a specific persona. Your average shopper is male, 35, overweight, wears glasses, hates his fucking life and is partial to r/gonewild (if you don’t know, now you know…) Brilliant! You should now use the majority of your resources targeting this demographic, right? Nope. If you want to maintain your sales then yeah cater for them but if you want new customers and your business to grow it’s worth considering others and that means asking anyone and everyone.

Make sure that you take notes of 1) what the person is saying and b) what you are thinking when listening to them. These additional areas/terms can be very useful when checking for potential traffic numbers in SEMRush.

lol.

Does this nightmare ever end?

Short post discussing an idea I’m not sure I’ve heard anyone mention.

One of the biggest problems that people often have when trying to ‘build relationships’ with influencers within a niche is that they have nothing to offer.

You know deep in your soul that your boring, rehashed, poorly designed infographic/blog post/video/whatever isn’t going to impress anyone important and is unlikely to gain links without paying for them.

Soooo, what’s a girl to do?

Well. And I know this may be seen in some agencies as controversial but…

If you’re not currently creating content that is worth sharing.

How about sharing something that is brilliant/amazing but wasn’t made by yourself or anyone you know?

You know like how normal people recommend things to one another.

Send over something legitimately interesting/awe inspiring and the ‘influencer’ will thank you before thinking

“Wow that was extremely cool, I wonder what other gems they’re hiding away!”

That’s when you can come back and bombard them with your ’17 quirky facts about Venezuela’ infographic.

Or something.

Class dismissed.

1. The ‘authorities’ within the industry have stopped writing or are definitely less prolific.
2. The spike of dopamine, serotonin and oxytocin when publishing a post & gaining social shares is no longer getting SEO ‘writers’ as high as previously.
3. SEO’s/’People’ are generally sharing less and favouriting more via Twitter.
4. It’s fucking boring to write about.
5. They now have to actually do some work, their bosses have put writing on the back-burner in exchange for removing links.
6. SEO posts get social shares but are rarely linked too. People are learning that you can write in other niches than SEO…
7. It’s fucking boring to write about.
8. Old traffic generators like Inbound are ghost towns.
9. People have learned to keep the best information & their processes to themselves.

I was going to write 10 reasons but I didn’t like the title and more importantly I couldn’t think of another reason.

Doubt I’ll be writing again on here. Cheers for the previous reads/shares/love/jobs etc.

Anyway, on with the show.

“Some things benefit from shocks; they thrive and grow when exposed to volatility, randomness, disorder, and stressors and love adventure, risk, and uncertainty. Yet, in spite of the ubiquity of the phenomenon, there is no word for the exact opposite of fragile. Let us call it antifragile. Antifragility is beyond resilience or robustness. The resilient resists shocks and stays the same; the antifragile gets better“.

“Simply, antifragility is defined as a convex response to a stressor or source of harm (for some range of variation), leading to a positive sensitivity to increase in volatility (or variability, stress, dispersion of outcomes, or uncertainty, what is grouped under the designation “disorder cluster”). Likewise fragility is defined as a concave sensitivity to stressors, leading a negative sensitivity to increase in volatility. The relation between fragility, convexity, and sensitivity to disorder is mathematical, obtained by theorem, not derived from empirical data mining or some historical narrative. It is a priori“.

Unfortunately we’ve got to admit that it’s rare to find an ‘SEO’d’ site that is antifragile.

In fact the more ‘SEO’ work that has been done on behalf of a site the greater it’s fragility before any algorithm update.

This may have not been the case a couple of years ago but Google is now showing that they will not lay back and allow SEO’s to take the piss. In their eyes you’ve had it good for too long.

There are hundreds, maybe even thousands of different techniques that you can use to develop that perfect SEO strategy but how do you know when you shouldn’t be doing something?

When everyone else is.

The more a technique is used, written about and discussed the more fragile it is. The more fragile a technique is the more chance Google will fuck it (and you).

This isn’t a post to tell you to purposely go your own way (although you probably should). To be different just for the sake of being different.

It’s a reminder of the things that matter. Variety of strategy, testing, idea/tactic recall (the most important and very underrated area) and learning how to shut your fucking mouth once you’ve learnt something decent.

It’s simple and easy to mock the low level content that is written within our sphere but a lot of you forget that there is also a shit tonne of brilliant (free) articles out there that many of you have ‘read’ but have forgotten.

Make good use of your time, keep learning, be the best SEO that you can and create an antifragile strategy that doesn’t just float along avoiding penalties but thrives post update(s).

p.s. This isn’t a fucking rant.

Maybe.

To be honest I’m not the biggest fan of failure quotes or the overuse in the media of motivational quotes in general. There are many reasons for this but the principle ones are:

1 – Telling people that they’re not absolutely useless for failing is a good thing (for their ego’s) but telling a loser to keep going despite continuous failure is a bit shit (hint > you never read about these people…)

2 – 99% of ‘motivational’ quotes lack substance and rarely motivate for longer than 10 seconds. We all know (at least) one poor soul, totally addicted to the motivational principles of others that in turn turns them into a crushed husk of neurosis, unable to start anything let alone finish something.

3 – They are part of the hard work culture lapped up by us proles.

Anyway enough about me and my vapid thoughts, excusing myself for doing nothing with my life…

Talking (writing?) about absolute failures, I’ve been reading that a few of you have been failing recently, maybe this will help, although for some of you I truly hope not. It’s not easy to get back up and try to turn your life around every time life knocks you down. But it’s not impossible. There are examples you could look to, of people like Chance Welton, who turned their life around by taking opportunities and starting their own business to help others. Entrepreneurs and successful people all have stories about failing and failing until they succeed. Remember, you only need one to invent the light bulb once, but you might fail a hundred times to get there. Getting knocked down is an inevitability. But it doesn’t mean it’s the end.

So… we all fuck up from time to time, particularly when doing something new but how can you make sure that you make the most out of your complete and utter (let’s not forget, totally down to you) failure?

Fail late.

Failing early brings negativity and confirms initial fears. “I can’t succeed”, “I knew I couldn’t do it”, “It’s too hard”

Wah, wah, wah. We’ve all done it.

Early, simple wins result in positivity. Reinforcing your reasoning for taking this task/project/whatever on in the first place. You build up some confidence/knowledge, win some small battles, and then…

Then you fail.

Combine the time you have taken doing this so far (the longer you spend doing something the more you rationalise that it’s a task worth doing…) with an increase in confidence within your fragile psyche and you get a more resilient foot soldier. You know that you were bound to encounter a problem or two at some stage, perhaps you just need to adapt your strategy.

So how can you increase the chances of you failing later rather than sooner?

Simple, move your easiest tasks to the start.

Review what you have to do. Place the tasks in order of simplicity (if you’re learning something for the 1st time this may prove tricky as you might not know whats easy and whats hard, I really haven’t thought this through. How about take a guess?) which should prove simple enough…

Then get going through the list.

Succeed, keep going, you’ll glide along until something goes wrong. You have done a decent enough job so far and have just experienced a slight hiccup.

Your future doing this task is not reliant on your ability but your mental strength. Do you have enough of the latter to continue?