Google Core Update: Crafting Top-Ranking, High-Quality Content in 2024:
Google Core Update is used to navigate. Learn how to adapt your content strategy and create high-quality, impactful content.Google Core Update is used to navigate. Learn how to adapt your content strategy and create high-quality, impactful content.
Has your search visibility and rankings started to decline?
Even in the age of automation, quality still wins over quantity when it comes to search rankings.
With the recent rise of generative AI, the demand for human-created, high-quality content is greater than ever.
Google’s latest update aims to improve the quality of search results by reducing unhelpful, unrealistic content by up to 40%.
So, what kind of content does Google consider high quality these days?
How can you ensure your content performs well on search engines in 2024?
The simple answer is to focus on the user experience rather than the search engine – in other words: prioritize the human touch.
While many businesses are leveraging AI tools to populate their sites, those who still see value in human-generated, user-centric content will ultimately win.
In this guide, we’ll break down the key steps to creating high-quality content that ranks on Google in 2024.
In this guide
Step 1: Align your content strategy with campaign and user journey goals.
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Step 2: Analyze real user data and identify content gaps.
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Step 3: Plan content that matches user intent.
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Step 4: Write content with active engagement in mind.
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Step 5: Analyze performance and pivot.
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Embracing Human Talent in the AI Age
1: Align your content strategy with campaign and user journey goals.
Delivering the right content to the right audience at the right time is critical to SEO success.
And with Google’s latest core update, it’s more important than ever to provide your audience with a seamless and personalized experience throughout their user journey.
Here’s how you can use audience research and user insights to create content that drives results:
Identify your target personas: Start by defining the persona of your ideal audience. Understand their demographics, preferences, pain points and behaviors.
Map your customer journey: Visualize the different stages your customers go through, and identify the touchpoints where they interact with your brand.
Tailor your content to each stage: Meet your audience at each stage of the user journey, and meet their specific needs with content that is relevant, targeted and effective.
Pro tip: Don’t have the time or bandwidth to tackle these tasks? You can still grow your business by hiring a professional SEO strategist to help plan your campaigns and keep you on track.
Step 2: Analyze real user data and identify content gaps.
As you’re crafting your content strategy, you’ll need insight into your audience’s behavior, preferences, and engagement patterns.
Use analytics tools to collect valuable user data and track key metrics such as website traffic, click-through rates, and conversion rates.
With this information, you can conduct a thorough audit of your existing content and identify gaps and areas for improvement.
Here’s how you can adjust your strategy to a more customer-centric approach:
Build credibility by relying on E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authenticity, and Trustworthiness).
Try to leverage real experts as content creators, leveraging their first-hand experience to create truly helpful content from a trusted source. (This is especially useful for subjects like finance or medicine.)
Be sure to credit the author as an experienced, authoritative figure in your post, with a link to the author’s archive page.
Maintain relevance by keeping your content up-to-date and checking frequently for possible corrections.
Once you have a deep understanding of your customer’s touchpoints, it’s time to plan your content accordingly.
Start by creating a detailed blueprint for each piece of content that matches the user’s intent and meets their needs and expectations.
step 3:Plan content that matches user intent
Understanding and aligning content with user intent is critical to SEO success. With Google’s algorithm updates, it’s important to create content that is not only helpful, but also answers the specific questions of your target audience. also gives answers. Focus on creating content that resonates with your audience, meets their needs, and conveys your message clearly, making sure it’s relevant, Engaging, and directly addressing your readers’ concerns and interests.”
– Alan Redondo, SEO and PPC expert
Establishing your own unique voice is also important, as authentic and original content ranks highly on the SERPS.
And be sure to avoid fluff and keep your content to the point – searchers want their questions answered and needs resolved with minimal fuss.
Step 4: Write content with active engagement in mind.
When you create content, the goal is to encourage interaction, discussion, and sharing among users, which organically increases your brand awareness.
An effective strategy is to create compelling headlines, intros, and calls to action that encourage users to engage with your content.
You can also use interactive elements like polls, quizzes, and surveys to encourage participation and feedback.
If you want to maximize user engagement, a multi-channel approach is key.
Choose the most appropriate content formats and channels for each stage of the user journey, and consider using blog posts, social media, email campaigns, etc. based on which audience is most active.
Pro tip: User-generated content (UGC) can be beneficial to your overall search strategy. With Google supporting human insight, comment sections and other forms of human interaction are helpful for discovery.
Ready to get the most out of your content and utilize the plethora of channels available?
Step 5: Analyze performance and pivot.
Once you’ve implemented your content strategy, it’s important to regularly monitor its performance and be prepared to make adjustments as needed.
Track key performance indicators (KPIs) to gauge the effectiveness of your content, and pay attention to user feedback and comments to understand how your audience is responding.
Are they finding it helpful and engaging, or are there areas where you could improve?
Note any trends or patterns that emerge and use this information to inform future content decisions.
Embracing human talent in the AI age.
Human touch is essential for SEO success in today’s landscape, and Google’s latest update supports this.
As it stands, content created for and by humans will outperform generic, AI-generated content every time.
So if you’re looking to set your website apart, it’s best to stay away from sheer search volume and focus more on what resonates deeply with your target audience.
After all, the more value you provide to users, the more likely you are to beat the algorithm and increase your rankings.
But let’s say you’re a small business owner with a small team and limited hiring capacity.
How do you compete with organizations that require in-house expertise to implement this type of content strategy?
How can you access the human skills needed to make real connections with your audience?
Whether you’re looking for an SEO professional to help you target your customers, or a writer/artist to help you create content, it’s important to bring in freelancers to fill any talent gaps. can help
You can use it to find people with the right skill sets to help you execute your projects and add a human touch to your content.
In the meantime, use these tips to build your content strategy, so that as you start growing your team, you’ll know which tasks to prioritize, moving forward.