How Google Helpful Content Update Affects CBD Websites

Introduction

Today, websites ranking on search engine result pages remain the primary focus of the SEO industry. CBD SEO practices examine and improve core web vitals, including website speed, web content, user-friendliness, and mobile responsiveness, for a much better ranking on search engines.

Likewise, these search engines regularly undergo updates to enhance user experience and satisfaction. Perhaps the most recent development for cannabis SEO content requirements is the Google helpful content update aimed at providing web users with quality content. This article looks at how Google helpful content update affects CBD websites.

First, let’s explain what Google helpful content update is and what it means to CBD websites.

What is Google Helpful Content Update?

Top search engines like Google aim to provide web users with the best experience by constantly revising and improving its algorithm. Over the years, Google has received reviews from users through feedback links and social media platforms on the quality of some content they find in search results. Therefore, the popular demand birthed the Google helpful content update, which remains the most recent modification that targets the ranking of web content beneficial to web users.

Google announced the update’s launch on August 18th,2022, to address the growing concern over the quality and variety of search results displayed when web users search on Google. Google stated that this update will “tackle web content created solely for ranking high on its search result page and seems to have little or no value or does not particularly help those doing searches”. Google also added that the helpful content update will help “ensure that low-quality and unoriginal content do not rank high on search results.” This update rolled out on August 25th, 2022, and spanned two weeks before it was fully implemented on September 9th, 2022.

Furthermore, the major algorithm update emphasizes rewarding people-first content that provides a satisfying user experience. In other words, the Google helpful content update will reward content that satisfies visitors with higher search rank than content that does not meet a user’s expectations. Moving forward, the Google helpful content update uses a new sitewide signal. This means that the update applies not only to individual web pages but to the whole website.

So, suppose your website contains an overall large amount of unhelpful or insignificant content or does not meet the expectation of web users in a satisfying way. In this case, your website could get flagged by this content update, thus impacting your website’s visibility and performance on search engine result pages.

The Implication of Google Helpful Content Update on CBD Websites

Google helpful content update constitutes a broader effort to help web users find more valuable content when surfing with Google. To a large extent, the update continues Google’s pursuit to help web users find more original and helpful content from search results while rewarding compliant websites.

As such, the helpful content update creates a much better experience for content creators and searchers. Note that the Google helpful content update is not targeted at any specific industry. But with utmost certainty, CBD websites that conform to this update are bound to gain more visibility and drive quality CBD organic traffic.

Here are some implications of the helpful content update for cannabis websites.

1. Stick to CBD Content Transparency

The most significant implication of the helpful content update for CBD web content is the eradication of clickbait. For instance, if you own a CBD cosmetic website and promise your readers CBD cosmetic products, don’t try to slip in unrelated content from other CBD niches.

Using clickbait minifies your trustworthiness due to its misleading attributes, and if Google picks signals of these deceptive texts or links on your website, you may not rank high as expected. So, you must avoid clickbait in your content since the new update highly frowns at this.

2. Give Priority to Valuable CBD Content Rather Than Word Count

Another implication of Google helpful content update for CBD content creators is the quality and uniqueness of your web content. The new update requires that you develop content that leaves your visitors or reader satisfied. Indeed, lengthy content ranks higher, but now you must avoid developing lots of content to improve your CBD website while paying less attention to the readability and quality in the process.

3. Understand Your Target CBD Audience

The new Google update aims to ensure that already established and newly launched CBD sites have an in-depth understanding of their target customer and not just dwell on search result rankings. Depending on your CBD niche, you may need to incorporate high-resolution pictures or videos to nurture and satisfy your audience. Besides, ranking high with content not satisfactory to web users does not guarantee your rank stability. With time, your visitors will start migrating to other websites, impacting your overall website visibility.

Helpful Content Best Practices

Most likely, the main question that comes to mind now is How do you create compliant and successful CBD website content with Google helpful content update? Not to worry, we have highlighted some helpful content tips put forward by Google itself to guide you. Check the helpful content best practices below.

1. Focus on Developing People-first Content

One of the most vital requirements of Google helpful content update is to compose content from a people-first perspective. In other words, you should narrow your focus on creating satisfying content that meets the expectation of your web visitors. Ensure you align your CBD content to the presiding topic and stay in your area of expertise. Moreover, algorithm update requires you to understand your target consumer and create matchable content.

Also, implementing the EAT update, which stands for Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness, goes a long way in enhancing your content. This will further help customers feel trust and interact with your content.

For instance, if you market CBD edibles on your website, you must anticipate your audience’s intent and sufficiently deliver information on the CBD edibles products your visitors are searching for. Below are some core self-reflective questions and advice from Google to guide on creating people-first content.

• Do you have an existing or intended audience for your business or site that would find valuable content if they came directly to you?
• Does your content clearly demonstrate first-hand expertise and a depth of knowledge?
• Does your site have a primary purpose or focus?
• After reading your content, will someone leave feeling they’ve learned enough about a topic to help achieve their goal?
• Will someone reading your content leave feeling like they’ve had a satisfying experience?

Keep in mind that answering “yes” to each above questions indicates you are almost certainly on the right track with the people-first content strategy.

2. Avoid Creating Content for Search Engines First

Developing CBD content with the people-first approach does not overthrow the need for SEO best practices. More so, CBD content created mainly for driving search engine traffic often leaves the target audience unsatisfied.

So, combining proper CBD SEO activities with people-first content remains a helpful strategy. Here are some practical Google questions to avoid taking a search engine first approach while maximizing SEO practices to give your visitors added value.

• Is the content primarily to attract people from search engines rather than made for humans?
• Are you producing lots of content on different topics in hopes that some of it might perform well in search results?
• Are you using extensive automation to produce content on many topics?
• Are you mainly summarizing what others have to say without adding much value?
• Are you writing about things simply because they seem to trend and not because you’d write about them otherwise for your existing audience?
• Does your content leave readers feeling like they need to search again to get better information from other sources?
• Did you decide to enter some niche topic area without any real expertise, mainly because you thought you’d get search traffic?
• Does your content promise to answer a question that actually has no answer?

Replying “yes” to some or all the questions above indicates that you should reassess the content across your CBD website.

3. Remove or Rewrite Existing Unhelpful Content

The Google helpful content update will flag irrelevant or insignificant content on your CBD website. Thus, if your content isn’t relevant to readers or perhaps doesn’t get any traffic, it will impact your website’s ranking on search results. To avoid this, it would be best to monitor site traffic regularly to determine if any unhelpful content on web pages can be rewritten or removed.

Top Recommendations for Creating Helpful Cannabis Content

1. Develop High-Quality Content

Creating helpful cannabis content has become a criterion for CBD websites to rank high on search engine results. However, to maintain visibility in relevant search results, note that Google crawls billions of pages and considers high-quality content, not just helpful content, before displaying the most suitable content for search intents.

Below are some core self-reflective Google guidelines to create quality content.

• Would you trust the information presented in this article?
• Is this article written by an expert or enthusiast who knows the topic well, or is it more shallow in nature?
• Does the site have duplicate, overlapping, or redundant articles on the same or similar topics with slightly different keyword variations?
• Would you be comfortable giving your credit card information to this site?
• Does this article have spelling, stylistic, or factual errors?
• Are the topics driven by the genuine interests of readers of the site, or does the site generate content by attempting to guess what might rank well in search engines?
• Does the article provide original content or information, original reporting, original research, or original analysis?
• Does the page provide substantial value when compared to other pages in search results?
• How much quality control is done on content?
• Are the articles short, unsubstantial, or otherwise lacking in helpful specifics?
• Are the pages produced with great care and attention to detail vs. less attention to detail?
• Would users complain when they see pages from this site?

2. Create Content for Every Stage of the Customer Journey

A quick question – Does your website comprise well-written content for each stage of the customer journey after landing on your CBD website? There are three primary stages that must be within your CBD web content, which are:

• Awareness stage: At this stage, your visitors search for insights, answers, and sources.
• Consideration stage: Your visitors ponder if your CBD product or service is the best choice for them.
• Decision-making stage: Here, visitors rationalize the reason to patronize you or become a customer.

So, you will agree that not every visitor or user will buy your CBD product, engage in your content, or contact you instantly. For this reason, you must ensure your CBD web content layout meets visitors’ needs at all stages.

3. Address Customer Questions

Your CBD website content should address the questions and tackle potential problems your target customers might have. Thus, CBD content that focuses on these issues is always helpful and satisfactory to web users. In most cases, your visitors will not sense the need to visit other websites or search again to get better information because you have resolved all potential queries.

To maximize this approach, you can include the frequently asked questions (FAQs) section in your website content to address the common questions that apply to your CBD business. There are special tools you can leverage to gather the right questions.

Conclusion

The Google helpful content update launched a welcomed opportunity for cannabis websites and content creators to produce valuable content for their visitors. The update has increased the execution of helpful content across websites and has positively reformed content creation strategies for marketing agencies worldwide.

So, when creating CBD content for your website, always remember to implement helpful content practices and recommendations. This article examines the best practices and recommendations to apply web content to your CBD website successfully.

At Digital Octane, we provide outstanding CBD website design and development services. More so, if you need a quality website to sell your CBD products and attract more clients from all over the world, then you are in the right place. Do well to reach out to us today!