After Google's Helpful Content Update, Is SEO Still Valuable? Here’s All The Information You Need

When it comes to digital marketing strategies, search engine optimisation (SEO) is an essential component for brands and businesses that want to scale and grow. SEO raises a website's visibility across the board, including in search engines, official websites, social media, and other platforms.

However, a significant number of SEO specialists participate in unethical practices like using doorway pages, shadow domains, and link schemes. Because of these practices, it is more challenging for content that is authentic, informative, to the point, and rich in information to appear at the top of the search engine results page.

Google routinely revises the rules that govern its algorithms in order to address this problem and improve the quality of the search experience. For instance, the Helpful Content Update that took place in August 2022 gave priority to content that was centred on people rather than content that was focused on SEO.

This raises the question: is search engine optimisation (SEO) still important? Without proper SEO optimisation, is it possible for genuine content that adds value to rank at the top of search results?

Let's take a look.

What Exactly Is SEO?

“SEO” is short for “search engine optimisation”. The primary objective of the process of optimising a website for search engines is to gain an understanding of how search engines function, the search engines that people prefer, the topics that people search for, and the keywords that they use.

SEO refers to the process of adapting the content of a website so that search engines are able to recognise the information that users are looking for.

Increasing the visibility of webpages, enabling more organic traffic to find the content they are looking for, and, most importantly, converting potential searches into solid conversions and increasing brand value are all benefits that come from using SEO.

For this reason, search engine optimisation is essential for digital marketing teams to have in order to develop an efficient marketing campaign that simultaneously boosts site traffic and sales.

SEO Components

The implementation of SEO is not a cookie-cutter process. It is a process that consists of multiple components, each of which plays a vital role in the overall process.

In most cases, SEO will consist of components such as the following:

• Keywords are words or phrases that people type into search engines to locate the specific content, goods, and services that they are looking for.
• Content can take on a variety of forms, and research has shown that content that is well-written, with the appropriate focus and angle, typically reaches more people and results in more sales.
• Backlinks are created as part of off-page SEO, and they are responsible for driving traffic to the website.
• “SEM” or “search engine marketing” are essentially paid marketing campaigns. PPC campaigns, native ads, Google AdWords campaigns, and advertisements on social media are all included.

The Significance of SEO and Its Advantages for Businesses

There are numerous benefits of SEO that make it impossible for anyone to consider it to be irrelevant.

Here's how SEO is relevant:

Enhanced public visibility and improved search engine rankings

After clicking on the top results, one-quarter of internet users do not continue scrolling down the page, according to research conducted by Hubspot. Increasing one's visibility is necessary in order to achieve a higher ranking on the search engine results page (SERP).

Search engine optimisation (SEO) is essentially like a fast-forward button for providing the content that customers are looking for. Because of this, it raises visibility, which in turn leads to improved SERP rankings.

Improves one's credibility

People are more likely to believe in a brand and a company when it has a higher rank on the search engine results page (SERP) because it appears to be more legitimate and trustworthy.

Assists in content marketing

The use of search engine optimisation results in higher rankings for high-quality content and provides significant visibility.

Aids PPC campaigns

Pay-per-click advertising is referred to as PPC. It makes it easier for companies to achieve higher rankings in paid search results. When implemented effectively, SEO can significantly boost the efficiency of PPC campaigns.

Better rank in local search

The phrase "near me" appears at the end of the majority of local searches conducted on mobile devices, and 80% of these searches result in a conversion. Implementing local SEO strategies can help businesses get in front of these prospective clients.

Aside from these benefits, SEO enables businesses and digital marketers to reach a greater number of audiences, improve the user experience and engagement rates of website visitors by increasing the usability of websites, and track quantifiable results.

In the grand scheme of things, search engine optimisation ensures a distinct competitive advantage in digital marketing.

After Google's Helpful Content Update, do search engine optimisation efforts still matter?

There is no doubt that SEO is still useful.

Nevertheless, it should be coupled with content that focuses on people rather than relying solely on keywords, and it ought to start following the best practices that Google suggests.

Given the many advantages that SEO has for websites, it has the potential to open the door to consistent and exponential growth. It could prove problematic for anyone to disregard the significance of its role in digital marketing strategies as unimportant.