Following the fact that “Google’s useful content update” has ended, admittedly without too many earthquakes, I decided to summarize some things worth remembering:
1. Content is only one of the 3 pillars of SEO
2. Everybody Loves Content Created by User
User Generated Content (UGC) is an amazing source of original content that is both free and contributes significantly to the credibility of the business and its popularity among potential consumers. The statistics show that user-based content enjoys a 161% (!!!) higher conversion rate than “normal” content.
Under the umbrella of User Generated Content you can find:
- Product reviews
- Testimonials
- Informative content on a variety of topics (i.e. Wikipedia) and
- Open source content
3. Success Stories are, hmm… Success
Success stories / case studies, similar to UGC, contribute significantly to the credibility of the business and are considered must-have content for any business that understands the importance of marketing and content marketing.
Other types of highly effective textual content, both for users and search engines, includes:
- Various lists and guides (how-tos)
- Glossaries
- Frequently asked questions and
- Comparisons.
4. Rich Media’s Glamor
In addition to textual content there is the world of rich media which includes videos, infographics, photos, podcasts and in recent years also gifs, memes and content that is associated with the world of social websites such as stories and reels.
All of these manage to communicate with our target audience in a direct and faster way since they require less effort in receiving the message compared to reading long texts.
The extra benefit is that rich media content can help us in having our brand featured on SERP in more than one type of result (check google result pages and tell me when was the last time you got website results only for a query you made. I bet it was years ago) and thus increase the exposure of users to our brand.
In the context of SEO, one should always attach text to his/her visual content, to make it easier for search engines to understand it and obviously influence the ranking of this content in the generic search results. For videos we will add a transcript, for infographics we will add a summary text, for memes we will add a short description in the alt tag or in the caption and so on.
5. Your Target Audience Will Always Be Human
The goal in producing content is to provide value to the user. Google’s latest update comes to remind us of what it told us back when it was a baby engine with abandonment anxiety and a soaked diaper – your user should be in the first place, not search engines. Search engines are just another means by which your visitors can get to know you. It is important that you know how to present your content in a way that search engines will be able to understand it, but the real judges of this content will always be humans.
So write to humans, not robots.
Full Disclosure:
The current text was written by an AI copywriter in English and then translated into Hebrew by Google translate.
I’m joking of course 
