Helpful Content Update Recoveries - Is the HCU Over?

E586: Google is going after spammy SEO sites that make searchers scroll and scroll to find their answers. This is an effort to combat the poor user experience that’s been driving searchers away to competitors such as ChatGPT or UGC solutions. Searchers hated this too, it’s one of the most complained about things with Google Search. Spammy SEOs would maximize time on page by obscuring answers and hiding them way down on the page, below a ton of fluff. This update from Google is starting with just recipe sites, which are notorious for this bad behavior, but I expect it to roll out to other niches soon. 💎 Sources Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/SEO/comments/1ijcfpw/google_guidelines_warns_of_significant_scrolling/ Search Engine Roundtable: https://www.seroundtable.com/google-warns-of-significant-scrolling-on-recipe-blogs-38847.html Featured snippets get more clicks: https://seosherpa.com/seo-experiments/ Google to 89% market share: https://www.storyboard18.com/digital/googles-global-search-engine-share-falls-below-90-for-the-first-time-in-nearly-a-decade-53515.htm Compact Keywords - Get purchase-intent traffic for your business through SEO (without many backlinks) - step-by-step video breakdowns - SEO templates to be copied and adapted for your products and services: https://compactkeywords.com/ 00:00 Introduction 00:15 Google's New Guidelines for Recipe Blogs 00:24 Impact Beyond Recipe Blogs 00:31 Details of the Updated Guidelines 01:00 User Experience and Scrolling Issues 01:57 Community Reactions to the Update 02:49 SEO Tactics and User Engagement 03:06 Google's Detection of User Behavior 03:36 Search Intent 03:47 Featured Snippets and User Interaction 04:50 Google's Focus on Originality 05:30 Future of SEO Practices 06:49 Conclusion and Final Thoughts The Edward Show. Your daily search engine optimization podcast: https://edwardsturm.com/the-edward-show/ #seotips #searchengineoptimization #digitalmarketing #helpfulcontentupdate

E585: Lots of websites are showing dramatic Helpful Content Update recoveries, back to pre-HCU levels. Is Google’s Helpful Content Update over? It might be - Google even made an announcement on what they’re looking for in 2025 - and it corroborates why the HCU even happened in the first place. This is the situation on how the Helpful Content Update is ending, how websites are recovering, and how to avoid this in the first place. Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/SEO/comments/1ijce42/it_looks_like_google_is_lifting_the_hcu_classifier/ Compact Keywords: https://compactkeywords.com/ 00:00 Introduction 01:32 Helpful Content Update Recoveries 03:56 Gary Illyes on Original Content 04:27 SEO Best Practices for Original Content 08:17 Conclusion and Final Thoughts The Edward Show. Your daily search engine optimization podcast: https://edwardsturm.com/the-edward-show/ #seotips #searchengineoptimization #helpfulcontentupdate #blackhatseo

E584: The story of how a YouTuber who reviews SaaS products made his own SaaS product with no code tools, scored #1 on Product Hunt, and now uses UGC and programmatic SEO to get tons of rankings on Google… in a niche that also gives him power. Very cool case study here. If you’re curious about making your own SaaS, building something with no code tools, doing programmatic SEO, doing YouTube SEO, or even having UGC on your website, check this episode out. The Reddit Post: https://www.reddit.com/r/Entrepreneur/comments/1ij4ykd/youtuber_turned_cofounder_creating_to_startup/ Compact Keywords - Get tons of purchase-intent traffic for your business with SEO (without many/any backlinks) - step-by-step video breakdowns - SEO templates to be copied and adopted for your products and services: https://compactkeywords.com/ 00:00 Introduction to the Case Study 00:39 Francesco's Journey from YouTuber to Startup Founder 01:35 Building Tool Finder with No-Code Tools 03:26 SEO Success and Keyword Rankings 06:00 How Tool Finder Operates 09:32 User-Generated Content and Programmatic SEO 11:42 YouTube for SEO and Growth 13:10 Conclusion and Final Thoughts The Edward Show. Your daily search engine optimization podcast: https://edwardsturm.com/the-edward-show/ #seotips #indiehackers #nocode #searchengineoptimization

E583: YouTube link for this one - https://youtu.be/IQrqrYXTs88 5 stories from the last month of this podcast, starting with the story of how Joshua Ryan Schaver was scammed by his affiliate partner. Josh’s retaliation was to leave the partner and start a competing business that is now eating their lunch! Episodes mentioned: 573 - Joshua Ryan Schaver - https://youtu.be/AGnNN0KyynA 580 - Nick Musica - https://youtu.be/JBjohKA22zI 560 - Jason Levin - https://youtu.be/snWC6tMTvAg 566 - Mike and Kass Lazerow - https://youtu.be/OslN_eLOCes 581 - Google’s Helpful Content Update: How Black Hat SEOs Killed Blogging - https://youtu.be/yU5SF9AwosU Backlinks don’t matter - Compact Keywords - Get tons of purchase-intent traffic for your business with SEO (without many/any backlinks) - step-by-step video breakdowns - SEO templates to be copied and adopted for your products and services: https://compactkeywords.com/ 00:00 Recording in a Crowded Restaurant 00:26 Josh's Urban Farming Success 03:13 Nick's Theory on Google's Disavow Tool 05:44 Jason's LinkedIn Strategy for Newsletter Growth 07:21 Mike and Kass's Salesforce Acquisition 09:36 Developing Authenticity 11:06 Google's Helpful Content Update Theory 13:09 Conclusion and Final Thoughts The Edward Show. Your daily digital marketing podcast: https://edwardsturm.com/the-edward-show/ #digitalmarketing #instagrammarketing #searchengineoptimization #affiliatemarketing

E582: It took me two years of marketing this company from different angles to make me its biggest affiliate. And it was from an angle I hadn’t tried before where I succeeded. Sometimes the answer is staring you right in the face. Sometimes it takes a lot of experimentation. This is a story both where the answer was staring me right in the face and it took a lot of experimentation for me to see it. The success after two years of attempts was me becoming this company’s biggest affiliate. Mentioned in the podcast 💫 AI Podcast Matcher: https://aipodcastmatcher.com/ Reuse Video: https://reusevideo.com/ My weekly digital marketing newsletter: https://edwardsturm.com/newsletter/ Compact Keywords - My SEO Program: https://compactkeywords.com/ 00:00 Introduction: Angles in Marketing 00:20 AI Podcast Matcher Overview 00:44 Sharing Tools and Platforms 01:17 Experimenting with Different Angles 01:27 The Breakthrough Angle 02:32 The Unexpected Success 03:46 Posting Regularly 04:57 Lessons from Social Media Marketing 05:16 Patience in Marketing 09:16 Another Success Story: Best Reasons Why 11:31 Experimenting with Scripts 12:02 Repurposing Successful Content 13:18 Recurring Revenue 14:03 Conclusion: The Edward Show. Your daily digital marketing podcast: https://edwardsturm.com/the-edward-show/ #affiliatemarketing #instagrammarketing #tiktokmarketing #socialmediamarketing

E581: Over the last two years, the Google Helpful Content Update has been killing small and mid-sized blogs. Just recently, it’s gotten more serious. Even HubSpot has lost 80% of its blog traffic. But was this due to the Google Helpful Content Update or to something else? And all the data suggests there was a different root cause. It wasn’t just Google taking out the blogs with the HCU (Helpful Content Update). It was a preventative measure to stop searchers from leaving Google altogether. Black Hat SEOs exploited and ruined blogging, and searchers were getting sick and tired of it. Google did what it had to in order to survive. This podcast episode explains what the Google Helpful Content Update was trying to accomplish, who it was targeting, if there’s a way to recover, and what to do now. Mentioned in the show 👇 My weekly digital marketing newsletter: https://edwardsturm.com/newsletter/ Compact Keywords - SEO that requires less but makes more: https://compactkeywords.com/ 00:00 Introduction to Google's Helpful Content Update 00:21 Impact on Blogs and Websites 01:22 Theory Behind the Update 02:01 SEO Practices and User Experience 05:46 Rise of AI-Generated Content 07:48 Google's Response to Content Quality 08:20 Effects on Large and Small Websites 08:56 Challenges for Good Actors 11:54 Possible Recovery Strategies 13:44 Bottom of Funnel Content Strategy 14:45 Repurposing Content 16:33 Future of Top of Funnel Content 18:45 Conclusion on Google's Update 22:50 Alternative SEO Strategies 23:38 Final Thoughts and Outro The Edward Show. Your daily search engine optimization podcast: https://edwardsturm.com/the-edward-show/ #blackhatseo #seotips #searchengineoptimization #digitalmarketing

E580: Nick Musica joins the podcast! A true veteran, he’s been doing search engine optimization since 2003. He led SEO at High Point Insurance (Now Plymouth Rock), Esurance, and Rocket Lawyer before starting his SEO agency, Optics In, in 2019. Nick and his team provide SEO strategy and execution for small businesses in various sectors, including finance, technology, & cannabis. Nick co-authored When Search Meets Web Usability, a book about SEO and web usability, in April of 2009. He also taught a masters-level class on User Experience at NYU and has presented at SMX in Germany and ClickZ in San Francisco. You can find Nick at https://opticsin.com/ and on Linkedin at https://www.linkedin.com/in/nickmusica/ 💎 Sponsored by… Compact Keywords! - Backlinks don’t matter - Get tons of purchase-intent traffic for your business with SEO - step-by-step video breakdowns - SEO templates to be copied and adopted for your products and services: https://compactkeywords.com/ 00:00 Introduction and Welcome 00:21 The Disavow Tool 06:20 Personal Experiences and Industry Insights 13:17 SEO Practices and Challenges 17:53 AI in SEO and Future Trends 33:30 Website Crawling Efficiency 35:19 SEO Tools You Need 39:24 Success and Failure Stories 42:18 Algorithm Changes and Their Impact 50:05 The Future of SEO 01:05:54 Conclusion and Final Thoughts The Edward Show. Your daily search engine optimization podcast: https://edwardsturm.com/the-edward-show/ #blackhatseo #seotips #searchengineoptimization #digitalmarketing 

E579: This is a crazy unlock you get when you’ve posted videos every day for over a year. I discovered this only last night and am hyped out of my mind about it. Most creators: 1. Don’t know this. 2. Don’t want to share this secret. 3. Don’t want you to know how the sausage is made. Well, I’m sharing it all - including my optimized version of the unlock. Some of what’s in the episode will be familiar, but the extent to which I’m able to do this now is crazy. To tease you - I posted 6 videos yesterday. 2 in an hour before 9 AM. 3 in an hour between 9-10 PM. 2 hours to post 5 videos. And 1 video I made that day. Insane output. The possibilities with this are wild. 💎 Mentioned in the podcast: https://reusevideo.com/ Compact Keywords - Backlinks don’t matter - Get tons of purchase-intent traffic for your business with SEO - step-by-step video breakdowns - SEO templates to be copied and adopted for your products and services: https://compactkeywords.com/ 00:00 Unlocking the Secret 01:14 Automation Tools 02:38 Your Content Library 04:50 Optimizing Content 10:41 The Impact of Frequent Posting 17:46 Practical Tips for Content Management 20:10 Conclusion and Upcoming Episodes The Edward Show. Your daily digital marketing podcast: https://edwardsturm.com/the-edward-show/ #instagrammarketing #tiktokmarketing #socialmediamarketing #growthhacking

E578: How I ranked well for ‘SEO Trends 2018’ with my site that was still relatively new. The TL;DL - I got a head start! But why this worked so well was surprising. Don’t try to climb the mountain all at once. The best shortcut is the longcut. From https://edwardsturm.com/articles/trending-keywords/ Subscribe to the weekly digital marketing newsletter: https://edwardsturm.com/newsletter/ Backlinks don’t matter - Get tons of purchase-intent traffic for your business with my SEO Program - step-by-step video breakdowns - SEO templates to be copied and adopted for your products and services: https://compactkeywords.com/ 00:00 Introduction to Trending Keywords 00:15 TL;DL 00:45 Attempt One: SEO Trends 2017 01:40 Lessons Learned and Strategy for 2018 02:53 Being First 04:16 Achieving Your Goals Gradually 04:59 Conclusion and Final Thoughts The Edward Show. Your daily search engine optimization podcast: https://edwardsturm.com/the-edward-show/ #seotips #linkbuilding #searchengineoptimization #backlinks

E577: We answer, “Do Fiverr backlinks boost SEO rankings? Does using inexpensive link building packages from Fiverr increase search engine rankings?” Then, we talk about other link building methods. Then I share my personal philosophy on getting backlinks and building links from good places. Sources 👇 Buying Fiverr backlinks?: https://www.reddit.com/r/SEO/comments/1iaucfx/buying_fiverr_backlinks/ Link building - how easy is it actually? What should I focus on?: https://www.reddit.com/r/SEO/comments/1ic6v5w/link_building_how_easy_is_it_actually_what_should/ What I recommend ⭐️ The best sources of directories: https://boostbenchmark.com/ Meetup acquisitions: https://meetup.com/ Build links through podcasts: https://aipodcastmatcher.com/ Compact Keywords: https://compactkeywords.com/ 00:00 Introduction 00:54 Buying Fiverr Backlinks 04:33 Exploring Link Building Strategies 10:29 Edward's Philosophy on Link Building 20:07 Conclusion and Final Thoughts The Edward Show. Your daily search engine optimization podcast: https://edwardsturm.com/the-edward-show/ #linkbuilding #backlinks #searchengineoptimization #seotips