TL;DR - How to Find Helpful Content on your Website

The key is to find pages on your site that are unhelpful: Identify Unhelpful Content : Using Google Search Console, find pages with no organic traffic and that are not being regularly crawled by GoogleBot (+30 days). Analyze : The likelihood of these pages actually ranking in Search using Keyword Difficulty tools. Draft or Delete articles that don’t have a chance of appearing in Google. Optimize the ones that do have a chance to rank. Gather User Feedback : Use forms to ask users if the content was helpful and how it can be improved. Bulk Audits : Use tools like Screaming Frog with GSC’s API to speed up the auditing process. Regular Updates : Continuously update and refine content based on user intent insights to enhance engagement and boost organic traffic.

Why is it important to understand the Last Crawl Date?

Understanding the Last Crawl Date helps you: 1. Monitor Crawl Frequency : By tracking the last crawl date, you can determine how often Googlebot visits your site. Frequent crawling generally indicates that Google considers your site to be important and regularly updated. 2. Identify Crawling Issues : If certain pages haven’t been crawled for a long time, it might signal issues such as poor internal linking, low-quality content, or technical problems that prevent Googlebot from accessing the pages. 3. Optimize Content Updates : Knowing when your content was last crawled allows you to better time your updates. For instance, if you’ve made significant changes to a page and it hasn’t been crawled recently, you might want to use the “Request Indexing” feature in GSC to prompt Googlebot to revisit the page. 4. Enhance SEO Strategies : By analyzing the last crawl dates, you can adjust your SEO strategies to ensure that important pages are crawled and indexed more frequently. This could involve improving site structure, enhancing content quality, and ensuring that your sitemap is up-to-date. Overall, the Last Crawl Date in Google Search Console is a valuable metric that helps you manage and optimize your website’s presence in Google’s search index.

Why are Total Clicks important?

Here’s why Total Clicks is important: 1. Traffic Measurement : Total Clicks gives you a clear measure of how much traffic your site is receiving from Google searches. Higher clicks generally indicate better visibility and relevance to users’ search queries. 2. Performance Insight : Analyzing Total Clicks helps you understand which pages and keywords are driving the most traffic. This information is crucial for identifying successful content and optimizing underperforming pages. 3. SEO Effectiveness : Total Clicks reflect the effectiveness of your SEO strategies. If certain pages or keywords have high impressions but low clicks, it suggests that you need to improve your titles, meta descriptions, or overall content to make them more attractive to users. 4. User Behavior : This metric provides insights into user behavior and preferences. By knowing which queries and pages attract the most clicks, you can tailor your content to better meet user needs and improve engagement. 5. Search Engine Ranking : A consistent increase in Total Clicks can positively impact your search engine rankings. Google considers user engagement metrics like clicks when determining the relevance and quality of your site. 6. Identifying Issues : If you notice a decline in Total Clicks, it can indicate potential issues with your site, such as technical problems, increased competition, or changes in user search behavior. Addressing these issues promptly can help maintain or improve your traffic. Overall, Total Clicks in GSC is a vital metric for assessing your website’s performance, optimizing your content, and enhancing your SEO strategies to attract more visitors from organic search.

What are the benefits of optimizing for User Experience?

This approach benefits both the user experience and search engine optimization (SEO). Here are the key reasons: 1. User Satisfaction : When a webpage directly addresses a reader’s question, it provides immediate value, making the user more likely to stay on the site, explore further, and return in the future. Satisfied users are also more likely to share content and recommend the site to others. 2. SEO Benefits : Search engines prioritize content that effectively answers user queries. Pages that clearly respond to questions are more likely to appear higher in search results, as search engines aim to deliver the best and most relevant information to users. 3. Reduced Bounce Rate : Clear and concise answers reduce the likelihood of users quickly leaving the page (bounce rate). Lower bounce rates can improve your site’s overall SEO performance, as search engines interpret this as a sign of high-quality content. 4. Enhanced Credibility and Authority : Providing clear, accurate answers builds trust and establishes your site as a credible source of information. This can lead to higher user engagement and better long-term relationships with your audience.

Finding helpful content on your website is crucial for both user satisfaction and SEO performance. By using tools like Google Search Console to identify underperforming content, checking keyword difficulty, and gathering user feedback, you can refine and improve your content strategy. Integrating Screaming Frog with GSCâs API further enhances your ability to perform detailed SEO audits, ensuring your site remains relevant and engaging. Consistently updating and optimizing your content based on these insights will help attract more organic traffic and improve overall user experience. Read More

How to find Helpful Content on your website

Q: 1. Analyzing Google Search Console Data

Analyzing Google Search Console Data is a crucial step in identifying and improving the helpfulness of your website content . This process begins by examining GSC data to pinpoint articles that havenât been crawled by Google in the past 30 days or longer and have received zero SERP clicks . Read More

The key to finding helpful content on your website is first to identify what content isn’t serving your audience. This process begins with analyzing Google Search Console (GSC) data to pinpoint articles that haven’t been crawled by Google in the past 30 days (or longer) and have received zero SERP clicks or are not generating organic traffic.

It’s important to check the keyword difficulty of these pages for topics you are trying to rank for, ensuring the page has an opportunity to rank in Google. I don’t see the point in optimizing a page that will never rank above its competitors.

When reviewing dead pages (zero clicks, Google isn’t regularly crawling), you should be able to easily find the answer to readers’ queries within seconds of reviewing the content. In some cases, the query is easy to rank for, yet the page doesn’t satisfy user intent by answering their question clearly and directly.

Finally, incorporating anonymous feedback forms on your website can provide direct insights from your audience. If a significant percentage of respondents indicate that a page isn’t helpful, it’s a clear sign that the content needs improvement.

By following these steps, you can refine your website to feature more helpful and engaging content for your visitors.

Continue reading to learn how to put this into action on your website.

TL;DR – How to Find Helpful Content on your Website
The key is to find pages on your site that are unhelpful:
1. Identify Unhelpful Content: Using Google Search Console, find pages with no organic traffic and that are not being regularly crawled by GoogleBot (+30 days).
2. Analyze: The likelihood of these pages actually ranking in Search using Keyword Difficulty tools. Draft or Delete articles that don’t have a chance of appearing in Google. Optimize the ones that do have a chance to rank.
3. Gather User Feedback: Use forms to ask users if the content was helpful and how it can be improved.
4. Bulk Audits: Use tools like Screaming Frog with GSC’s API to speed up the auditing process.
5. Regular Updates: Continuously update and refine content based on user intent insights to enhance engagement and boost organic traffic.

1. Analyzing Google Search Console Data

Analyzing Google Search Console Data is a crucial step in identifying and improving the helpfulness of your website content. This process begins by examining GSC data to pinpoint articles that haven’t been crawled by Google in the past 30 days or longer and have received zero SERP clicks.

These metrics indicate that certain pages are not performing well in search results, likely due to issues with relevance, quality, or optimization. By identifying these underperforming articles, you can focus on updating and enhancing the content to make it more valuable and appealing to both search engines and users. This might involve improving keyword usage, adding fresh and relevant information, or adjusting meta tags and descriptions to better align with search intent.

Ultimately, it is up to you to decide on timelines and click treshhold according to your website performance and history. If I had seasonal websites, I’d be looking at a 12-month basis. I’m basing my approach on websites that were directly hit by the Helpful Content Update (HCU).

This data-driven approach helps ensure that your website content is effective, engaging, and more likely to attract organic traffic.

Google Confirms: High-Quality Content Is Crawled More Often

Google’s Search Relations team confirms that high-quality, user-centric content is crawled more frequently, debunking the myth of a fixed crawl budget. Google prioritizes crawling based on content quality and search demand.

To increase crawling and indexing, focus on producing high-quality, relevant content that aligns with user intent. Improving site quality and user experience is key to ensuring valuable pages get discovered by Google.

For more details, visit the full article on Search Engine Journal.

Last Crawl Date – Finding possible unhelpful content

The Last Crawl Date in Google Search Console (GSC) refers to the most recent date and time that Google’s web crawler, Googlebot, visited and indexed a specific page on your website. This information is crucial for webmasters and SEO professionals as it provides insight into how frequently Googlebot is crawling your site, which can impact your site’s visibility and ranking in search results.

Why is it important to understand the Last Crawl Date?
Understanding the Last Crawl Date helps you:

1. Monitor Crawl Frequency: By tracking the last crawl date, you can determine how often Googlebot visits your site. Frequent crawling generally indicates that Google considers your site to be important and regularly updated.

2. Identify Crawling Issues: If certain pages haven’t been crawled for a long time, it might signal issues such as poor internal linking, low-quality content, or technical problems that prevent Googlebot from accessing the pages.

3. Optimize Content Updates: Knowing when your content was last crawled allows you to better time your updates. For instance, if you’ve made significant changes to a page and it hasn’t been crawled recently, you might want to use the “Request Indexing” feature in GSC to prompt Googlebot to revisit the page.

4. Enhance SEO Strategies: By analyzing the last crawl dates, you can adjust your SEO strategies to ensure that important pages are crawled and indexed more frequently. This could involve improving site structure, enhancing content quality, and ensuring that your sitemap is up-to-date.

Overall, the Last Crawl Date in Google Search Console is a valuable metric that helps you manage and optimize your website’s presence in Google’s search index.

Zero SERP clicks – If no one is clicking, your content might be garbage

Total Clicks in Google Search Console (GSC) refers to the number of times users have clicked on your website’s link from Google search results. This metric is a key indicator of how well your site is performing in attracting visitors through organic search.

Why are Total Clicks important?
Here’s why Total Clicks is important:

1. Traffic Measurement: Total Clicks gives you a clear measure of how much traffic your site is receiving from Google searches. Higher clicks generally indicate better visibility and relevance to users’ search queries.

2. Performance Insight: Analyzing Total Clicks helps you understand which pages and keywords are driving the most traffic. This information is crucial for identifying successful content and optimizing underperforming pages.

3. SEO Effectiveness: Total Clicks reflect the effectiveness of your SEO strategies. If certain pages or keywords have high impressions but low clicks, it suggests that you need to improve your titles, meta descriptions, or overall content to make them more attractive to users.

4. User Behavior: This metric provides insights into user behavior and preferences. By knowing which queries and pages attract the most clicks, you can tailor your content to better meet user needs and improve engagement.

5. Search Engine Ranking: A consistent increase in Total Clicks can positively impact your search engine rankings. Google considers user engagement metrics like clicks when determining the relevance and quality of your site.

6. Identifying Issues: If you notice a decline in Total Clicks, it can indicate potential issues with your site, such as technical problems, increased competition, or changes in user search behavior. Addressing these issues promptly can help maintain or improve your traffic.

Overall, Total Clicks in GSC is a vital metric for assessing your website’s performance, optimizing your content, and enhancing your SEO strategies to attract more visitors from organic search.

2. Keyword Difficulty – Do you even have a chance at ranking?!

Understanding keyword difficulty is essential for deciding what pages to delete and which ones to optimize.

By analyzing keyword difficulty, you can identify competitive barriers, optimize your content strategy, and better align your pages with user search intent.

This process ensures that your content is more likely to attract traffic after optimization and provides valuable information to your audience.

Here’s how checking keyword difficulty can help you enhance your SEO efforts and resource allocation effectively. First, in the Performance tab in Google Search Console, click on “+ New” and add your page’s URL.

From there, take the first query with the most impressions and add it to Ahrefs, SEMrush, or LowFruits to see if I have an opportunity to rank for that topic. I use GSC queries because they show me what Google thinks the page is about, which can sometimes not align with what you think is the top keyword.

If the page isn’t getting crawled by Google, isn’t receiving organic traffic from Google (or other search engines), and shows as difficult, hard, or very hard to rank for in Google, I will typically set the page to draft mode and redirect that page to something related that is getting traffic.

Note: Be careful not to delete pages that your website needs (e.g., the core product or service your company sells) or pages that are being used as a parent page. Only you can decide what pages are not worthy. Take SEO Tools with a grain of salt.

3. Pages should clearly answer a reader’s question

If you decide to keep the page and further optimize it, in hopes Google will see its value, it’s important that webpages should clearly answer a reader’s question to ensure that the content is relevant, engaging, and useful.

I like to pretend that I’m the reader, that I’ve never seen the article before, not being familiar with the website, or its formatting. If the answer is not clearly stated on the page, I will add it or find it and use that information to create a table or chart that is easily identifiable for readers. If the page is more advanced, I will add a TL;DR or ELI5 section at the top of the page.

What are the benefits of optimizing for User Experience?
This approach benefits both the user experience and search engine optimization (SEO). Here are the key reasons:

1. User Satisfaction: When a webpage directly addresses a reader’s question, it provides immediate value, making the user more likely to stay on the site, explore further, and return in the future. Satisfied users are also more likely to share content and recommend the site to others.

2. SEO Benefits: Search engines prioritize content that effectively answers user queries. Pages that clearly respond to questions are more likely to appear higher in search results, as search engines aim to deliver the best and most relevant information to users.

3. Reduced Bounce Rate: Clear and concise answers reduce the likelihood of users quickly leaving the page (bounce rate). Lower bounce rates can improve your site’s overall SEO performance, as search engines interpret this as a sign of high-quality content.

4. Enhanced Credibility and Authority: Providing clear, accurate answers builds trust and establishes your site as a credible source of information. This can lead to higher user engagement and better long-term relationships with your audience.

How to make your content better using the Inverted Pyramid

The inverted pyramid is a writing style that presents information in descending order of importance. This technique is especially effective for web content because it caters to users’ short attention spans and scanning behavior.

Here’s how it works:

Top (Most Important Information): Start with the most critical information, directly answering the reader’s primary question or addressing the main topic. This section should be concise and impactful, ensuring that even if readers stop here, they receive the essential message.

Middle (Supporting Details): Follow with additional details that support the main point. This can include explanations, key facts, and important context that enhance the reader’s understanding.

Bottom (Background Information): Conclude with background information, less critical details, and any supplementary content. This section is for readers who want a deeper dive into the topic.

Example:

For a webpage on “How to Change a Tire,” using the inverted pyramid might look like this:

Top: Immediate steps to safely change a tire.
Middle: Detailed instructions, tools needed, and common pitfalls.
Bottom: Background on different types of tires, maintenance tips, and FAQs.

By structuring content in this way, you ensure that users quickly find the answers they need, which improves their experience and increases the likelihood of positive engagement with your site.

4. Asking for User Feedback

Asking for User Feedback is a powerful strategy for improving SEO. On all of my websites, I include a Gravity form with the question, “Did this article answer your question?” If the user clicks ‘no,’ conditional logic populates a secondary field asking how we can improve it. This approach provides direct insights into user needs and preferences, often leading to ideas I never thought about. By addressing this feedback, I can refine content to be more relevant and useful, thereby enhancing user experience, reducing bounce rates, and ultimately improving search engine rankings.

By collecting user feedback through the Gravity form, you can analyze the data to understand how many users find your content useful. This information can be represented in a chart format to provide a clear visual of user satisfaction and areas needing improvement. Here’s how you can use that feedback data:

Collect Feedback: Gather responses from the Gravity form, focusing on the answers to “Did this article answer your question?” and the follow-up suggestions for improvement.
Categorize Responses: Sort the feedback into categories such as “Useful,” “Not Useful,” and common themes from the suggestions on how to improve the content.
Calculate Percentages: Calculate the percentage of users who found the content useful versus those who did not.
Create a Chart: Use a pie chart or bar graph to visually represent the data. This chart can show the proportion of users who found the article useful, those who did not, and the various categories of suggested improvements.

Example Chart:

Feedback Response Summary

Category	Number of Responses	Percentage (%)
Useful	150	75%
Not Useful	50	25%
Improvement Needed	30	15%
Content Accuracy	10	5%
Clarity	10	5%
More Details	10	5%

Visual Representation:

Pie Chart:

Bar Graph (for suggestions):

Using the Data:

Identify Trends: Look for trends in the feedback to identify common areas where content can be improved.
Prioritize Updates: Focus on the most frequently mentioned issues or suggestions to prioritize content updates.
Measure Impact: After making improvements, continue to collect feedback to measure the impact of changes on user satisfaction and SEO performance.

By visualizing feedback data, you can make informed decisions on how to enhance your content, thereby increasing user satisfaction and improving your website’s SEO.

5. Automate with Screaming Frog

Using Screaming Frog in conjunction with Google Search Console’s API allows you to perform comprehensive SEO audits by pulling GSC data in bulk and identifying unhelpful content.

Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to do this:

Step 1: Set Up Screaming Frog

Download and Install: Download and install Screaming Frog SEO Spider from the official website.
License: If you need to crawl more than 500 URLs or access advanced features, purchase and activate a license.

Step 2: Connect to Google Search Console API

API Access: Ensure you have API access to your Google Search Console account. You need to have permissions to access the necessary data.
Authorize API Access:

Open Screaming Frog SEO Spider.
Go to Configuration > API Access > Google Search Console.
Click on Connect to New Account and follow the authorization steps to grant Screaming Frog access to your Google Search Console data.

Step 3: Configure API Settings

Select Properties: Once connected, select the GSC properties (websites) you want to pull data from.
Data Extraction:

Choose the type of data you want to extract (e.g., clicks, impressions, CTR, average position, last crawl date, indexing status).
Configure the date range for the data you want to pull.

Step 4: Perform the Crawl

Set Up Crawl:

Enter the website URL you want to audit in Screaming Frog.
Configure any additional settings (e.g., crawl depth, user-agent, robots.txt rules) as needed.

Start Crawl:

Click the Start button to begin crawling your website.
Screaming Frog will crawl the website and pull the configured GSC data for each URL.

Step 5: Analyze Data

View Data:

Once the crawl is complete, go to the Search Console tab in Screaming Frog.
Here, you’ll see the imported data such as clicks, impressions, CTR, average position, and more.

Filter and Analyze:

Use Screaming Frog’s filters and tabs to analyze the data. You can filter by specific metrics, pages, or issues.
Identify pages with high impressions but low clicks, pages with poor average positions, and pages not indexed or recently crawled.

Step 6: Export Data

Export Options:

Export the data to CSV or Excel for further analysis.
Go to File > Export and choose the relevant export options.

Detailed Reports:

Create detailed reports combining Screaming Frog’s crawl data with GSC metrics.
Use these reports to prioritize SEO efforts, identify technical issues, and optimize content based on performance metrics.

Benefits of Using Screaming Frog with GSC API

Comprehensive Audits: Combine technical SEO data from Screaming Frog with performance metrics from GSC for a complete audit.
Bulk Data Analysis: Efficiently analyze data for large websites, pulling in extensive GSC data in bulk.
Actionable Insights: Identify issues such as low-performing pages, indexing problems, and crawl frequency to improve overall SEO strategy.

By integrating Screaming Frog with the Google Search Console API, you streamline the process of obtaining and analyzing critical SEO data, allowing for more effective and data-driven optimization of your website.

Conclusion

Finding helpful content on your website is crucial for both user satisfaction and SEO performance. By using tools like Google Search Console to identify underperforming content, checking keyword difficulty, and gathering user feedback, you can refine and improve your content strategy. Integrating Screaming Frog with GSC’s API further enhances your ability to perform detailed SEO audits, ensuring your site remains relevant and engaging. Consistently updating and optimizing your content based on these insights will help attract more organic traffic and improve overall user experience.

How to find Helpful Content

TL;DR – How to Find Helpful Content on your Website