Winners and Losers of Google's Helpful Content Update + 2 Weird Niche Sites

Welcome back to another episode of the Niche Pursuits News Podcast, where Spencer and Jared analyze the latest news in SEO, digital marketing, and website building and offer their unique insight.

You won’t want to miss this episode, especially if you were affected by Google’s Helpful Content Update. 

As the update has officially wrapped up, this week Spencer and Jared dedicate a lot of time to talking about its massive impact on the industry. They share common insights and important takeaways from 4 SEO experts: Lily Ray, Glen Gabe, Barry Schwartz, and Marie Haynes.

According to the experts, this update, the 3rd and largest of its kind, looked at over-optimized content and the authenticity of reviews. It also potentially penalized websites with the blogroll on the homepage and sites using too many affiliate links with no context. 

User experience is another big topic, with Google appearing to penalize sites that are poorly-designed, sites with broken links and, perhaps most importantly, sites with aggressive ads and pop-ups.

They also speak about how data reporters have not picked up on the volatility of this update, how niche site owners have been extremely affected, and how UGC seems to have been rewarded as opposed to SEO content.

They discuss the importance of building a brand on multiple platforms, the importance of verifiable credentials, and the need for content from trusted sources that is truly helpful.

Jared and Spencer then talk about the possibility of recovering from the update and self-assessing your site using Google’s guidelines, and they offer sage advice to website owners who have been negatively impacted by this update. 

In the next portion of the podcast, they share and analyze real sites that have been positively affected by the update, talking about why they think that is and what they’re doing right. They specifically look at sites in the finance and travel spaces. They also take a closer look at a few sites that have lost traffic following the update, in the travel niche.

Don’t miss their conclusions about the update, their opinion on the future of the industry, and their advice on moving forward for site owners.

Although they dedicate the bulk of the podcast to talking about the update, they do speak briefly about their current side hustles in the Side Hustle Shenanigans portion of the podcast. 

Spencer speaks about his AI website challenge and how some of those creators are already seeing a little bit of traffic. He’ll also be hosting a second YouTube Live on Monday, October 2nd, along with an AI expert.

Jared briefly talks about his Amazon Influencer side hustle and his Weekend Growth YouTube channel.  

As for Weird Niche Sites, Spencer shares his: HowToPronounce, which is getting 1.4 million visitors per month, according to Ahrefs. It’s ranking for lots of keywords with significant traffic, although it looks like it was hit by recent Google updates.

Jared’s site, I Might Be Funny, is a good example of UGC (but not SEO), as it amalgamates and shares content originally published on social media. Although it has a DR of just 6, it ranks for 4k keywords according to Ahrefs, some of which have significant traffic, and gets around 5k organic visitors per month.

As always, talking about these weird niche sites allows Jared and Spencer to share some fantastic advice and inspiration when it comes to picking a niche and building websites.

Tune in again next week when they bring their expertise to talk about the latest news in SEO and beyond.

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