Information Satisfaction, or IS, makes customers and Google happy.
Google is an Information Satisfaction Engine
All this time, you thought of Google as a primetime search engine. It’s also been running as an information satisfaction engine in plain sight.
It’s no secret Google prioritizes content written for people rather than search engines. We’ve been hearing this guidance for years, and the reminders have only become more audible with the inclusion of the helpful content update, E-E-A-T, and first-hand content.
But that’s only the half of it.
Google not only wants information to be helpful to users; it also wants it to be satisfying to users. We’re talking next-level experience here.
How do we know this is true? According to a recent Search Engine Journal article, Google tells us so: information satisfaction is the key to better content and, in turn, better organic search performance.
How does Google determine information satisfaction?
The same article goes on to describe Google’s internal team of human content raters, whose job it is to score the helpfulness and satisfaction of online content.
There are, of course, many factors that can determine how “satisfactory” a piece of content might be: time spent on the page, number of clicks or interactions, or sharing it to social media. But Google doesn’t rank and tell on this data.
So, while there’s no way to understand the specific signals Google uses to analyze information satisfaction, you can mine your own customers’ opinions to determine if they’re happy with your content. Surveys are the perfect tool to measure satisfaction, which you can do by email, social media, or even on your website. Once you have some data, you can use it to guide your decisions on whether to make changes to your content.
Why this is important right now
Google is doubling down as an information satisfaction engine with the March 2024 Core Update, which looks more closely at content people find helpful. You can bet satisfaction signals are a key concept in this update, pushing businesses to put search-centric content behind them and focus their eyes on the prize: their customers’ satisfaction.
