A new strategy for hummingbird?
The arrival of Google’s latest package of algorithms in August 2013 sent shockwaves through the SEO community. Many feared the changes would result in a significant traffic drop-off. In addition, others were concerned their carefully crafted SEO campaigns would no longer function and the search landscape would be altered beyond recognition. Fortunately, these fears did not materialize, and on the surface many pages appeared to be ranked much as before, and traffic from SERP continued unabated. However, insiders at Google have given strong hints the full scope of the Hummingbird changes have not yet been fully implemented, and that SEO professionals should use this time to ensure their campaigns are fully in line with Google’s stated best practice.
What do the changes mean for SEO?
As the dust as settled on the Hummingbird announcement, professionals have had time to review the genuine impact. The consensus view is that following best practice will continue to give the best results. This means that the creation of content that is fully original, engaging to the reader and explores the subject in depth should be the primary concern of any author. Secondly, a backlink strategy that utilizes legitimate sites that are relevant to the referring site will still deliver the desired results. However, now more than ever it is important to avoid the purchase of backlinks from low value sites that are unfocused in their themes. Thirdly, social signals that previously gave results will continue to serve the same function although Hummingbird will attribute scores to them in a more sophisticated manner. Finally, the use of keywords remains necessary, but it is important not to overdo this. Keyword stuffing is penalized as the algorithm realizes that articles with an unusually high keyword density are written in an unnatural manner. Instead of a narrow focus on particular keywords a rich vocabulary of terms associated with the theme should be used.
How will Hummingbird change search behaviour?
Whereas the old search mechanism selected individual terms from a search phrase, Hummingbird seeks to contextualize the terms rather than bring up links solely on the basis that they contain keywords. The traditional method results in a significant number of links displayed that are not relevant to the intended search. The ultimate goal is to fully implement a semantic search system. Semantic search uses word sense disambiguation to contextualize search terms and refine the results. For example, the word “bark” has several meanings. “Bark” can be understood to mean the sound a dog makes or the outer layer of a tree. A traditional search including the term “bark” will return results relating to both dogs and trees. A semantic search will use other terms within the query to give only relevant results.
The Resurgence of Long Tail keywords?
A long tail keyword is a search phrase that has at least three words, more words are possible, and five words can be found in some phrases. There is less competition for these phrases than one or two word key terms. Long tail keywords can be advantageous to SEO practitioners, as in addition to the lower competition for the keywords they are also more likely to convert. Consider a search for “green leather shoes” compared to “leather shoes”. The user who arrives at a relevant site for “green leather shoes” is more likely to have found what they are looking for than someone using the term “leather shoes”. Because of the way Hummingbird analyses search terms in contextual terms long tail keywords will prove more valuable when included in relevant articles. Google wants users to find relevant content and to use conversational search terms, which by their nature are written in a longer way than regular single or double word searches. By thinking about what users are looking for when they come to your company you can incorporate long tail keywords and use these to generate ideas for content creation.
Knowledge Graph and the Information Card
With every search made using Google information about user behaviour is gathered by the company. This information can be collated and used to understand better how searches progress and present information relevant to the search to answer questions the user had not thought to ask. This information will be presented on an information card that appears in the upper right of the SERP. The information card contains not only suggestions based upon past search patterns but also data gathered from other Google services. Therefore, a successful SEO campaign for a brand will seek to ensure that this data is relevant and complete for the intended brand or product. As information is taken from Google services such as Google Places, Google Shopping and Google+ it is important that these services are first activated and also contain accurate and relevant information.
Advantages of the new Algorithm
Despite initial fears, Hummingbird does present the SEO market with a number of opportunities. Providing the campaign manager is willing to expand their horizons and make good use of long tail keywords there are many ways to increase the number of entrance pages available within a specific niche. Creating these entrance pages should be done with an eye on unique and engaging content primarily. With this in mind a successful SEO campaign will create more pages that seek to answer the queries coming from Google. To successful capture traffic a wider area of topic coverage should be undertaken, and this gives websites the possibility to introduce additional long tail keywords into the site.
News, info-graphics, video and authorship
As previously mentioned an information card now appears as separate box on the search page and shows key information related to the search query. Also referred to as a dashboard the information card makes use of recent information published on a topic to supplement its contents. The aim of the dashboard is too answer the search query without the user navigating away from Google. Therefore, regular and timely release of news should be done to keep the target of the SEO activity ranking highly in the feed and provide incentive to click through to the content. Content can be based around current news stories to match the buzz and tap into the traffic stemming from news events. Much of this can be planned in advance, and certain key events, such as the Super Bowl, always generate a large amount of coverage. Hummingbird also seeks to present content that is not purely text based and info-graphics and video should be used to harness this. Video has grown significantly over the past couple of years among those seeking responses to questions and info-graphics stand out from the realms of sites using only text complimented by an occasional picture. Finally, content should make use of the Google authorship function to leverage the social standing of the author and identify content with credibility. Google authorship is a relatively new service offered by Google that allows a byline to appear below the link on the search results page. The byline draws information from the writers Google+ account, including a profile picture. Google intends this service to help users find high quality content and also to encourage engagement with authors. Going forward with Hummingbird the key thing to remember is that Google now offer a wide range of services. Although these may not all be popular currently it is undoubtedly Google’s mission to integrate all their services; therefore SEO practitioners should take the opportunity to get on board at an early stage with everything Google has to offer.
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