With this update Google is once more focusing on providing its users answers to their search queries by supplying the best and most relevant content there is on the web.
A question many online marketers are surely asking is, what does this new Hummingbird update mean for SEO and content marketing?
Rich Content and Well-Structured Websites
With semantic search, which was introduced a couple of years ago, Google has already been trying to improve its algorithm to better understand a user's search intent. No longer does Google just look at keywords, but they try to guess a user's intent and look at a query in its context. The Hummingbird update continues this trend, with Google trying to better interpret concepts that are used in search queries.What this means for online marketers is that they need to focus more on creating rich, timely content that truly answers a user's questions and not just focusses on a set of high search volume keywords. When creating content it is not enough to just target the high volume keywords that you want to rank for, but also incorporate any related information that is important to give a good overview of the discussed topic.
Not only does your content need to be rich, it also needs to be structured well, so Google's web crawlers can easily find your content and correctly identify the piece of content's topic and context.
Authorship is Becoming More Important
Content will be easier to rank when its author has more online authority. To make sure Google can assess an author's authority, you want to set up a Google+ profile and make sure it is updated and pieces of content are correctly attributed. Make sure to implement the rel=”author” tag on your articles.Conversational Search
Hummingbird is supposed to drastically improve Google's conversational search functionality. The overhauled algorithm should improve the search engine's ability to interpret questions posed in natural language through Google Voice Search.Semantic Web
It is clear that with this update, Google is pushing to create a more semantic web. Google is trying to decipher a user's real intent behind every search query, using complicated algorithms that try to extract context and user sentiment from a query. Whether Google will succeed in this is still to be seen in the coming months when changes in search results brought about by this new update (and following updates) will become more apparent.While this Google search engine overhaul supposedly affects about 90% of all search, it is likely that you won't notice any immediate changes to search results yet. One thing that's clear from Google's press event is that if you've been focusing on generating quality content for your online marketing efforts that you should continue doing this. Content remains king according to Google.
Zane SchwarzloseAbout the Author:
Zane Schwarzlose is an SEO at Fahrenheit Marketing, an Austin based SEO company. Zane thinks that the Hummingbird update is one of sissier animals Google has used as a nom de update.