Google’s New Hummingbird Update

28 Oct Google’s New Hummingbird Update

Posted at 09:00h in SEO by Paul Barrs

I’ve been trying to think of the best way to explain to you the key elements of Google’s new Hummingbird update in a way that you can easily digest it and then apply it in your business. These past few weeks the SEO world have been buzzing about the pro’s and con’s of Google’s latest shakeup.

So here’s my low-down, in quick (easy to read) bullet points with a few additional links if you desire to read more.

In a nutshell, Google’s goal is to be able to deliver MORE RELEVANT data to it’s users (those people who search on Google)
The Hummingbird update expands G’s use of the Knowledge Graph; the ‘thinking’ part of G… (And yes, I’m just going to use G instead of Google – )
That means that G search is getting SMARTER.
G want’s to not only deliver to it’s customers what they are looking for, but also what it THINKS they are going to look for next.
In the past search has been based on “keywords”, no it’s moving more towards phrases, sentences, and questions.

Imagine it like this, the average person when learning to read reads one word at a time. As we get better we start reading 2, 3 even 4 words at a time and we scan across a page “seeing” what it says without actually ‘reading’ what it says.

G is looking to do the same thing; not just give us what we “searched” for, but what it thinks we MEANT as we searched… G is starting to anticipate out intent!

Wow.

How’s that for a kicker! Big Brother, here we come, lol.

But what’s this got to do with you and me…?

I want you to start thinking more about your content; don’t just think about it in terms of “keyword optimised” content, but rather “user search optimised”… or ‘answered’ content.

So start with your keyword research as always, but then look deeper behind those keywords and seek to understand WHY your customer would be searching for those things.

Then write your content accordingly.

Lastly, as you write your content, become aware of what you customer might NEXT be looking for … and write that for them too.