Let’s start off with a simple piece of advice: don’t panic. As your friendly neighborhood Internet Marketing partners, we are here to help! This blog post is going to help you process, digest, and take advantage of the mysterious and scary new Google search algorithm change, known as “Hummingbird.”
A few days ago, Google announced a major change to their search algorithm that would help return better results. If you haven’t caught on by now, Google’s number one objective is to provide the best, most relevant, most useful information to its users. Every change they have made to their algorithm, regardless of it being minor or major, is part of an ongoing effort to be the world’s largest and greatest encyclopedia, so to speak.
Now, Google releases tweaks to their algorithm pretty frequently. As Internet Marketers, it’s part of our daily routine to monitor, test, and experiment with the algorithm so we can stay on top of all these little changes and make sure our strategies take advantage of them. This is tedious work but it’s what’s best for our clients and what makes our solutions sustainable. However, Hummingbird is a little bit different from all those minute changes we see about every other week. Actually, it’s a lot different because Google actually switched out most of the “old” algorithm for the “new” Hummingbird, which is aptly named since it is now more swift and precise.
This major change made a lot of our clients, and probably just about every business owner with a website, really nervous. It sounds like Google fixed something that wasn’t broken, and by fixing it, we mean completely swapped it out altogether. But before you worry yourself into an early grave, we’re going to answer a few important questions and reassure you that everything is going to be alright.
What is different about Hummingbird from Penguin and Panda?
The Hummingbird update is a major change, where as Penguin and Panda were minor tweaks. Essentially, the new algorithm was designed to sort information better. Previous algorithm changes refined how Google sought out and indexed said information, and now Hummingbird is making the organization and presentation of the information much more precise. Overall, this is a good thing!
Is Hummingbird going to affect my website?
Absolutely. Is this a bad thing? Absolutely not. Believe me when I say that Google is not making algorithm changes to spite you. They are making changes to provide you, your clients, and other users with the best information available.
When can I expect to see changes?
This is kind of the funny part. Google only recently announced Hummingbird’s implementation (and existence, for that matter), but it’s already been in use for a month! That means any major changes that were going to happen to your website’s ranking, traffic, etc. would’ve already happened. You might have noticed very slight differences in traffic or PageRank, but it’s unlikely…as long as you practice white hat SEO.
What can I do to take advantage of Hummingbird?
The jury is still out on this one, as Hummingbird is so new and we have no way of testing the old algorithm against the new one. However, common SEO sense still applies. This means that you should continue creating quality content on a regular basis and continue to link to useful, popular resources around the web. Those basic principles of SEO haven’t changed, and we don’t expect them to.
What is the major change in the Hummingbird algorithm?
Hummingbird’s overall goal is to be better at “conversational searches.” You might not know what that is but I can guarantee you’ve done it. A conversational search means you don’t have to know exactly what to type to get great result. Instead of searching for “gas stations in Ballpark neighborhood downtown Denver” you can search for “what’s the closest gas station near my home?” It makes searching more intuitive, don’t you think?
How can I provide content that works alongside conversational searches?
That is a great question and exactly the right question to ask! Since conversational searches are seeking answers that are much more relatable and useful, your website’s content should be more conversational, as well. Get more specific with your content, pretend like you are discussing the topics with a customer, and don’t be afraid to sound like a human being. Users are already adopting conversational searches so it only makes sense that the content you provide is conversational, too.
So there you have it, Hummingbird in a nutshell. Hopefully, you are feeling a little bit more confident about the upgrade and you’re not so worried that the website and online reputation you’ve worked so hard on is going to go up in flames…because it’s not. In fact, if you continue providing great content on your website and around the web, you really can’t lose.
Are you interested in learning more about Hummingbird and how SEO can help your website? Contact RumbleLink today!
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