Content Trends

Content Marketing, SEO and Digital Marketing

5 Ways to Make Google’s Hummingbird Update Work for You

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Google's Hummingbird
Google’s Hummingbird update affects 90% of searches and it completely changes the way that Google understands a query. Although, Google made the official announcement for Hummingbird only in September, it has been working silently for the past few months and your current strategies are working well if your site has not been impacted. It’s important, however, for content creators to understand the impact that Hummingbird will have on all content marketing strategies.

How Hummingbird Works

Have you read sci-fi novels where your brain has only to think of something that you need and it materializes before you? That’s where Google wants to take the future of Search and their engineers are hard at work to make this current fiction into a future reality. Google Hummingbird, the Knowledge Graph, Entity Search, Google Now, the study of machine language and voice recognition are all steps into developing an artificial intelligence that understands and can even predict future queries.

Until recently, Google understood a query with the help of search terms or keywords that people were typing in. Now, Google is beginning to understand the context of the query, in preparation for its voice recognition and voice search which is how most future searches will be conducted. Voice search is gaining importance as more mobile users are searching for information directly from their mobiles. For ex. if I’m vacationing in Hawaii and I ask my cell phone, “Where is a good Thai restaurant?” Google will not only understand that I’m looking for Thai food but that I’m searching for this info. in Hawaii.

The Hummingbird algorithm is based on semantic search. Semantic search systems try to understand searcher intent and context and use many facts such as relevance, synonyms, knowledge matching and previous user behavior.

What Google’s Hummingbird Update Means for Your Content

#1. Focus Less on a Single Keyword

As content creators, we’ve been taught to repeat a single keyword so that search engines understand the focus of our content. Hummingbird is a shift away from this strategy as Hummingbird focuses less on a single keyword as it seeks to understand the overall meaning of the query.

  • Write articles that focus on the overall meaning of your content and less on a specific keyword.
  • Consider synonyms – the alternate words or phrases that describe what you do and that people might use, rather than focusing your content around an exact-match keyword. For example, if I were optimizing content for a hotel site, I would use synonyms such as lodging, motel, accommodation, tavern and inn.
  • Use focus terms that are related to your subject. For example a page on cancer care will have related terms such as radiation, chemotherapy etc.

#2. Understand Long-tail Queries

According to Amit Singhal, Google’s head of Search, Hummingbird is better at answering more complex queries that people are asking. Although Hummingbird impacts all types of queries, it focuses on longer, complex questions. He added that although most people still search for shorter terms, the long tail comprises of 40% of traffic with another 20% being of never-heard-before queries.
Here are some ideas that you can implement to understand long-tail queries.

  • Use the insights you receive from the Search box on your site to understand the long-tail queries users are typing in.
  • Tools such as Google Suggest, related searches, Uber Suggest, Twitter Search and even social media Q & A sites such as Quora are great to tap into for long-tail questions.
  • If you are using PPC campaigns, use your Search Query Report to dig in and find long-tail queries.
  • Last but not the least, check out the competition. Type in the terms that you are interested in and see who shows up first in search results. You will be able to get an idea from their pages the kind of queries they are trying to optimize the page for.

#3. Understand and Focus on User Intent

Hummingbird encourages us to understand user intent right from the start of the buying process. Focus on what you know that your customer came to your site to research. Here are some ideas on identifying user intent.

  • Use tools such as Qualaroo to understand user intent and preferences.
  • Talk to your team’s customer service people to find out what customers and prospects most want or need from your product.
  • Use Customer feedback forms, quick surveys and polls to identify customer needs.
  • Talk to the actual sales people to find out what customers want from you.

Identify intent, needs and problems. Provide solutions and answers. Look at queries and what they really need. If my site sold painting supplies and I saw a lot of queries for latest trends in color, guess which topics I will be creating content around? Not only would I post on the latest color trends but I would also post related content such what color choices mean about you, what colors tend to do to your audience etc..

#4. Increase Your Authority

I attended SMX East, earlier this month. I heard about the importance of Google authorship and author rank. Semantic search systems try to understand the authority of the site or publisher of the content. They give a higher priority to publishers with higher author rankings. Although author rank is not yet incorporated into search engine rankings, many experts are predicting that it will soon be included. You will be ahead of the game if you build up your author rank, so that Google and other search engines recognize you as an authority in your field. Author rank is loosely determined by your engagement level on Google+, the number of +1’s you get, your number of circlers, comments per post and authority on non-Google networks.

There is a stronger integration of social media with search and the more shares, comments and interaction your content receives, the higher it ranks in search.

#5. Use Structured Data to Mark Up Your Content

All semantic search systems use structured data to rank content. The major search engines including Bing, Google and Yahoo! rely on this markup to improve the display of search results, making it easier for people to find the right web pages. Events, health, locations, products and pricing info and review sites will all benefit from structured markup. Visit schema.org to find out all the content types that will benefit from structured data.

What do you think of the Hummingbird update? Has it impacted your site? Do you have any other ideas to optimize your content for Hummingbird? Please share in the comments below. Thanks.

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Comments

  1. Great synopsis on Hummingbird, Gazalla. Google says, “Don’t worry about Hummingbird, worry about preparing quality content.” They’re busy training their algorithms to recognize and reward it. You’ve given some great ideas on preparing and optimizing content to be great.

    Readers can test the power of voice search with a mic and that little mic icon in the search window. What you think to ask by voice may help guide you in thinking of what searchers will be asking to find you, which can help you figure out what to cover on your pages.

    One more thing to consider: Optimizing pages is as important down inside your site as it is on the top levels. What you link to helps establish the relevance of the top level pages and the better the quality of the lower level pages the more authority they give you, resulting in better links even internally. Quantity isn’t as important as quality, but quantity can help provide more nuance for context.

    • Thanks, Alan. You’ve added a couple of points that I missed. Voice search is very much now – in the present and anyone can try it. Also, linking internally still is important as it helps search engines understand the architecture and importance of pages. You are right – most people don’t need to worry about Hummingbird as long as they are creating quality content with the user in mind. Thanks for your feedback. Happy Monday!

  2. Hey Gazalla,

    Thanks for sharing! I totally agree with the long tail part. Focusing on the right long tail will help you increase your ranking. But remember not to focus too many or else, Google might label you as niche sites. Haha!

    Reginald

    • Thanks for your feedback, Reginald. I agree. You can only incorporate so many long-tail phrases in your content before search engines begin to think that you are a spammer. The ultimate idea always is of-course to write quality content that focuses on your users’ needs.

  3. I have been hearing and reading quite a bit about Hummingbird, but this post clearly outlines what’s at stakes here. Nicely done! Some folks say SEO is dead now, but I would rather say it has evolved, and will need to continue do to so, in order to remain relevant. Understanding how the algorithms from big search firms work is not only important, it’s cornerstone to any brand wishing to do well in the digital age.
    Thanks for this, Gazalla.
    Cheers,

    • Thanks for your feedback, Frederic. ha ha, I’ve been hearing that SEO is dead for a decade now and every time there’s a major change such as this one, that dead horse is brought out again! As you rightly put it, all brands need to be aware of optimizing their content for search so that search engines find and index their results, quickly and efficiently.

  4. Hey Gazalla,

    I’m actually glad they made this change. Before this you had to put what you really wanted in quotes and then it usually never found it because they didn’t really search for phrases or sentences. Whenever I go to Google I’ve always asked questions and it’s never been about a couple of keywords. I’m just so shocked they never thought about the readers in that respect in the first place. I think they were more focused on like a single product.

    I haven’t seen a lot of change yet though but am hoping that I’ll start seeing it in the near future. I can only hope this will help more bloggers and businesses then hurt. We’ll soon find out right!

    Thanks for sharing and like the new theme. Nice girl, really nice.

    ~Adrienne
    Adrienne recently posted..22 Ways To Create Compelling ContentMy Profile

  5. Thanks, Adrienne. I like the new theme as well. It’s from the Genesis framework by Studiopress. I still have to make minor changes so you’ve caught me in the transition phase:) I’m glad you like it.
    Since you already knew that the best way to optimize was with long-tail and asking questions, I’m sure that Hummingbird will only be good news for your site.

  6. We just did a webinar on the Hummingbird Update, and it seems there are still a ton of questions about the update still.

    I like the fact that the update is forcing us to create more content and higher quality content to make sure our clients are becoming the authorities they need to be to be on page 1.

    It does bother me thought that Google is hiding the amount of traffic that comes from specific keywords in organic search.
    NetElixir recently posted..Google Hummingbird SEO Webinar – Full Video & TranscriptMy Profile

    • Yes, it looks like the move to hide keywords (although they say it’s for privacy purposes) seems to be deliberate. But, it forces marketers to shoot in the dark. Most marketers are trying to create content around user needs and are not spammers. It’s unfortunate, that for the few that are, Google needs to keep taking steps to ensure better search results.

  8. Awesome tips, And yes, as a marketer it means that a conversational tone is now vital when creating content, as well as having a captivating website that still attracts visitors (emphasis on mobile friendliness) because, now, Google can easily grab your data to display it in its first result pages, all for the good of search accuracy.

    Thank you for the tips Gazalla. Our agency’s blog touched some points that might interest you as well.
    Michelle Sfeir recently posted..Google Hummingbird: What Does it Mean for You?My Profile

    • Thanks for your feedback. I agree. All web communications need to be simple, conversational and easy to understand. It’s important to use a simple, conversational tone to forge that bond with your customer, allow search engines to understand your content, write effective content for mobiles and convince that prospect to buy from you. The last thing that you want is to confuse people with your content.

  10. Great article Gazalla! Hummingbird and the latest release of Penguin has really redefined the way SEO is done and allows marketing companies to remove writers that does not understand the value of Empathy Marketing. A really good friend of mine has developed an amazing business on Empathy Marketing and this has kept her in the game with Google’s new algorithms. Over the years of doing SEO I have found that many writers truly lack the understanding of who or what they are writing about.

    I love the evolution of Google!

    • I agree. At the SMX conference that I attended last month, Danny Sullivan even mentioned that Google + has page rank and the number of +1s your content receives directly impacts rankings. Thanks for your feedback.