It has been a busy phase for the SEO, content marketing, and digital marketers. Google punched everyone by announcing that organic keyword data will no longer be accessible and that it has come up with the ‘Hummingbird’ update!
These two announcements are significant for content marketing, and they throw light on the continuing transition from keyword-based search to semantic search. The shared thought among the SEO’s and content marketers is that relevant and useful content is always appreciated.
Let’s understand why-
Beyond keywords for SEO
Keywords have always been considered as pertinent for any SEO strategy. Earlier, determining the keyword scope for a site has been important for page level content optimization and link building. It is important to know which keywords can rank for a site and which keywords can covert to sales or leads.
Keywords are here to stay. Certainly, words are used in a search query. And, Google is attempting to upgrade the search intent behind every query for the purpose of acquiring good SEO and web marketing strategy. Earlier, simple matching of a result to a keyword was emphasized, but now the rapport between concepts has become more important.
With the advent of this process, people have started typing longer search queries with more words to find the exact results.
More of the Knowledge Graph
Google had announced the introduction of its ‘knowledge graph’ a year ago, and with Hummingbird the search results have become expanded.
Questions, not Queries; Answers, not Results
The Hummingbird update differs from all the other updates like the Panda and the Penguin. This is because this update is not a penalty centric improvement. However, its effect is going to be more visible in the future, because the human behavior behind this search is more closely linked with how Google functions.
Relate to it this way- earlier we related searches with queries, like in a library using the old computers to find books. You type the topic and you get the results. But humans do not get results in such a manner and Google is aware of this fact. We acquire information from conversations, and our conversations have context and context takes the form of answers.
Hummingbird is a step further towards delivering good results to a user.
How This Affects Content Marketing
Google has always laid emphasis on quality and good content. They are the critical elements to get good search results. It also adds up to things like speed of the site, verified author profiles, and social signals. With this update the users will understand the importance of search beyond the keywords.