Google announced their Hummingbird algorithm a month after it was launched. But the search results have become very different ever since the launch and SEOs will need to adapt. There are some forward-thinking SEOs and webmasters already thinking of the end game of Google with Hummingbird, and the ways that they can adapt their sites to fit into this box.
Unique SEO Content vs. Useful SEO Content
Unique content might be more of a Google Panda thing, but useful content, although Panda, is maybe more Hummingbird. Google now understands searcher queries differently with Hummingbird than they did ever before. So how can webmasters change their content to make it more useful while still being unique so Google shows your site over your competitors? WebmasterWorld moderator, Robert Charlton, explained it so incredibly well:
“It’s no longer just a single page and its title satisfying a query… It becomes a whole site satisfying a range of users. With that kind of scope, the individual referrers are both less easy to specify and less determined by the landing page itself. Actually, not so different from what some of us have been preaching”.
Hummingbird on SEO Content Marketing
With the Hummingbird update, Google has illuminated the continuing transition from keyword-based search to semantic search. The consensus among SEOs and content marketers is that relevant, useful content remains critical. MarketingPros explores why.
- Beyond keywords for SEO. Keywords aren’t going away. Obviously, words are still used in a search query. But Google is attempting to better determine search intent behind a query. Relationships between concepts are becoming more important, instead of the simple matching of a result to a keyword.
- More of the knowledge graph. Google announced the implementation of its Knowledge Graph over a year ago, and Hummingbird seems to have expanded these search results.
- Questions, not queries; answers, not results. It’s not a penalty-driven improvement. However, its impact is likely to be more profound over the long term because the human behavior behind search is being more closely aligned to how Google works.
Emerging Trends from Hummingbird
Unlike the Penguin and Panda, Hummingbird is not just an update. It is an overhaul of the algorithm that primarily focuses to better meet the demands of today’s internet searcher. From this, Marcus Sheridan from The Sales Lion sees 5 main trends occurring as a result of this new update.
- Many traditional SEO companies will claim to offer “content marketing” as a service.
- Many SEO companies will close their doors because they simply don’t know how to adjust.
- 100% 0utsourcing of blog/web content will become more and more difficult due to the need for the content to be so specific, grounded, etc.
- Insourcing (leveraging employees, especially those in sales) will keep becoming the golden standard of the best digital marketing companies.
- Those that are quickest to do this—and do it well— will win the hill as they always do.
We know what we like to find when we search online, and we reward specificity. We reward those companies that know our thoughts and answer our questions. This is the essence of content marketing, and Hummingbird is just another step in this evolution of making such content a constant reality for the online searcher.