For many companies, SEO is essential to their business, whilst to other companies, SEO remains an alien idea.
But just when some businesses were catching up to the SEO revolution and polishing off their 'Beginners Guides', Google went and moved the goalposts with a total revamp of the system and the removal of keywords.
With such a drastic change and numerous updates, is the keyword a thing of the past?
Content Is King
Despite marketing gurus insisting content ruled supreme, quality blogs and high-class content were being swept under the carpet at the expense of a site that hadn't had a new posts for four months but had 100 keywords per article.
Thankfully, those days are over as a result of Google's new updates in the shape of Panda and Hummingbird.
A Little Less Conversation
In the past, it was possible to add keywords and track which ones were dragging your site up the search rankings, with sites often using the most popular keywords (even when they were not relevant) to get more hits. Due to the Google Hummingbird update, this is a thing of the past.
Updates to the search engine mean that Google now bases its results on quality and what most people have found helpful in the past when carrying out the same search. Google is effectively guessing what you're looking for based on the collection of words and what previous users have found useful.
This update has truly put content first and has led to many reshaping their content marketing strategy. As a result of the update, the highest quality article is placed above one with the keywords of old. The Hummingbird update is an expression of the realisation that, over time, the quality content article is more important and more useful to the user. And the longer the update runs, the more likely you will see Google returning quality content that is more accurate to your search.
This new update has a conversational design. For example, if I were to type or speak a command such as "t-shirt" to Google, the search engine would show what t-shirts I could buy in the local area. If I were then to type or command 'Topshop', Google would recall my last command and offer me the Topshop/t-shirt page, combining both searches to match my needs.
Not That Simple?
Despite the updates, it is important to note that content can't just be thrown together to try and rise up the rankings. Content must be optimised through the use of as many tools as possible. For example, multimedia such as audio and video can benefit your search engine rankings with Google, as can social sharing on platforms such as Google+.
Content Marketing for Law Firms. How We Can Help
At Curated Media, we create content that is of the highest quality and can aid you in developing an online content strategy in order to aid your business and to generate more leads. Our team of skilled writers can develop engaging content.
Contact us to find out how we can help