Having had over a week to immerse myself into the world of forums, blogs, and youtube, Hummingbird has become more clear. Like any good SEO expert, now that it is apparent what changes were made, it is now time decide how to adjust to the ever-altering world that is Search Engine Optimization. Here is a previous blog describing the new algorithm: Hummingbird. Briefly, Google now tries to guess the searcher’s intent, rather than the exact terms that they searched. Another change Google made is now, even if searchers are not logged in, their searches will be kept private. This change–perhaps partly in backlash to accusations that the NSA was getting information from Google on what people are searching–means that people running e-commerce businesses online will no longer be able to see what people are searching to get to their site. These two alterations will decrease the importance of keyword research and worrying about exact terms in body content and product descriptions.
Where will this lead the SEO industry? Well, it looks like it is going to be changed for the better! Gone are the days of trying to load up a website with key terms and having to try to work awkward key word combinations into content to sound organic. Now it will be easier to pick what terms go into the title tags, meta descriptions, and the content. Other than that the Basics of SEO Strategies (another blog I wrote) actually remain the same:
- 301 Redirects
- Terms in Title Tag
- Informational Meta Description using complete sentences
- Sitemap submission
- Quality, original, relevant and new content with anchorlinks
- Quality offsite linking
There are a lot more, but those are just some of common strategies that do not really change! So instead of freaking out about the future of SEO, now that we know what Hummingbird is, we can adapt and thrive!
