If you’ve heard about the Google Hummingbird Update, you’re probably wondering if it’s going to affect you.
Well, to start with Hummingbird is not an update in the way Panda and Penguin were. Each of which was estimated to only have affected around 30% of sites. So it was easy for the majority of site owners to believe they were OK with what they were doing, unless of course they were one of the 30%, then they found their entire business tanking.
No, Hummingbird is a new Google engine and not an update.
Google has built a new engine for today’s search needs – not those of ten years ago. Their words, not mine.
They’ve included some of the ‘old’ stuff like Panda (affected 30% of results) Penguin (affected 30% of results) and Caffeine.
Poor quality content, duplicate content, over optimised pages and ‘manufactured links’ (as well as ‘old’ content) will still cause problems.
Hummingbird is about semantic search. About understanding meaning and context. Instead of counting keywords, Google now looks for meaning,
Hummingbird will affect 90% of search results.
That’s not the end of it though. This is the first major step along a different route for Google.
Have you noticed how the search results look different? Have you noticed the knowledge graph box? Instead of just a list of sites and some ads, you sometimes get a box with info in it.
Google is trying to answer your questions on their results page without sending you to a list of sites.
In fact, try searching for flights or hotels and the chances are you’ll get a booking form so you can buy direct on the search results page!
Want to buy something? More and more you can and will continue to be encouraged to stay on the results page to transact business or get an answer.
Is that all? No, Google has announced a change to its Terms and Conditions. Google.com/intl/en/policies/terms/changes/
They are now going to allow advertisers to use reviews in their PPC campaigns on the display network. These reviews will include names and photos, unless a user explicitly sets their account to disallow this. Why are they doing this? Conspiracy theorists might say that it’s to earn more money from AdWords. The longer a consumer stays on their properties, the more exposure they have to the ads. So Google could up the price or – at least, advertisers may do that by being willing to bid more.
The question you have to ask yourself is this. If a consumer sees an ad that includes great reviews, names and photos of people they know and trust, and one without, which one do you think they’ll click on?
These are just the changes happening in Google. Not all the changes, just the ones in the news. Google also listens and has been doing so for some time. It listens to what people say about you online, and then they use what they hear to help rank your content.
They also make changes to their algorithm (the software that decides your rank) and make around two changes per day. Some are to do with how results are displayed, like the local carousel with images. Others relate to internal admin. A lot though are ‘tweaks’ to the algorithm and affect results – your results.
Depending on whether people are talking about you, your rank can change on a daily basis!
That’s not all though. If you are ‘signed in’ when you search on Google, the results you see will be influenced by what your fiends do. Your results will be influenced by sites you’ve visited and interacted with as well.
Have you noticed that the ads served in your Gmail account change depending on what you’ve searched for?
Have you noticed that emails you receive can also change those ads?
Google can track what you do, even when you use a different search engine, as evidenced by this article http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2012/02/16/how-google-tracked-safari-users/ (Just because they were found out and had to stop doing this particular thing, doesn’t mean they can’t still track you).
Google knows where you go, what you do and what you say on line – and then uses that info to serve you personalised results.
They do the same to all consumers – those that are your potential customers. This is why rank is, in many ways, irrelevant and why you should focus on being visible rather than where you rank in Google.
How will this new search affect your business?
Think of this. Google wants to keep searchers (who are also all consumers at some point) on Google for as long as they can. Even if it’s just to answer a question.
You have a web page that would answer that question. In the past, your page would probably have come to the top.
Now, however, Google can ‘scrape’ the answer from your site and present it on the search page. You no longer get a visitor to your site who can see all of your offerings nor respond to a compelling call to action. Your site may still be listed at the top of the page, but in today’s “instant gratification” world, if the question is answered, why would they click further?
Search is fragmenting
What? Yes, people are searching differently. Now they often start their search on a social platform.
On Twitter and Facebook that search often starts with the phrase “Anyone know?” Or “Can anyone tell me?”
Only when they have responses might they go to Google to do specific research and/or to find the website.
In 2011 Forrester released research that showed 22% decline in people starting their search on a conventional search engine between 2004 and 2011.
Facebook Graph Search.
Local search done the Facebook Way.
This is considered by many experts (though not all) to be the horror under the bed for Google and its local search.
Facebook is a social behemoth with 1.4 billion users, who collectively spend 700 billion minutes on Facebook each month!
The average user spends 15 hours 33 minutes on Facebook each month. 250 million people access Facebook with a phone, and 70 billion pieces of content are shared on Facebook each month.
Now. While on Facebook, people can search for local businesses and products. Facebook knows who their friends are, what they say about local businesses and using that info can/will give results. Those results will be based on the answers to the “Anyone know” query – amongst other things. These results are likely to be ‘trusted’ by users as they may see who in their friends and family lists have liked or commented.
Internet Marketing is now social.
If you’re one of those businesses that’s avoided social media as something you don’t need to do, you need to think again.
Regardless of what you do, people are going to talk about you on social media.
They will ask for and give recommendations about you. They will voice opinions and some of those opinions may be less than flattering.
If you are not talking to those people you leave it wide open for your competitors to do it.
They don’t have to trash you, they just have to pay attention to and talk with your customers.
Who would you rather do business with – someone who ignores you or someone who makes you feel valued by paying attention to you?
Trust in an online world.
Semantic search has begun the change that requires people and businesses to build trust with others.
Trust is, and will, continue to be the driving force behind interactions between people and businesses.
Semantic search is going to create a more transparent web. If you want to be visible in Google and benefit from the inherent trust people have in Google results, you’re going to have to persuade Google to trust you.
• Authorship – Google wants to know who you are
• Content – Google wants to know who ‘owns’ the content
• Influence – Google tracks how much influence you have and with whom
• Trust Rank – If Google doesn’t ‘trust’ you, rank is gone. If consumers don’t trust you, your business is dead!
You have to ‘own’ your content by establishing your ‘authorship’. Google wants to know who wrote and owns content.
Your content has to have value, a transaction if you will. Where you have taken time and made the effort to create content that is useful, interesting and engaging.
The consumer completes the transaction by doing one, all or some of the following;
• Reading
• Liking
• Commenting
• Sharing
Influence is how you affect others and can be measured in how many followers you have and how deeply they interact with your content.
It includes who you’re influenced by, as well as who you influence.
As you share and interact with people, you build a picture of who you are, as a person or a business.
Every business no matter its size is constructed from the people involved in it. Both employees as well as customers.
Established businesses also have their company history and culture influencing how the business is perceived by others. Competitors will structure their own marketing to take advantage of your historical weaknesses. Customers will include that history in their buying decisions.
New companies don’t have the benefit (or drawback) of company history. Instead they have the history of the people involved in the company.
Influence is about connections, who and what you connect with. Who connects to you and values that connection.
The internet has become a social web, a place where if you’re to be really visible and successful you have to establish your personal as well as professional space.
A place where people can judge if you’re to be trusted. The social web and semantic search are making it much more difficult for people to hide.
This is a good thing. The internet has suffered from anonymity for too long. This coupled with the sheer amount of competing information has meant that trust has often been in short supply.
How and where do you establish your Trust Rank? On social sites like Facebook, Twitter and Linked In.
On your blog where you post interesting useful content then share on your social media profiles. Google tracks comments on your blog posts, knows whether you interact with those people and whether they continue the discussion.
Your influence is shown in both the two way relationships you nurture as well as how many likes, comments, shares and +1’s your content generates.
All of this is tied together by your authorship. So Google and everyone else knows what you say.
Some questions to ask yourself.
Who do you want to connect with in your industry?
What groups would be of use to you, what interests would they have?
These are questions you need to answer regardless of whether you maintain your online presence or have someone else do it for you.
Without your close cooperation, none of the things that need to happen can.
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