Google’s recent update affects 1 in 10 search rankings. Find out how this affects your business and what you need to do to stay ahead on Google Search
A couple of weeks ago, Google released their update code-named BERT and had the Internet in a bit of a frenzy. Let’s talk about BERT and how this update could potentially affect where you end up on search results and ultimately, how your website performs.
When they released this update, Google said that this change could affect 1 in to search queries. It’s definetly not a small change and it’s not affecting a small amount of queries out there.
What does this change mean for you?
Essentially, it’s all about context. Before this update, Google would consider your search query as a big bag of words.
Let’s take an example and see what this really means. Let’s say you were searching for “Who is a great digital marketer“. Google’s previous algorithm implementation would have focussed on what words that it thinks are important, which are digital marketer, and then it would plug those words into its search engine algorithm to display relevant results. It just so happens that there’s a company out there called Digital Marketer, they’re actually a great company, but getting back on topic, when someone typed in “who is a great marketer”, they would see ads or search results for Digital Marketer.
If you look at what the person typed in and the context, they weren’t looking for the company. They were looking for who is, such as a person, a good digital marketer. What this new update is going to do is place more emphasis on the context within the search phrase. It’s going to look at the natural language that you used within your search query to try to predict what your actual intent is by analyzing your context.
It’s great for users because, they get to see results that are closer to what they intended to search for. Awesome for Google for doing this.
What this Means for Your Business
As a business owner or marketer, what you need to do is keep an eye on your traffic levels and see if they’ve dipped after this update came out. If they’ve dipped, it’s time to figure out what to do to respond. Now, another thing I want you to do is, look at the actual keyword queries. That’s the search terms people are typing into Google to get to your website. Take a look at them before and after the update, and see if there’s any type of change you need to respond to.
Remember… Ranking well on Google doesn’t mean using tricky or sneaky tactics. It’s about giving your target market what they want so that Google will show them relevant sites and you want to be relevant for what they’re searching for. If you need some help reviewing your queries, drop a comment below or contact me, I’d love to help you take a look.