Major Google Update
This month I am going to take you through the latest Google update.
Hummingbird
Hummingbird is Google’s code word for this latest update. It’s their first major update in quite sometime. This update is more like a complete re-working of how Google finds the best results. Previously a search like “Where do I find the cheapest iphone in Melbourne?” would pick a few choice words like iphone and Melbourne and bring up search results for that. As you can imagine that might not be the best way to find relevant sites. It could have been a site just talking about the iphone’s features rather than where to buy it.
Now, Google is looking at real human language and how to display better results.
A few other major changes is Google’s choice to remove the PR rank, which was a score each site got. While not heavily used in SEO for sometime, it did give us a quick indication of how much Google liked your site. For example, it might have been rated 4/10.
The other major change to SEO is Google removing the keyword tool. SEO agents and yourself included now cannot do a simple keyword look up in Adwords for the number searches. It is completely gone. There is a newer tool in Adwords but it’s quite general and doesn’t work well for SEO.
So what’s this mean? It means for new SEO campaigns we’ll need to look at different tools to try and pick the best keywords to chase. Overall Google is making it harder to focus SEO and is trying to push more customers towards Adwords.
Questions and Answers
Q: How can I help improve my Google rank?
A: Google can’t be tricked, or at least not for long.
Some spammy tricks that will get you banned include: hiding text on your site, keyword in your domain name, bad links to your site.
Google now looks at 3 major areas:
1. The quality of your site. This includes your site’s look, pages, how easy people/Google can get around your site, but the main focus is on your text. To be the best (top ranked in Google) you’ll need the best text and content on your site. Its worth having a SEO copyrighter re-write your home pages text.
2. Social indications. The number of reviews, likes, tweets and pluses on the social media sites give Google a very clear indication that you are the best of the best. So, get onto Facebook, Google+ and Twitter if you aren’t already and start promoting your site to your customers.
3. Links. Links from blogs and other sites give Google a good idea that you are popular enough to push you up the ranks. Links are quite tricky though. You need to have a decent article behind it. You can’t spam it full of keywords and it needs to be on a relevant site to your industry. Doing otherwise can get you banned or pushed back.
