Over the past several years, Google has made a number of key changes to its algorithm, drastically changing the way brands approach attracting customers online.
On Thursday, the search engine giant made another big change — this one impacting up to 90 percent of all search results. For obvious reasons, this has the entire online marketing industry abuzz about what all these changes mean.
After Google’s major Caffeine overhaul of 2010, as well as the Penguin and Panda updates over the past two years, this latest wave of changes has been dubbed “Hummingbird.” While the search engine actually incorporated the shift earlier this month, it only announced it two days ago. The changes are complex, but to summarize, Google is essentially making it easier for users to ask long questions in their search queries. Hummingbird's updates are also more conducive to voice-based search, which is becoming increasingly popular with mobile device users.
So what does this mean for the average brand engaged in online marketing? As it has been over the past few years, good content will continue to be extremely important. Consumers are searching less often for specific products and services, and tend to ask more questions about what they need. Brands that answer these questions effectively through strong, informative content will win the day.
There are many components to a successful content marketing campaign, including blog content, articles, social media, white papers, online press releases writing and more. As you move forward with your content marketing campaign, continue to think about the biggest questions in the minds of your customers — focusing less on keywords and more on being a source of reliable information.
Steve Bailey is the executive editor of ProPRcopy, a copywriting service that helps organizations across the U.S. and around the world develop engaging, informative content across a variety of platforms.