TORONTO -- At the beginning of the Web era, many search queries were only a few keywords in length. Times change, and Web users are now searching by using longer queries of more than three words.
As Web searching habits are changing, so is search engine giant Google -- with serious implications for how businesses' sites are ranked as well.
At a keynote presentation at the Search Engine Strategies (SES) Toronto conference, Maile Ohye, senior developer programs engineer at Google, explained how Google's "May Day" update -- which actually began impacting search results on April 28 -- changed the way Google indexes so-called 'long-tail" queries, in which a user enters multiple keywords for a search.
The impact of the May Day update has caused the displacement of countless numbers of websites from Google's search index as the relevancy algorithms changed. But Ohye explained to the capacity crowd that Google does hundreds of updates to its search algorithms every year, and that the May Day update was a necessary one to better tackle the long tail of search.
"Some people weren't developing quality content on long search terms," she said. "It wasn't a violation of our guidelines, but it wasn't what we wanted. So for long-tail queries, we now just consider them as all other queries and place as much value on them as we do into shorter queries."
Ohye added that simply having boilerplate copy -- even for longer length keyword searches -- isn't acceptable on websites, as users still want relevance.
"In a nutshell, content is king," Ohye said, adding that the May Day update was just one of many updates Google is working on to improve the relevancy of its algorithm for ranking long-tail content queries.
May Day Versus Caffeine
The May Day update came just ahead of Google's recent Caffeine update to its overall infrastructure, and while both can have a dramatic impact on search rankings, the two efforts differ significantly.
Ohye explained that May Day is a pure ranking change effort to make long-tail queries more relevant, whereas Caffeine is about the actual indexing infrastructure: With Caffeine, Google can take its Web index and have the ability to update one document at time.
As an analogy, Ohye said that before Caffeine, updating the index was like having to do a full load of laundry. With Caffeine, she said, it's like having the ability to wash just a single shirt.
"Caffeine increases document freshness by at least 50 percent," Ohye said. "On a per-document basis, we can now attach more metadata, which provides a deeper way to look at content and can lead to ranking updates more quickly for Google."
Metadata and Social Links in SEO
On the topic of metadata, Ohye said that Google is now once again pulling its search index descriptions, or snippets, from website metadata description information. Ohye noted that for several years, Google considered metatags as a spam technique, but are now again considering meta description information when determining overall search relevancy.
She also addressed how an organization's use of social media to help promote their search engine ranking might help, but it's not the primary route to get better rankings
"It's great to have a Twitter account and a blog to attract readers," Ohye said. "But right now, it's better for webmasters to prioritize and having a great website first."
7.6.11
Create Engaging Content by Choosing a Specific Audience
Content marketing is an essential part of SEO. Content marketing can help a brand or business establish themselves as an authority in their field, build a strong online reputation, increase brand recognition, connect with consumers, increase online presence and more. If your company isn’t producing content in some form—blogs, articles, videos, etc—then you’re behind the times and could be losing out to competitors who are. The key to content marketing is to produce quality, relevant and engaging content. The Google Panda update showed us that content that is anything but isn’t going to help you. In fact, it might even work against you. But creating outstanding original content isn’t always easy.
The first step in creating engaging content is to define who your audience is and define it well.
Don’t try to write content that is everything to everyone. Those pieces of content usually end up being the most shallow and generic. That doesn’t help the reader or your brand. Before you even begin to write, think about who your target audience really is.
For instance, let’s say your company sells office furniture like desks, cabinets, shelving, etc. You want to produce a video that shows off your newest conference room table that easily expands to accommodate more chairs. Who are you really producing that video for? What kind of company would be interested in a conference table that could shrink and expand? Who would have the decision making capabilities to submit an order and actually purchase your product? Those are the people you want to target, and those are the people you need to create your content for.
Once you’ve decided who your target audience is for that particular piece of content, then you have to decide what kind of message you are trying to get across to them. You need to show them how your content directly applies to them. Your expanding conference table is perfect for companies that have monthly meetings and bring in managers from other areas. They don’t want to have a large conference table all the time, because normally there are only four people in that office. But those monthly meetings see ten people. Your product solves their dilemma and your content needs to convince them of that.
What kind of headline is going to grab your audience’s attention? “Expanding Conference Table Video Demo” isn’t the most exciting or enticing headline. Your headline needs to resonate with your target audience and capture their attention. They are the ones who your content applies to, so they are the ones it needs to be primed for.
The first step in creating engaging content is to define who your audience is and define it well.
Don’t try to write content that is everything to everyone. Those pieces of content usually end up being the most shallow and generic. That doesn’t help the reader or your brand. Before you even begin to write, think about who your target audience really is.
For instance, let’s say your company sells office furniture like desks, cabinets, shelving, etc. You want to produce a video that shows off your newest conference room table that easily expands to accommodate more chairs. Who are you really producing that video for? What kind of company would be interested in a conference table that could shrink and expand? Who would have the decision making capabilities to submit an order and actually purchase your product? Those are the people you want to target, and those are the people you need to create your content for.
Once you’ve decided who your target audience is for that particular piece of content, then you have to decide what kind of message you are trying to get across to them. You need to show them how your content directly applies to them. Your expanding conference table is perfect for companies that have monthly meetings and bring in managers from other areas. They don’t want to have a large conference table all the time, because normally there are only four people in that office. But those monthly meetings see ten people. Your product solves their dilemma and your content needs to convince them of that.
What kind of headline is going to grab your audience’s attention? “Expanding Conference Table Video Demo” isn’t the most exciting or enticing headline. Your headline needs to resonate with your target audience and capture their attention. They are the ones who your content applies to, so they are the ones it needs to be primed for.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)