We’ve said it over and over again, but we’ll keep saying it because many people don’t seem to understand this – Google doesn’t care about your business. Google only cares about their business, a big part of which includes delivering interesting, with high relevance, and well-written content to people who are looking for… something.
Glad that we got the obvious out of the way. Now, the more pressing matter that many in our field seem to have missed is that a large portion of the Internet users today access the Web via mobile devices. This is what forces companies like Google, Facebook, and frankly anyone who gives a darn about their customers’ online experience to optimize for mobile. Mobile keyboards are really annoying, though. If I were writing my phone right now, it would probably take me three times longer to write this (and I’m a relatively fast typist with my virtual keyboard). That’s why the smart people of Google decided a while back that people will probably start using voice interface for their searches. Hence, they introduced Hummingbird – a way for search engine algorithms to better recognize “human speech”.
“What does that have to do with anything?” you ask. It has everything to do with everything. It’s not that keywords are no longer relevant, but relevance itself has become much more important. Your content needs to have a high level of relevance in regards to whole sentence structures instead of the good old keywords. The ramifications are that this makes our work even more challenging and that many of the old tactics won’t work anymore. This doesn’t mean that keywords are out, but it does mean that evolution is imminent.
NXTFactor is always on top of these changes. We always find a way to react to different shifts and turns and we ensure that our customers don’t suffer when Google decides to change the game.
