By focusing its search on keywords in
the older algorithm, Google had trained
users to search in a counterintuitive way
by experimenting with different sequences
of keywords until they found the sequence
that yielded the result they wanted. Now,
the search giant is beginning to retrain users
to simply ask questions, as if they were hav-
ing a conversation.
The implications for marketers are clear
and, frankly, refreshing. Keyword-based
search was unnatural and caused online
copyrighters to abandon sound writing prin-
ciples in order to write repetitively enough
for the search engines to get the message.
With Hummingbird in place, the best way
for a company to improve search perfor-
mance is to answer questions that people are
really asking – in simple language.
Going forward, marketers should focus
online marketing on the new essentials of
great performance: strong Web presence;
informative content; effective use of page
titles and URLs; and strong signals in the
social media sphere.
Web Presence:
Given Google’s new
priorities, it is more important than ever for
marketers to expand and strengthen their
Web presence. Start with a good Website or
network of sites, and then create complete
listings in all the major directory and listing
sites, with the most important ones being
Google Places, Google+ Local, Yahoo Local,
Bing Places for Business, Yelp and Merchant
Circle. Take full advantage of what these
sites offer: a company listing, a mapped
location, hours of operation, service list-
ings, photos and video postings, and more.
Pay special attention to your Google
listings, because they fuel your search
performance on the search engine that,
according to Search Engine Watch, gets
67 percent of all Internet search traffic.
A business can list in both Google Places
and Google+ by claiming their Google
Places for Business page.
Mapping your company’s location in
the directories is a must, because Google
and the other search engines are working
hard to improve local search. They will only
get better at identifying search queries that
imer t l
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answer ng home
comfort questions with answers from local
home comfort companies, so you want
to make sure those search engines know
exactly where you are.
Informative Content:
Companies that
are winning in search are using informative
online content as the key ingredient. They
understand that Internet search has turned
marketing on its head, shifting the initiative
from the seller to the buyer. In the new
paradigm, Internet search has empowered
consumers to hunt for products and ser-
vices online, so that they “discover” and vet
companies rather than relying on advertis-
ing to guide their choices.
Leading companies in all sectors of the
economy have gone with the flow and shifted
their resources from traditional advertising
to online initiatives known as inbound mar-
keting or content marketing. This involves
posting informative articles or videos online
to be discovered by search engine users.
Many savvy marketers use a sales model that
involves “introducing” themselves as content
providers, answering the questions that their
prospects are asking.
Home comfort nestles very nicely
into the new search paradigm, because
homeowners have question after question
about their home comfort and energy
use: what equipment to use, what energy
source to use, what heat emitters to use,
when equipment should be replaced, how
to reduce energy consumption, and on and
on and on.
When they go searching for answers on
the Internet, they can quickly spot the home
comfort providers they prefer: They are the
ones that are answering their questions. This
is the principle behind inbound marketing
and content marketing: Answer people’s
questions, and they will prefer you.
High quality content can be time-
consuming to produce, but all signs point
to it being an effective and enduring asset.
A home comfort Website that includes just
three or four informative articles or videos
on core topics with proper behind-the-
scenes coding is much better optimized for
search than a site with no such articles. Not
only does the content attract new visitors, it
is also the best driver of social media signals
– h anot er key to ll
ste ar
h searc fper ormance.
More on this in a moment.
Marketing
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ad nauseum. Instead, it is now looking for
pages that seem to have the most pertinent
information to answer the specific query.
The good news is that you can now
enhance search performance by publishing
content that is crafted to be genuinely useful
to Internet searchers. Google is encouraging
searchers to ask straightforward questions
and rewarding marketers who provide great
information that gets noticed. As Google
itself wrote in a recent Help document, “The
more unique and compelling your content,
the more likely it is to perform well in our
search results.”
The essential reminder is that Internet
search is an evolving process that requires
a marketer’s continuous attention. Your
site could be yielding consistent first-page
results for all your key searches in February,
only to slip to the second or third page – aka
oblivion – in March. Marketers should run
test searches regularly and use Web analyt-
ics to monitor search performance and then
adjust as needed.
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With the Hummingbird algorithm and
other ongoing updates, Google is looking
out for Number One. Google is currently
the top search engine by a large margin,
and the company is working to maintain
that advantage by constantly improving the
Google search experience.
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