What Does Hummingbird Mean For Your Business?

Laura Ginn

Google has made the strongest changes to their algorithm since 2001. When you consider just how much the internet has changed over the last twelve years, the first sentence really hits home. Taking this on board, we really do know that it means that the way the internet works is going to change forever. As with all of these things, the differences won’t feel so great at first, but if your business has a strong online presence and relies heavily on its performance online, then you have to take note of the changes going on around us.

The Hummingbird algorithm has already been introduced, a full month prior to announcements about the change. It may be that you haven’t seen too many changes to your rankings, which will obviously be a good thing, but we have to look at how things have changed in order to make sure we’re not set up for a fall a little further down the line.

A Focus on User Intent, Rather Than Keywords

Google has been working towards a ‘best guess’ results process for a few years now, and this end goal is crucial to how Hummingbird works. The main purpose for the change is to improve how Google deals with complex searches, which are becoming more and more common. Hummingbird will look at your query, and then take into account your location, what platform you are on, which device you are using, along with conversation cues and timelines. For your business, this means that you could benefit from local search to a much higher degree, but only if your website is giving what people need. This means that you have to pay more attention to your bounce rate and time spent on a page rather than focusing on terms appearing on your page. Make sure that the information on your page is quickly informative and engaging.

Authorship and Authority

Hummingbird focuses on content, which makes the extra weight on authorship not too surprising, especially given the recent Google+ authorship attributions. This system allows Google to understand who wrote content and where it came from. This means that more than ever, who you are is important to Google. You’ll need an up to date and well rounded Google+ platform which clearly demonstrates who you are and what your business is about. It should also clearly identify your USP’s for anyone looking – specifically Google. The goal is to become an authority in your chosen field of business. You need to be the person answering questions in social media circles, and have your content shared and commented on by other industry leaders.

Mobile Experience

Google have identified the mobile web as the future of the internet, and the Hummingbird algorithm change reflects this. When people search on mobile, they want answers faster, and they need the results to be relevant. A large proportion of queries are going to be more specific than normal searches, and are more likely to relate to local things.

We know that mobile is the future and you have to get on board with this. This means it’s critical that you have a strong local and national presence, so that you are easy to locate and easy to pigeon hole. Essentially, you have to communicate what you are about, why you are the best and why you should show up in searches. It’s not as hard as you think – as long as you follow the rules laid out in this article!