Sunday, March 30, 2014

SEO with Google's New Hummingbird Semantic Search Algorith

Do Keywords Matter in Google's Hummingbird World?
by Ray Larson

Rolled out in late 2013, the Google search engine Hummingbird delivers answers instead of educated guesses. Powered by semantic search, results are returned based upon an understanding of what users are looking for—rather than a rank order of approximate answers based on keywords and Boolean parameters.

Implicit in Google's new methodology are significant changes for how marketers approach search engine optimization (SEO) and keywords. Now, every marketer needs to ask themselves: Do keywords even matter?

To answer that question, let's add some context (Hummingbird's specialty). First, we'll dig a little deeper into the concept of semantic search. Then we'll walk through five key takeaways for content creators and search marketers.

Semantic Search Explained

Semantic search is precisely interpreting the meaning among words in a search query. For a long time, that capability was just a distant hope. Instead, for years, Google and other search providers relied on keywords and links to determine the best answer to return for a specific search. Answers were returned rank-ordered as approximations based upon matched keywords on a website and the number of links to that site (with links seen as a "vote" of trust on the website's trust and authority).

Thus, keywords and links became the "virtual currency" of the pre-Hummingbird search economy. All search marketers know how that eventually worked out: Search engine results pages were polluted with misleading results, leading to websites with thin content and providing an unsatisfactory experience to the user.

How Hummingbird Results Are Different

Hummingbird makes the SEO tricks that caused the previously described mess too expensive to pursue. Instead, Hummingbird eliminates guesswork and capably interprets queries with associations. The words surrounding your keywords are now more precisely interpreted. The search engine is better able to discern the relationships between words and thus the context and the user's intent, delivering a much more relevant search result.

Here's an example to illustrate how semantic search works. Let's say a user typed in the question, "How do I fix the gas furnace in my home?" In past years the search engine bots would have honed in on the words "gas furnace" and "home." The results in the SERPs might have included gas furnace distributors, parts, and maybe repairmen.

With Hummingbird, however, a user gets exactly what he or she needs: tips on troubleshooting, "how to repair" (rather than "fix"), and even a YouTube video my wife will love (she's the handyman in our house). There's not a repairman in sight in the organic listings, though the smart repair firms advertised their services via pay-per-click advertising in case my wife can't finish the job.

Hummingbird understands the relationships among topics, themes, and videos, and how they relate to each other. Insufficient or inaccurate queries have a much higher probability of returning the desired result whether by design or accident (called "serendipity" by semantic search expert David Amerland).

With Hummingbird's more sophisticated capability to understand words, their meanings, and their relationships within a query, now marketers can include related words and synonyms.

The result: Keyword stuffing and keyword density need to be dropped from the lexicon of search marketers and SEOs.

So, Are Keywords Dead?

How does this sophisticated understanding of search queries by Google affect search marketers and content creators? Does an emphasis on user intent rather that keywords mean keywords are dead from an optimization perspective?

Here are five key points to address the question.

1. Keywords are now the tools used to discover and uncover user intent. All the words in a query are now important. Google can effectively link associations between words. That makes the query itself—all the words in it—much more important than before.

2. Remove the terms "keyword density" and "keyword architecture" permanently from your vocabulary. Flee from any marketing or SEO "guru" who uses those words. Content created merely to satisfy an optimization requirement (such as keyword density and architecture) for search engine ranking is a waste of time and effort.

3. Replace keyword research with user intent research. Keywords are still an integral part of content strategy. But what's more important is to determine the intent behind those keywords. Create content others will share with users' intent in mind, not the algorithm.

4. Use synonyms. Don't cram keywords down your visitors' throat. Keywords need to be employed in a natural way. Because Google has the ability to understand relationships much better, synonyms work equally well. Your keyword lists should grow exponentially.

5. Content creation, now more than ever, means writing for users—solving their problems, addressing their issues, and enriching their lives. Answer users' questions by creating content that does so.

Lastly, it is important to remember that Google's market dominance for search engine users stems from its ability to reliably supply the best, most precise results for a user query. Semantic search, under the aegis of Hummingbird, protects Google's business by ensuring users receive the best results from Google search.


 Source: http://www.MarketingProfs.com

[Sent from Ralph Paglia's iPad]

Tuesday, March 4, 2014

Digital Marketing Pros: Official Google Analytics Academy!


Learn more about your customers with Google Analytics.
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Join our next Analytics Academy course


Learn how the Analytics platform works to get more value from your reports.
 
 
 
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Last October, we introduced Digital Analytics Fundamentals, our first course on Analytics Academy. We were thrilled to have over 145,000 students join us to learn about the core concepts of digital measurement.


Today, we're diving deeper into how Analytics works with our next course in the series: Google Analytics Platform Principles

In this course, we'll cover:
  • the four components of the Analytics platform: collection, processing, configuration and reporting
  • how Analytics collects data across different devices
  • how data is transformed before you see it in reports
  • key concepts for customizing your data in useful ways

You'll have two weeks to complete the course alongside a worldwide community of Analytics enthusiasts to earn a certificate of completion. After that, the course will remain open for you to complete at your own pace. 

Interested in participating? Enroll now and join us when the course begins on March 11, 2014.
 

Preview the course



Watch this quick course previewto learn about joining a course on Analytics Academy.
 
 
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Happy analyzing,
The Google Analytics Team

 
 
  
 
New to Analytics? Take the Digital Analytics Fundamentals course.  Join the Analytics Academy student network on Google+
 
      
 
 

© 2014 Google Inc. 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043

 

[Sent from Ralph Paglia's iPhone]

Sunday, March 2, 2014

#Philoselfie: Science behind selfie-expression per Brian Solis

#TravelLikeRalph is not as frivolous as you thought it was!


#Philoselfie: Science behind selfie-expression 

Based on email received from Brian Solis

As the author of the #TravelLikeRalph "selfie" powered series of photo based posts, I felt compelled to share the following email update I received from Brian Solis... You can learn more about all of this at http://ADMPC.com or connect with me on Twitter and Instagram @RalphPaglia or at http://RalphPaglia.com

Oxford Dictionary's word of the year is also one of the most fascinating movements in social is that of the selfie. Part vanity, part communication, part fun, and part absurdity, selfies represent a new generation of #selfieexpression cum egotistical emoticons…but not necessarily in a bad way. Nevertheless, the psychology and science behind selfies are strangely fascinating and therefore Brian Solis continues to study and report on its evolution.

Selfiecity, a new research project, studies Instagram data from five cities around the world including Bangkok, Berlin, Moscow, New York, and Sao Paulo. Wired initially reported on Selfiecity's initial findings. Brian didn't want to be selfie'ish with the information so, and neither did I, so we are sharing the highlights with you here.

Right now, there are more than 79 million pictures on Instagram with the hashtag #selfie. You can add another 7 million for #selfies and 1 million for #selfienation. Not counted though, are the number of selfies that don't include a meta reference beyond the visual that you are indeed looking at a selfie.  Then, there are the occasional self-branded selfie series, such as #TravelLikeRalph from @RalphPaglia and http://Facebook.com/RPaglia .

Fantastic_Infographics__Drawn_From_A_Study_of_Instagram_Selfies___Wired_Design___Wired_com_2

As you can see, selfies is a form of communication among the (early) twenty somethings.

Fantastic_Infographics__Drawn_From_A_Study_of_Instagram_Selfies___Wired_Design___Wired_com_3

Specifically in NY, more women (61.6%) share selfies than men (36.7%). But then again, there are historically more women active on social media than men as well. The average age for selfie-made women in NY is 23.3 whereas the age skews slightly higher for men at 26.7.

Fantastic_Infographics__Drawn_From_A_Study_of_Instagram_Selfies___Wired_Design___Wired_com_1

I know this is a burning issue for everyone concerned here. Selfiecity also tracked visual cues such as angle of head tilt. Women in Sao Paulo as you can see, were the most expressive with body position and tilt at 17-degrees compared to 10.6-degrees in Bangkok and 11-degrees in New York.

Selfiexploratory

But wait, that's not all Selfiecity is tracking. You can learn more about poses, the state of eye contact, how many people where glasses, and whether or not people open or close their eyes and mouth in selfies.

In summary:

#noglasses

and…

Eyes wide open…mouth wide shut.

Fantastic_Infographics__Drawn_From_A_Study_of_Instagram_Selfies___Wired_Design___Wired_com

I found this part particularly interesting. Selfiecity is also tracking the mood in each selfie. For the most part, people are happy, which hopefully conveys a positive sense of selfie-esteem or selfie-confidence ;)

In short, women are clearly smiling more than men. I guess that says something…

Additionally the team at Selfiecity learned…

On average, women tend to take more selfies than men. In Moscow, women account for 80% of the selfies. Yet, as people get older, this trend reverses. At or after age 40, men are more likely to take and post selfies than women.

At 150%, women are more likely to tilt their heads in photos over men.

According to Selfiecity's mood analysis, people in Bangkok and Sao Paulo appear to be happier than people in Moscow. Perhaps it's just that they're more selfie-satisfied.

Please visit Selfiecity to explore the world of selfies for yourself.

#philoselfie

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