The Best Thing Since Caffeine
….and how you can use it to get more people to hear about your cause
This post isn’t about the discovery of a supercharged coffee bean or the first radioactive energy drink.
As tech junkies might have guessed, it’s about the pioneering technology Google Hummingbird. Introduced as the biggest and best change to Google since the Caffeine update in 2010 (which improved index speed). Google says Hummingbird (which affects 90% of searches) will revolutionise the way your organisation is found online.
In short, it’s something you’ll want to know about.
So, what is Hummingbird?
It’s basically Google getting smarter. The new version can understand more complex questions. Google speaks English now.
The improved search engine picks up more synonyms, and understands the relationship between concepts. For example, if by “organisation” you mean “charity”, Hummingbird should pick up on that from the context of your search.
This gives you faster and more accurate results, and is a huge leap forward from the redundant word-by-word screening. But now for the question we’re all thinking:
How does this affect my organisation?
Google has become a best (super-knowledgeable) buddy to most of us since it started up 15 years ago. Nowadays (as firm friends) we tend to use pretty conversational words in our searches. Hummingbird is designed to cope with these longer search formulations, so the right people should find you more easily.
It’s also great for those of us who use voice recognition software on our smartphones or tablets. Think about it: if you’re Googling via voice recognition, you’re more likely to use a full sentence or question, like “how do I donate to my favourite charity?” or “how can I help street children in India?” Google will understand your intention, and not get hung up on the pesky conjunctions and pronouns that might have stumped it before.
How can I get the most out of Hummingbird for my company or organisation?
The websites to benefit from Hummingbird are those dedicated to quality content. As a reputable reader of Ample Earth’s blog, I’m sure this is you.
So here’s the good news — you should be getting tons more traffic very soon!
If your website is full of great content that offers value and answers the questions of your target audience (like I hope we’re doing right now — HINT HINT Google spiders!) then Hummingbird is your friend. It’s also an idea to check you have a lot of nice conversational phrases on your site, and of course don’t use Black Hat SEO techniques like cloaking or else risk the wrath of being busted by Google monster.
If that sounds like your website anyway, then you’ll get more traffic from Hummingbird by just doing what you do. Doing good. Google is dishing out justice, and we love it!
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