1 in 10 search queries will get affected by Google’s Bert update.
Let’s give you an idea about the biggest Google’s update since the release of Rankbrain
So, what exactly is Bert?
Bert is a short form for Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers.
Haha! You must be wondering about what that means?
To better understand Natural Language Processing, Google has recently adjusted its algorithm.
For instance, when you enter a flight number in Google, The flight status shows up. Or when you put a math equation, a calculator shows up.
An even more simple example is that, when you type into Google, the autocomplete feature can determine what you are searching, even before when you finish typing in.
Is Bert useful?
Yes definitely, After the Bert update the results are much more relevant.
Is It the only change?
No. There are also changes made to featured snippets.
For Example: If you are searching for “icecreams with no strawberry”, Google will put more emphasis on the word “strawberry than on the word “no”.
With this algorithm update, Google brings more relevant information for searchers which in turn creates much better experiences for people who use it.
How Will It Affect SEO?
Your SEO strategy needs a change.
While performing a search, people usually make three types of queries.
when performing a search, Queries are like:
- Informational
- Navigational
- Transactional
How does an informational query look like?
For instance, someone is looking to lose weight. But isn’t sure how? so they will search for “how to lose weight”.
When he performs the search, he may come across solutions such as different diets. From there, he may search for a solution using Navigational query like “Ketogenic diet”.
When he finds out the exact solution, they may perform another transactional search query, like the “Ketogenic diet cookbook”.
From there, what we observed on our end is that Bert inspects “top-of-the-funnel” words on priority, which are informational keywords.
Get very specific with your content, if you want to maintain your rankings including seizing up some keywords of your competition.
Therefore, To rank informational keywords, SEO’s will guide you to create long-form content.
You may have come across long-form content that has ranked well on Google. But, seriously, the algorithm focuses on the content quality rather than the word count.
In the near future, Keyword density will have lesser importance as Google knows the context of the content.
So, what is the opportunity?
It’s about creating highly specific content around a topic.
It’s not required to create long-form content (more than 15000 words) that speaks of 30 different subjects. What is important here is to answer the searcher’s query as soon as possible with much more value than your competition.
when it comes to ranking for informational keywords, Be very specific and answer the question far better than your competitors. To create a better experience, you can use videos and images to audio.
Long-form content obviously works. It’s just about interpreting the content in 50 different ways. This is the only reason why content should be thorough and long enough.
In other words, It’s good to focus more on long-tail keywords.
To Conclude:
If your search traffic drops a bit from the latest update, it’s not a bad thing.
I know it sounds crazy, but if you think in this way like… someone searched for “how to lose weight without medicines” and they landed on your article about how medicines are amazing, they will just hit the back button and move back to Google.
It should be like the traffic should convert into a conversion.
From this update, you may lose some traffic. But, to let you know, your user metrics were ruined by the traffic, which in turn increased your bounce rates.
This is the opportunity for you to create super specific content. If you find your ranking dropped. Just go! Modify or create new content that exactly answers, what your customers are looking for.
To start with it, Log in to Search Console. Then “search results” and hit the date button.
