Google’s new algorithm is in the news because of its introduction of Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers, or ‘BERT’ in short. Whatever that brings changes to Google’s search engine search results is very important.
Google has announced that BERT is its major update in five years. Basically, the BERT algorithm understands complicated search queries in a better way, mainly when it comes to long-tail keywords.
What is Google BERT?
Prior to BERT, when an individual searched for something on Google, conjunctions like “and” and “but,” as well as prepositions were excluded from the results.
Then, Google understood that these words can alter the total meaning of a search keyword. So it has created a new algorithm to know how words are used, and how they correlate with each other in search queries.
After all, “flights from Singapore to India” is a very dissimilar query from “flights from India to Singapore.” Before, Google could easily mingle the two by ignoring “from” and “to”. Now, the Google search engine makes results more realistic and offer exact results on the basis of the intention of the user.
What is Natural Language Processing (NLP)?
Natural Language Processing (NLP) is a significant concept to understand, as it plays an important role in BERT. It’s a type of artificial intelligence used to research language, which can help computers to know how individuals speak and make queries.
NLP has played a significant role in the development of chatbots and suggested text on Smartphones. The purpose of the BERT is to use those similar methods in search engines. With the BERT algorithm, Google Search results should get a good level of understanding of the intentions behind user queries. That is necessary for longer search queries, which can be more easily misapprehended because of the subtlety of language.
Search engine rankings are crucial for website owners, that is why it’s important to have the best and suitable strategy for the websites. BERT impact the search rankings, but the best part is that your old approach need not change.
Now let’s understand how we can improve the chances of ranking higher for relevant search queries:
1. Keep Your Keywords Simple and Conversational
In today’s time, the best keyword practices involve using communicative phrases. BERT is likely to impact the present trend by prioritizing the use of conversational keywords in your content.
2. Use content with Long-Tail Keywords
Still, the quality of the content is the king. BERT will give preference to long-tail keywords than ever.
For example, if someone is looking for a cake shop near a particular location then people will expect their query to produce relevant information.
Google’s aim is to take longer queries and answer them correctly.
You should include long-tail keywords that don’t hinder the flow of your content. Searches like “how to make a cake without egg for a vegetarian” need to be answered. If you can show that you’re using relevant content then Google should know your content is important.
3. Customize Your Content for Informational Searches
Informational searches are important queries that cover a wide topic. In fact, these are questions for which many individuals want a solution.
As BERT understands language in a better way, therefore it is a fact to make an answer to specific questions easier. That’s why to pump your Search Engine Optimization (SEO), it’s a good idea to write content that focuses on informational searches.
There are different ways to do that. You can write step-by-step information on vegan cake recipe, or create a blog post about how to find the best cake shop near your residence.
4. Use Stop Words Wherever Relevant
Stop words were previously disregarded by Google. They include articles, prepositions, etc (i.e., “in”, “and”, “about”, etc). Basically search engines have totally removed these words in order to cast the broadest possible search when looking for respective results.
As we’ve discussed, that’s all changing. Now, Google will try to take these words into consideration to display the correct results.
Now you should put stop words into your content and target keywords and improve your rankings.
The Bottom Line
Google is expanding its AI’s capacity to understand the exact meaning of the searched keywords. It’s better to keep in mind that BERT is only going to push the need for excellent SEO practices on your websites in 2020.
Here is some of my advice in order to improve your website ranking on the basis of the BERT algorithm:
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Use simple keywords, and use them naturally into your website content.
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Include clusters of informational keywords rather than using keyword density in your content.
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Using stop words wherever necessary.
In case you have any queries on how Google BERT can influence your SEO then please ask in the comments section below!