It’s been a busy phase for SEO, content marketers, and digital marketers. Google shocked everyone by announcing that organic keyword data will no longer be accessible and has come up with the ‘Hummingbird’ update!

These two announcements are important for content marketing and shed light on the ongoing transition from keyword-based to semantic search. The shared thinking among SEOs and content marketers is that useful and relevant content is always appreciated.

Let’s understand why-

Beyond keywords for SEO

Keywords have always been considered relevant to any SEO strategy. In the past, determining keyword reach for a site has been important for page-level content optimization and link building. It is important to know which keywords can rank for a site and which keywords can convert into sales or leads.

Keywords are here to stay. Certainly the words are used in a search query. And, Google is trying to update the search intent behind each query in order to acquire a good SEO and web marketing strategy. Previously, simple matching of a result with a keyword was emphasized, but now the relationship between concepts has become more important.

With the advent of this process, people started typing longer search queries with more words to find the exact results.

More from the knowledge graph

Google had announced the introduction of its ‘knowledge graph’ a year ago, and with Hummingbird the search results have been expanded.

Questions, not Consultations; Answers, not results

The Hummingbird update differs from all other updates like Panda and Penguin. This is because this update is not a penalty-focused buff. However, its effect will be more visible in the future, because the human behavior behind this search is more related to how Google works.

Relate it this way: Earlier we related searches to queries, like in a library using old computers to find books. You write the topic and you get the results. But humans don’t get results that way and Google is aware of this fact. We acquire information from conversations, and our conversations have context, and context takes the form of responses.

Hummingbird is one more step towards delivering good results to a user.

How does this affect content marketing?

Google has always put an emphasis on quality and good content. They are the critical elements for getting good search results. It also adds up to things like site speed, verified author profiles, and social signals. With this update users will understand the importance of search beyond keywords.