What changes in SEO with the new Google update, Hummingbird

“Fast and accurate”. These are the qualities that inspired the name of the last update of the Google search algorithm, the Hummingbird or hummingbird in Portuguese.

With these changes, many people have asked, ” The SEO died? “. The short answer is: no.

The updates only confirmed what was already going on since last year, with the Penguin and Penguin 2.0 updates: the focus will be increasingly on quality content and building authority , and less on the “engineer” of SEO .

With the Hummingbird, the search results for users should become even more precise, since the Google analysis passes to go beyond keyword : the engine now considers not only the search terms, but also the meaning of that search there, including synonyms and the context in which the terms are inserted in the pages. It happens to also consider other more complex factors such as the user ‘s location and even previous research carried out by him.

This does not mean that we should leave aside what we already knew about on-page optimization and off. Many factors are still and will remain very important for positioning in Google.

In this post, we will quote what are the best practices and what your company should avoid if you want to achieve or maintain a good position in Google.

Use Keyword

All search engines are based on keywords to make indexing a page. This always happened and will continue happening.

One practice that has been used for a long time and today is a big shot in the foot is the “keyword stuffing” . This is to choose a keyword and use it often in forcibly page.

Another practice that is also no longer valid is the use of domains with keywords like “www.palavra-chave.com.br”. Unless the site content is good and is current on SEO best practices, this is no longer a valid factor .

Currently, the words should appear naturally throughout the text and in other places, such as Page Title, H1 and H2 tags, URL, meta description, etc.

Summing up:

• Choose a keyword for each page of the site and every blog post and use it in the text, page title, description, URL, topics, etc. naturally, without exaggerating quantity. A good research of keywords helps a lot in this task.
• Having made the search for keywords, decide what to do with each keyword .
• Make content relevant to those words and for the whole site. Being relevant is something that will help not only in position on Google, but in retaining the attention of visitors .

Accessibility and On-Page SEO

Another point that your company should be concerned about and is something with which search engines have given enough attention is with the accessibility of the site.

Good practices are:

• Make sure that the site navigation is not complicated and that a visitor to find easily the information he seeks.
• Use the images Alt Tags , also known as alternative text. For more advanced they are, search engines still do not know how to look and interpret an image. Choose for each site image a relevant keyword. This practice has a dual benefit: improving accessibility and cause images to be indexed in Google.
• Check if your company’s website works properly on all major browsers available, as well as on other platforms, such as smartphones and tablets and other operating systems.
• Make a good SEO On-Page. Make sure the keywords are being used appropriately in all page elements and there is nothing that can generate a headache in the future. This post explains how to optimize your page using the RD Station

Off-Page SEO: how to do and what to avoid

Off-Page SEO, as the name suggests, deals with the SEO actions that are performed outside of your company’s website, called the Link Building.

Several practices that were formerly used today are considered spam and, besides not help in SEO, can even harm the site’s positioning of your company.

What should be avoided (read: DO NOT):

• Article Spinning: This is to make changes to an article to post it on different sites with links to your own site. Basically, the transmitted idea remains the same, but with some words exchanged by synonyms, rewritten paragraphs, etc. Google can recognize this practice and to consider “black hat”.
• Spam Comments: No use leave commenting on various websites and blogs just to post there a link to the website of your company. Unless the comment is relevant and the link you post is related to what you say, this is a technique to be avoided.
• Use the same anchor text on many items are posted on other sites. Doing so may seem to spam search engines. Ideally, for each article posted elsewhere, choose a keyword and focus on the content in it.

What can (and should) be done:

• Create quality content on the blog and search position yourself as an authority in your market. By doing so, your company will receive quality links organically. Offer also rich content such as eBooks, whitepapers, webinars, etc. In addition to all the benefits for generating Leads is a great device to get links from other sites.
• Make Guest Posts on blogs and sites that are really relevant in your market and can bring qualified traffic.
• Make relevant and constructive comments on other blogs, preferably that are important in the market in which you operate.
• Using Google Webmaster Tools to identify any tracking errors that may be hindering site performance of your company and see which are the sites that have some link to yours.
• If low – quality links pointing to the site or blog of your company, use the tool Google disavow links to Google ignore these bad links.

Content and Social Media

In addition to relevant content, which we have quoted above, another important factor that has had an impact on SEO is social.

Content that has a good number of sharing, besides being a social proof – a testament to the visitor that the content is well recommended – is also to search engines an indication that the content is of quality.

Encourage sharing placing widgets on the site and blog , as what appears on the left side of this post.

Another extremely important factor for SEO is the Google Authorship . If you have not yet profile, register on Google+ and make sure you use it on the company blog.