The Hummingbird Hypothesis
According to Google, the use of algorithms is what sifts through billions of web pages to find what is most relevant to a user’s inquiry. One of the popular categories utilized is news and blog results when it comes to finding the data and information we are seeking online.
In a survey from Top Rank Online Marketing, 95% of respondents indicated that they were incorporating blogs as a part of their SEO online marketing strategies. Furthermore, more than 87% of those polled indicated that blogging successfully increased their measurable SEO objectives. Of those who weren’t satisfied with blogging efforts, some admitted it was due to their own lack of contributing regularly to their online blog.
Many are pointing to the 2013 release of the Hummingbird algorithm that places more emphasis on social media and blogging when it comes to SEO results. Critics are pondering an increased emphasis being placed on Google’s own map site, Places and their social outlets like Google+ Hangouts. But there is more to Hummingbird than social media and blogging, things like shorter page titles and more relevant page content, which should encompass blogging. It also refers to “conversational” search leverages and their “knowledge graph” in an attempt to make searching more human and less robotic.
Expert Analysis
In a Moz Q&A post posted by content marketer, regarding this specific question from a user, “Could you help me understand how blogs affect SEO and how this works specifically when a blog is located within a site?”
Some consultants, marketers and blog experts chimed in on this important topic:
James Norquay, Consulting Director and Prosperity Media, offers, “Blogs are great for SEO because you have a platform for search engines to provide fresh new content, the problem with static websites is that the content is always the same. This is where blogs always push new content.” This type of “fresh” new content is what grabs SEO attention.
Ryan Kent, founder and CEO of Vitopian, a Sacramento based online business consulting service, gave this excellent analogy. He used the example of how a tennis supply store could better reach internet customers by blogging about valuable topics, like choosing the best racquet, avoiding common injuries and a beginner’s guide to the game. He goes onto state the importance of the engagement potential available with reaching out to online users outside the storefront.
Ryan Schwab, a National Marketing Director for an adoption agency, gives a more overall approach to better SEO results when he states, “Blogs are a well understood format for delivering new content. There isn’t anything inherently special about having a blog, you still need to do the basic on page SEO to optimize your posts, and you’ll still want to do link building to generate authority.” He goes on to recommend blogging for delivering relevant content for other users to share and encourages site owners to provide the fresh content they are seeking.
There are many reasons to blog, more effective strategies to use for content delivery, like utilizing better optimized pictures and links to videos, but for the online author, blogging is a useful tool for obtaining better SEO results. Reach out to your internet audience and Blog On!
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Nick Rojas is a business consultant and writer who lives in Los Angeles. He has consulted small and medium-sized enterprises for over twenty years. He has contributed articles to Visual.ly, Entrepreneur, and TechCrunch. You can follow him on Twitter @NickARojas, or you can reach him at [email protected].