Everyone is Looking to Offer the Best Experience, even Google.

If binge-watching has stopped you from writing down your Q1 Marketing Goals, maybe knowing that Google’s page experience signals in ranking will roll out in May 2021 (among other good stuff) motivates you to pause Bridgerton.

With less than three months for updating websites and revamping our content to meet Google’s new standards for ranking, Google announced that additionally to the new experience signals, we now have to integrate other topics into our strategies. Gear up because Google moves towards indexing passages and not only pages, prioritizing those with the best information.

Sure enough, this news made you jump off the couch.

Maybe you’ve heard it through the grapevine (back in October 2019) when Google announced the most significant leap forward in the history of search: The Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers, or BERT for short (don’t you love how nerdy it sounds?). BERT design aims to understand better the search intent and the context of the queries, moving away from keyword typing and introducing models that process words concerning all the other terms in a sentence, similar to how we usually ask questions.

A revolutionary approach on how the search algorithm sorts the best results for the user, no more stiff titles with no valuable content. Now, the algorithm focuses on content that answers the search question and the quality of it.

What does it mean for marketers?

So, imagine layer after layer of good stuff, pretty much like a Scooby-Doo sandwich (please do not confuse it with a Shaggy Super sandwich, because seriously? Sardines and marshmallows?). Anyway, back to the topic, imagine an algorithm that understands what the user is looking for (BERT), sorting out high quality websites and looking for the answer in passages, not only pages.

It means offering the user valuable results with the best browsing experience.

For us, marketers, this triple-layered strategy means more opportunities to stand out from the competition. Think how this algorithm positively impacts digital marketing in significant ways: First, BERT matches the copy to the way people search, focusing on often-search questions, and second, enhances the quality of the content with well-written articles aiming for longer, more conversational phrases.

For inbound marketers, this is gold right at the palm of our hands ready to craft the most creative campaign to attract the right client.

Three goals for Q1

First, goals should be thinking beyond keywords and phrases typically associated with the business and considering more conversational phrases that customers might be using to find the product or service. Integrating natural language across digital touch points and creating responses that meet nuanced customer needs.

Second, making sure the business’ website meets Google page experience signals doing a site-wide audit of the pages and see the room for improvement.

Third, don’t wait until May for Google to roll out the changes I talked about above, work proactively with your team reviewing top-ranking pages, prioritize those with good search volume, and focus on strategic content that brings value to the business.

MarkIT Notes

• Prioritize integrating new page experience signals additionally to Core Web Vitals and stay away from cookie-cutter SEO with poor information.
• Offer the best experience throughout the buyer’s journey and digital touch points in your inbound marketing.
• Use bold fonts highlighting solutions and key topics to attract more users into your website on search results.

Gabriela Rendon, 01/14/2021

@gaby_rendon