Our Guide to Google’s BERT Update & Your SEO – What to Know
The BERT update was rolled out by Google in 2019. If you haven’t wrapped your head around it, and you’re in SEO strategy development, here’s everything that you need to know about BERT.
BERT stands for Bidirectional Encoder Representations From Transformers. The BERT update is here to improve Natural Language Processing (NLP), which is responsible for understanding the context of a search query on Google fully.
Mainly, BERT improves the results for voice searches and text-to-search features. With the growing popularity of voice searches today, this is how Google is evolving with the changing times to provide a better user experience.
Furthermore, the BERT update allows Google to analyse better and understand what people are looking for on the search engine. Users who type long-tail keywords will now be provided with the best and exact results, thanks to BERT.
How the BERT Update Affects SEO
Every Google update affects certain aspects of SEO, which is why digital marketers, business owners, and SEO experts are always on the lookout for any Google changes. It’s because failure to comply with the updates may have your website at the bottom of the search engine results pages (SERP), and you certainly don’t want that for your business.
Here are the ways Google BERT update affects SEO:
- Increases the Need for Long-Tail Keyword
Back in the days, long-tail keywords are not that important, until the BERT update rolled around. The update gives more focus on search queries that use long-tail keywords, especially that there is now an increase in users who use voice search on Google. Therefore, an SEO agency would be smart to include long-tail keywords in their content and in other SEO elements to help their clients’ websites rank better on Google.
- Gives More Importance on Valuable Content
Google continuously reminds webmasters to write content for the users, not for the search engines. The BERT update delivers more emphasis on this by encouraging content creators to avoid unnecessary keyword stuffing, write valuable and original content, include relative keywords, etc.
So, if you want to rank on Google considering the latest update, you need to create more valuable and informative content that will not only solve the problems of users but will also educate them.
- Highlights the Need for Topic Clusters
What is a topic cluster? A topic cluster includes a group of interlinked web pages. Basically, it’s a pillar page. Topic clusters aim not only to target the right keywords but to generate internal links for relevant topics that will allow users to gain more in-depth knowledge of the topic that they’re interested in.
Conclusion
Now that you know what the BERT update is and how it can affect your SEO, it’s your turn to align your strategies with it. An SEO agency can help you align your website with the latest Google update. By doing so, you can guarantee that your website will remain on the SERPs with potentially high rankings. If you notice lower site rankings since the update, then maybe it’s time for you to do some tweaks in your content and make them Google BERT-friendly.
We are a renowned SEO agency in the UK that uses artificial intelligence to deliver the best solutions. Get in touch with us today to see how we can help improve your SEO efforts.
