Thursday, April 21, 2016

Understanding Conversion Rate Optimisation and SEO after RankBrain

Ever since Google unveiled RankBrain as the latest leap in their search algorithm’s efficiency just a day after Christmas last year, the ripples it created in the SEO universe have refused to settle down. That’s saying a lot. because RankBrain isn’t really even an algorithm update, it is actually a part of the current version of the algorithm named “Hummingbird” which dates back to a 2013 launch.

With Hummingbird, Google started paying a lot more attention to an entire search query rather than just the keywords. The mission of Hummingbird is to understand the overall context of a sentence and not just specific words. RankBrain takes this effort several steps forward.

Why is RankBrain creating such a noise? The answer is partly because it’s Google’s most recent big dig into using Artificial Intelligence for search and partly also because it has some of the best minds out there scratching their heads over “how to optimise for RankBrain”.


What sets this new AI feature apart from the other many changes that Google has brought in recently, is that it defies the common notions of SEO and forces content marketers and publishers to go back to the fundamentals. Chances are that you too came here looking for little tricks and hacks that is going optimise your content for RankBrain. You should certainly read on then.

What NOT to do to your content for RankBrain

1. Optimise for “verbose queries” to tackle language interpretations

RankBrain helps Google understand “verbose queries” when people make ambiguous searches or use colloquial terms. It is Google’s attempt at understanding the staggering 15% of its 3.5 billion daily searches that the giant has never seen before.

Language however, is immensely diverse. Optimising for search keywords is one thing and optimising for the infinite lingual variations of those keyword is a whole different ball game. Trying to tweak your content to include colloquially alternative keywords will not only be a turn-off to your readers, you might also find yourself going down the rabbit hole pushing money towards bidding for endless ad-groups on adwords based on such ambiguous keywords.

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