I am very excited about BERT.
BERT is not the name of a guy. Oh! How I wish 🙂
But BERT is the name of the latest update from Google. It is short for Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers.
And, like all Digital Entrepreneurs, especially content marketers, I too am very excited about it. It’s the biggest update from Google since Rank Brain
BERT will affect all Google searches starting 2020. And that’s why you need to understand how it works, even if you are not a techie.
Click Infographic to enlarge
Google Searches will Become More Intuitive:
Google searches earlier were not very accurate with long-tail keywords as somewhere the flavour of the query was lost. Everyone who has ever tried searching with a long phrase has experienced this.
Now, with BERT this will not be the case.
With Google’s changed algorithm, the natural flow of the language will be better understood. This will make the search results feel more intuitive.
More Pertinent and Useful Google Search Results:
Like, if you searched for “Bhutan travelers to India need Visa” Google read it as Indian traveling to Bhutan and the top results would be pertinent to Indians traveling to Bhutan, and if they need Visa.
This was because earlier Google could not read the prepositions “To”, “For”, “At”, “On” etc.
Hence the meaning of the keyword phrase would change drastically; and that would affect the search results.
Also, with similar words like hand and hand shake, or, stand and stand alone, the results would seem confusing.
These may seem small but they lead to significant differences in search results.
Google has also made changes to featured snippets.
This will make Google read ‘Yes” and “No” better.
If you searched for “No Ticket Bus Travel” see the results that are delivered.
With BERT this will not be the case as “Yes” and “No” will be read better.
So, now you see why I am so excited about BERT. You should be too as it presents a whole new world of avenues and opportunities for all content creators.
Businesses can also be pitched differently and rebranded and repositioned if needed.
Conclusion:
All the usual search queries fall into three categories –
1) Informational
2) Navigational
3) Transactional
Informational query is not very clear but seeking general information. Like, “How to start a blog”.
After this the results may lead to specific solutions like “How to start a WordPress blog with BlueHost”.
This would lead to the possibility of a transaction happening, and business coming in.
BERT is mainly impacting top-of-the-funnel keywords. These are mainly informational keywords.
So, the SEO game now will not just only be about long content but it will be for very specific targeted content, which focuses on quality and value-add.
