The Google Hummingbird update is aimed at promoting "conversational search" by paying more attention to the user intent behind a query whilst processing each word in a sentence or conversation.
NB: This is an analysis provided by James Green, digital account manager at 4Ps Marketing.
The aim is to provide results that are better tailored to the intent rather than a select few keywords.
Google now takes more of the query into consideration when providing search results, providing us with even more opportunity to gain coverage by utilising more semantic, conversational search terms within our content.
What should the travel sector be doing?
If you are one of those marketing managers who has spent months trying to convince your MD that your number one objective isn’t to "appear at the top of Google for vanity keyword X", then keep reading as I hope I can provide you with some ammunition in the next board meeting.
1. Research
To begin with, we must start by understanding the basics and core values of our products. This includes the users that purchase our products, what influences them to purchase, when they are at the research phase and what the top issue-based content is in relation to their end goal.
So, how do we do this? Well there are some quick ways in which you can gather such data with minimal effort:
- Call operators – Ask your call operators what the most common questions are from customers when looking to purchase different products.
- Data capture – Look at your booking data and identify when users enquire about different products through data capture forms.
- Forum – Look at your forums and identify question/answer related content
- Data – When do people book different holidays? What’s the group size? AOV?
- Trends analysis – Look to see when users look to go on tours/holidays and understand when the best times are to push your content. At 4Ps Marketing, we ensure that we use trends to identify the best times to leverage content for our clients.
- Work the front line – Ask your tour guides and customers directly to find out what their biggest issues are when looking to book their next trip.
2. Analyse keyword groupingsThe next step is to identify your keyword groupings. Although this is something all good SEOs and tech-savvy ninjas should be doing, it’s a great place to start to give you an idea of the kinds of ways in which you can segment your audience.
By stopping and thinking more about your audience and your service, there will be many more opportunities open to you.
Below we can see how we can break down your keyword priorities into real, actionable semantic search terms:
[table id=3819 /]
3. Focus on the long-tail
The more semantic and longer-tail the search term is, the higher the relevance and intent generally is for that specific phrase, which previously would have shown as a lucrative traffic segment in GA until (not provided) took over.
As the search engine adapts and becomes more semantic in its thinking, we must adapt the way that we approach search keywords and phrases.
According to the recent slingshot report, users are 2.5 times more likely to convert through longer tail terms with user intent.
Summing up
Once you have completed the process above you will be ready to create content that really meets the intent of your customers.
You are then ready to put this into a content plan.
Go for it...
NB: This is an analysis provided by James Green, digital account manager at 4Ps Marketing.