What is the 2019 Google BERT Update and What Does it Mean for Bloggers?

On October 24, 2019, Google announced a new core algorithm update called BERT. BERT stands for “Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers”.

BERT is the latest update in Google’s attempt to create a smarter search engine that recognizes nuances in speech and search queries. Specifically, this update allows Google to understand the meaning of prepositional words like “to”, “by”, “during”, “on”, “up”, “down” etc. Understanding the meaning of these words in search phrases greatly changes the meaning and therefore, search results we are shown.

The BERT update allows Google to understand the meaning of what we are asking and give us more relevant search results.

Why Do Google Ranking Algorithms and Updates Matter?

The best way to get traffic to a blog is to make our content visible to searchers online. It is much more efficient to have searchers and potential customers find us rather than for us to find them. With paid advertising you can get a lot of traffic but you have to keep paying for it. With social media you can reach an audience but it is very time consuming as new interactions have to be made every day. If you stop posting to social media you will stop reaching potential traffic. If you can rank high in search engines such as Google, Bing and Yahoo, people will find your content on their own. They can find you 24 hours per day, 7 days a week regardless of paid advertising or social media presence. Understanding how to get content ranked highly on the search engines requires understanding what the search engines regard as important.

There are several hundred components in Google’s ranking criteria. These components are known as Google’s ranking algorithm. They are continually being adjusted as Google works to improve it’s search results. The general criteria for ranking well in Google and the other search engines is to provide useful, high quality content that answers searcher’s questions. It should be unique (not copied from other sites) and honest. There are dozens of smaller criteria to gain high search engine rankings such as using images, compressing those images for faster load times, using headings, using internal links and using high quality keywords. The general criteria for ranking well in the search engines is fairly consistent but many others change over time. The BERT update does not change the general ranking criteria.

What Will BERT Mean for Bloggers and Internet Marketers?

Bloggers and Internet Marketers need to continue to write quality, informational content. This is not a change from the direction Google has been going, it is just a further refinement. One way to take advantage of the BERT update is to make sure our content is focused. This is not the time for a shotgun approach with a post covering a ton of different ideas at once. Bloggers should take advantage of long-tail keywords which naturally use precise, clear language to describe the topic of a post.

A long tail keyword is a phrase that is used as the keyword for a post. I use my long tail keyword as the title of my post as well. For example, on my pet site I use keywords like “Cat Trees for Large Cats” or “What Is The Best Cat Litter for Odor Control”. On my human health website I use keywords such as “What Supplements Control Histamine”? These are phrases that searchers may type into the search engines to find something in particular. These titles/keywords bring targeted traffic to my site and also get rewarded by Google.

How Can You Learn to Use Long Tail Keywords and Get High Google Rankings?

I have already been using long tail keywords thanks to the great training at Wealthy Affiliate. I was thrilled to see my search traffic was up yesterday and I suspect that is due to my long-tail keyword based content being rewarded by the BERT update.

Here is my post about BERT on Wealthy Affiliate:

New Google Update “BERT” Happening Now

You can easily learn to write blogs that will gain high rankings on Google and start a successful affiliate marketing business based on topics that interest YOU too. You do not have to join an MLM company or sell to family or friends. You can simply share information about topics you are interested in if you have the right training to be successful. Google uses hundreds of different criteria to rank content online. These criteria are important to understand for search engine optimization (SEO). You don’t have to understand all of them but there are some key areas that are crucial for success online. Try Wealthy Affiliate’s free membership and look around for yourself. You can get a premium membership anytime for one low price with everything you need included. You can also take advantage of their Black Friday special coming up at the end of November. That is THE CHEAPEST TIME to become a member of Wealthy Affiliate. Try a free membership and upgrade during the Black Friday special or get a discount on your first month of premium membership and then switch over. This is the very best time to start your online business.

Look Around Wealthy Affiliate and See How You Can Start Your Own Personalized Business Today!

Learn all the tips and strategies you need to succeed online and get access to amazing tools, a worldwide community of supportive, like-minded entrepreneurs, free interaction with the owners of Wealthy Affiliate, web hosting, security, IT support and more all included. You will never have to pay another penny, just the low annual membership, monthly membership or even free membership.

I hope you join me and learn how to easily benefit from the BERT update while sharing what you love! If you want to see how and why I started my own website business you can see my story here.

Jessica

If you have any thoughts or questions, please leave a comment below. I would love to hear from you.