With online marketing becoming the norm for all businesses today, Google on the webmasters blog has published a few guidelines on how the businesses can safeguard their websites when reviewing free products they receive from companies.

Google says, Whether you are the company supplying the product or the blogger writing the post, below are a few best practices to ensure that this content is both useful to users and compliant with Google Webmaster Guidelines.

3 points Google mentions on the blog are:

1.  Use the nofollow tag where appropriate.
2.  Disclose the relationship.
3.  Create compelling, unique content.

The nofollow tag should be used because the link that is given in such a review is not an organic one. This review is written because the free product was received. Hence it does not fall in the category of the earned links or genuine links.

Secondly, Users want to know when they’re viewing sponsored content. Also, there are laws in some countries that make disclosure of sponsorship mandatory.

Lastly, Google says, Creating compelling and informative content is something which will add value to the whole post/review. As the write-up should give a lot of information about the product, but should also weigh its pros and cons.

The review should help the user to get a correct idea about the product and help him/her to take a decision. This will also offer a compelling reason for the users to come back for more such reviews.

This kind of an approach will in the long run benefit the user, the blogger and also the company who has offered the free product.

Google announced recently that RankBrain is Google’s name for a machine-learning artificial intelligence system that’s used to help process its search results. They also added that RankBrain is one of the “hundreds” of signals that go into an algorithm that determines what results appear on a Google search page and where they are ranked. In the few months it has been deployed, RankBrain has become the third-most important signal contributing to the result of a search query. We have been also recently been talking about the semantic web .In one of our previous blog posts http://www.webpro.in/how-the-semantic-web-html5-microformats-and-seo-are-inter-linked/  the 4 quadrants which  explain the information and social connectivity very effectively have the semantic web and artificial intelligence in the same quadrant. The semantic web connects knowledge.

Semantics is about "real objects and imaginary concepts and the particular relations between them!" (cf. Berners-Lee 94) And the field that knows how to do this is AI (Artificial Intelligence)! (We call it "knowledge representation"!) According to James Hendler in one of his presentation about the semantic web he says: knowledge representation … is currently in a state comparable to that of hypertext before the advent of the web: it is clearly a good idea, and some very nice demonstrations exist, but it has not yet changed the world. It contains the seeds of important applications, but to unleash its full power it must be linked into a single global system. -- Berners-Lee, Hendler, Lassila, 2001. RankBrain the machine-learning artificial intelligence system is a software which is integrated into the algorithm to mathematically connect words and phrases. An interesting paper on Distributed Representations of Words and Phrases and their Compositionality  explains the way words and phrases can be mathematically connected. In this paper Google has mentioned :

• Distributed representations of words in a vector space help learning algorithms to achieve better performance in natural language processing tasks by grouping similar words
• Word representations are limited by their inability to represent idiomatic phrases that are not compositions of the individual words. For example, “Boston Globe” is a newspaper, and so it is not a natural combination of the meanings of “Boston” and “Globe”
• Other techniques that aim to represent meaning of sentences by composing the word vectors, such as the recursive autoencoders , would also benefit from using phrase vectors instead of the word vectors.
• The extension from word based to phrase based models is relatively simple. First we identify a large number of phrases using a data-driven approach, and then we treat the phrases as individual tokens during the training. To evaluate the quality of the phrase vectors, we developed a test set of analogical reasoning tasks that contains both words and phrases. A typical analogy pair from our test set is “Montreal”:“Montreal Canadiens”::“Toronto”:“Toronto Maple Leafs”. It is considered to have been answered correctly if the nearest representation to vec(“Montreal Canadiens”) - vec(“Montreal”) + vec(“Toronto”) is vec(“Toronto Maple Leafs”).  We found that simple vector addition can often produce meaningful results. For example, vec(“Russia”) + vec(“river”) is close to vec(“Volga River”), and vec(“Germany”) + vec(“capital”) is close to vec(“Berlin”). This compositionality suggests that a non-obvious degree of language understanding can be obtained by using basic mathematical operations on the word vector representations.
• A very interesting result of this work is that the word vectors can be somewhat meaningfully combined using just simple vector addition. Another approach for learning representations of phrases presented in this paper is to simply represent the phrases with a single token. Combination of these two approaches gives a powerful yet simple way how to represent longer pieces of text, while having minimal computational complexity. Our work can thus be seen as complementary to the existing approach that attempts to represent phrases using recursive matrix-vector operations .

According to Google's senior research scientist Greg Corrado Once RankBrain analyzes the text through vectors, it can isolate words or phrases it doesn't understand. It can then guess the meaning based on similar words and phrases and filter the results accordingly. When a search takes place on Google, the search query now will be accessed by the RankBrain program/software to deliver more relevant search results. Especially if the query is a rare one. By making the query accessible to software (RankBrain), the software will essentially become able to understand knowledge, think about knowledge via mathematical computations using word and phrase vectors, and create new knowledge. In other words, software will be able to be more intelligent – not as intelligent as humans perhaps, but more intelligent than say, the word to word mapping is today. Especially for rare queries which need to be understood to deliver results. As Semantics adds extra information to help you with the meaning of the information. Websites using Schemas will be able to get more correlated to the contextual content.

Why schemas will become increasingly important from the SEO perspective?

The Semantic Web does not only exist on Web pages.Web 3.0 works inside of applications and databases, not just on Web pages. Calling it a “Web” is a misnomer of sorts — it’s not just about the Web, it’s about all information, data and applications. More information on http://www.w3.org/DesignIssues/LinkedData.html As the data on the web goes on expanding and the snowball of data gradually becoming an avalanche , as James Hendler says, a little semantic will go a long way.

The Semantic Web isn't just about putting data on the web. It is about making links, so that a person or machine can explore the web of data.  With linked data, when you have some of it, you can find other, related, data.

In the video below James Hendler mentions that  Mr. Guha who started Schema.org said that Google uses the RDF/Microformats and he mentioned at the WWW conference that 20%  (5 million domains) have schemas on it (Video 41:48).  He says in 2001 Google had said that they would not be using schemas in a big way but now they have integrated it in the search algorithm. The knowledge graph is one such example.  Google Turning Its Lucrative Web Search Over to AI Machines (Bloomberg Video) // In this new quality era of search we have to move our focus away from keywords and focus more on the keyness factor of the content which has the potential to correlate to searches made on the search engines as the semantic web adds more meaning to the query for a search rather than just mapping words during the search process. (Note: I know there is no such word as "keyness" but by the "keyness factor" I mean the the correlation, relevance, and the essence of the content rather than the actual word to word keyword mapping.)

As you can see in the image above, we have URI and Unicode as the basis of the web. This can be called the first step which adds the keyness to the webpage and the content of that page that you want to promote organically on search engines or on the web. The keyness factor can be derived from the context of the terms, terminolgy and text used in the content of URl, title, headings, anchor text of the inbound links, alt text used on images, schema codes, meta tags, microformats and body text. If we focus on the keyness factor and try to cater to correlate to a wide range of keyword data rather than focusing on the keywords alone in the URLs, titles and descriptions it gets passed on to the next layer of the emerging web, making the pages pass on more correlation and relevance and also syncs the on page signals with the off-page signals which get directly indexed in the search engines in the form of feeds and sitemaps. More about keyness, Semantic Web and correlation  on http://searchenginewatch.com/sew/opinion/2214849/googles-knowledge-graph-implications-for-search-seo Of course the web today is also about mobility, security and interaction (Social Media) but as an SEO I think representing content in the form of structured data as much as possible will surely be one of the ways to future proof the search presence of any website as  datasets of any schema surely add meaning to the content for any crawler in the form of the meaningful records and fields.

The Bloomberg article a few days back reported that  Greg Corrado, a senior research scientist at Google outlined for the first time the emerging role of AI in search.

Greg Corrado said:

RankBrain uses artificial intelligence to embed vast amounts of written language into mathematical entities -- called vectors -- that the computer can understand. If RankBrain sees a word or phrase it isn’t familiar with, the machine can make a guess as to what words or phrases might have a similar meaning and filter the result accordingly, making it more effective at handling never-before-seen search queries.

“Search is the cornerstone of Google,” Corrado said. “Machine learning isn’t just a magic syrup that you pour onto a problem and it makes it better. It took a lot of thought and care in order to build something that we really thought was worth doing.”

RankBrain is Google’s name for a machine-learning artificial intelligence system that’s used to help process its search results, as was reported by Bloomberg and also confirmed to Search Engine Land by Google.

 

 What Is Artificial Intelligence (AI)?

AI is the science and engineering of making intelligent machines, especially intelligent computer programs. It is related to the similar task of using computers to understand human intelligence. Intelligence involves mechanisms, and AI research has discovered how to make computers carry out some of them.

What Is RankBrain?

Corrado said, RankBrain is one of the “hundreds” of signals that go into an algorithm that determines what results appear on a Google search page and where they are ranked. In the few months it has been deployed, RankBrain has become the third-most important signal contributing to the result of a search query.

Danny Sullivan in his article on SEL wrote:

it seems much more likely that RankBrain is somehow helping Google better classify pages based on the content they contain. RankBrain might be able to better summarize what a page is about than Google’s existing systems have done. (But Google isn’t saying anything other than there’s a ranking component involved.)

As Google told SEL, it can see patterns between seemingly unconnected complex searches to understand how they’re actually similar to each other. This learning, in turn, allows it to better understand future complex searches and whether they’re related to particular topics. Most important, from what Google told us, it can then associate these groups of searches with results that it thinks searchers will like the most.

Google didn’t provide examples of groups of searches or give details on how RankBrain guesses at what are the best pages. But the latter is probably because if it can translate an ambiguous search into something more specific, it can then bring back better answers.

People around the world make more than 3.5 billion Google searches every day and 15% of these queries have never been made before. RankBrain helps Google deal with these 15% f queries. During tests Google engineers who design the algorithms correctly ranked 70% of sites from a range of search terms while, RankBrain achieved a score of 80%.

An interesting paper on Distributed Representations of Words and Phrases and their Compositionality  explains the way words and phrases can be mathematically connected.

A lot is written about keyword research and there are many websites which give a list of probable search queries related to a particular service / product / industry.  But, to determine the perfect list of search queries which the targeted segment is actually using and which will maximize the inbound traffic  is a challenging task for the  website owners and SEOs .

The next daunting task is to keep the blog active with regular, topical, relevant  and fresh content which  calls for preparing a list of blog post ideas to fill the editorial calendar.

I am not a type of SEO who spends a lot of time on keyword research as I think if the content on the website is written keeping the user in mind, then half the battle is won. The other half which is the search engines is taken care of if the content is informative, unique and the technical SEO is up to the mark.

As the competition on the web goes on increasing and the search engine index goes on widening multi-fold on a daily or rather hourly basis, achieving an extensive search presence for a business and at the same time  getting that presence correlated to increasing number of search queries on a regular basis is becoming more and more important.

Hence, instead of focusing on coming up with a list of probable keywords  you want to rank for, let us divert our attention to the categories in which the search queries can be divided. Each category will have a list of key phrases you want the website to rank for.

Every industry more or less has the following categories for the search queries:

 

• Brand Searches
• Questions about the product / service / brand
• Differentiation between two or more products of the same company or different companies
• Same product referred to by different names across the globe
• Exact Match Searches
• Phonetic Spelling Mistakes
• Need Based Search Queries
• Descriptive / adjective based searches
• Local intent search queries or queries with a mention of  a country name.
• Queries which have a mention of a specific format of content.
• People’s names searches ( team members and their profiles)
• Price Related Searches
• Review & Ratings Searches
• Profession Search Queries 

Brand Searches:

Brand searches are the most common type of searches from people who already know about your brand  or from those people who have heard about your brand via some friends or social media. As the number of brand searches increase, it positively impacts SEO.  Hence if you are not having a prominent search presence for your brand search query then you need to work on that first. If people who have heard about your brand , search your brand name and cannot find your presence on the first page of the search engine then they will stop looking further and if they find your website URL , social media URLs , blog post URLs, etc. On the first page then they will look no further .

 

Questions about the product / service / brand

These type of searches have shown an increasing trend recently. Search has become more conversational and people consider a search engine as an assistant and what it to answer the questions they have. Right from a primary school kid who has questions about the project that he has to submit to his teacher to the high end professional who needs to take decisions on critical matters , all turn to Google for answers.

Hence, if people have questions about  the product you deal then having  a search presence for questions related to it is highly important. As it is always better that the people seeking answers to their queries related to your product get their answers from your company website only. This increases the trust factor and you are also assured that the information gathered by the searcher about your product is correct.

We have written a detailed blog post on :

How Brand + Product/Category Search Queries Have An Impact On Search Results. 

Queries regarding differentiation between two or more products of the same company or different companies

It is very common for people to search how one product is different from another.

For example:

• Samsung Galaxy s6 v/s iphone 6
• Samsung Galaxy s6 v/s Samsung Galaxy s6 Edge

Hence when a company launches a new product it is important to have content regarding how the new product compares as to the previous product the company has. If you have a search presence for  this type of a query then again the people get the information from your website rather than from some other general website which curates content regarding these topics and ranks better on search engines.

Same product referred to by different names across the globe :

Many times a single product is referred to by different names across different countries. For e.g:

Edible oil is referred as cooking oil or vegetable oil in many countries. So if you want to target the global market and your site is about edible oil refineries then care should be taken to see that the website has a good search presence for edible oil refineries , cooking oil refineries and vegetable oil refineries.

Exact Match Searches:

These are very common type of searches for products which are very famous or are in vogue. For example a teenager searching for Air Max 2015 Black Running Shoes will search for the exact term. Having a good search presence for these type of queries again helps the website owner to target this segment and get inbound traffic to the site. With the number of eCommerce sites mushrooming these days. This kind of segment will  get diverted to the third party eCommerce sites which are ranking well for this product.

Phonetic Spelling Mistakes:

There are many terms which are spelt in different ways . For e.g  jewelry or jewellery.  Trying  to have a presence for both the terms helps in reaching out to  a wider inbound  audience .

Need Based Search Queries:

Every product caters to a certain need of the potential buyer . But, sometimes the searches can be specific as per the immediate requirement. For e.g : green lace bridesmaid dresses, red woollen jacket with black leather sleeves, etc.

These type of search queries cannot be focused on but the content on the site can be specific and in details so that the particular page having this kind of a product can have a chance of  catering to these kind of queries on the search engines.

Descriptive / adjective Based Searches:

This is similar to the previous type but here the searcher is not very specific of his need. He may/may not be specific about the color but may just need a dark  colored jacket with leather sleeves. Or may just add one adjective to look for a product like – glossy paper , long dresses, beautiful designer sarees, etc.

Local intent search queries or queries with a mention of  a country name

Local search   of course is different than organic search and the factors too vary but if you want to target the local market then one cannot rely only by having a good presence in the local search results but also focus on organic search for search queries which have a local intent.

For e.g: if you have a page 1 presence in the local search results for SEO Ahmedabad then it is good but as the local search results are volatile in nature,ranking  for such a query in the organic search results also is a wise decision. Many people ignore this in favour of  targeting the global market which is not a wise decision.

Queries which have a mention of a specific format of content:

Many people search for something and they want it in PDF format or some other specific format. For e.g  leave application form pdf format , what is a blog – ppt, etc.

Having content in various formats like text, videos, podcasts, PDFs, PPTs, etc. And having a good search presence for all these formats also helps in reaching out to a wider audience. It is not necessary to have the same content in different formats on one website but these formats should by published  on relevant platforms like the videos on the Youtube channel of the company, PPTs on slideShare, PDFs in the downloads section of the website, etc. This way the digital assets of the company also increase and the company has a wider presence across the web.

People’s names/Proper Noun  Searches:

We all know that people do Google names to find out more about  them. Hence , if your website has a page for team members or their names are mentioned on the contact page then the relevant page have a potential for search presence when those names are searched. Hence, updating the pages as and when people are appointed or when they leave the organization is advisable. Else, people searching for those names can get a right/wrong impression about the company .

Price Related Searches:

People do search for products specifying the price or the range of the price that they want to buy the product for. Hence, if microformats are used for specifying pricing the potential for ranking for such search queries increases.

Review & Ratings Searches:

With social media becoming the rage on the web, people want to rely more on what others have to say about the product/service  rather than what the company has to say about their product/service. Hence , having a ratings and reviews section where people can login and publish their opinion is always beneficial and having microformats on the page for ratings and reviews helps search engines index them in the right format and correlate it for a better search presence.

Profession Search Queries:

There are many searches made related to professions . For e.g -  Eye Surgeons in India, doctors in New York,  Neurologists, etc. getting backlinks If you run a hospital and perform LASIK surgeries the most common search term targeted would be LASIK eye surgery , Laser eye surgery, etc. But if the website page which has the detailed biodata of the doctor also ranks for the queries like eye surgeons, ophthalmologists, eye doctor, etc.   it helps in reaching out to a wider inbound audience.

 

How to determine the topics for the next editorial calendar after the search query analysis:

Once the type of search queries you think you want your  online presence to cater to is decided, the next step is to determine the landing pages which can be selected for the search queries category-wise .

• Check which pages are already having a good search presence for which search query.
• List out the search queries which are not having a search presence.
• Try to improvise on the content of the existing pages shortlisted thus or add new pages to target them.
• If you think that adding more content on the website is not possible then write blog posts focusing those search queries which are not yet having the desired search presence.
• Select a topic related to that search query, write in-depth content on it and publish the blog post.

This exercise not only gives us clarity about the targeted search presence which has yet to be achieved but also gives us an idea to  plan the  topics for the content calendar.

The blog is a platform where you can write fresh content on a regular basis. If the content is fresh, unique, in-depth and informative then the search presence surely gets a boost by targeting additional search queries. This also helps in establishing the identity of the company as a thought leader for that relevant industry.