RankBrain might have been given a slightly intimidating name, but under the surface it is simply the latest piece of the puzzle that is Google’s search engine. Its influence has yet to be fully understood, despite the fact that it has officially become one of the most influential ranking signals impacting organic results this year.
In short, RankBrain is a machine learning system that should automatically help Google to get better at dealing with some of the more vague and tangential queries that users present it with each day. A short explanation is not enough to help businesses come up with SEO strategies that will help them capitalise on its arrival over the course of the next year.
With that in mind, here are some potential approaches to roll out in 2016 that might help to get your site in the good books of this ever-evolving algorithmic addition. For businesses from Stornoway to Somerset web design will be as crucial as ever.
Humanising Content
In the past, Google’s problem was that its search engine was not sophisticated enough in its ability to sift the good sites from the bad ones. This made SEO a similarly unsubtle art, with sites attempting to crowbar in as many keywords and links as possible so that pages would rank highly but not necessarily be appealing to users.
RankBrain and Hummingbird before it intend to set this straight by encouraging sites to design pages and write copy that will appeal to human visitors rather than black and white algorithms. This means deploying the kind of language that everyday search users are likely to pick to find a business or product. This is a process that can be handled by agencies such as http://www.somersetwebservices.co.uk/, which offers organisations in Somerset web design assistance.
Maintaining the Basics
One of the main things that sites must remember when strategising for RankBrain is that they must still maintain a firm grip on the other important principles of SEO and not let their guard down.
The technical side of a site must still be top notch, with fast page load speeds and an intuitively organised interface, in order for it to perform well in SERPs. Although there might be the temptation to focus solely on content creation, a multifaceted approach is still going to deliver the best results.