Google recently announced the release of a brand new factor to its web ranking algorithm, known as RankBrain. Think of this as similar to an artificial intelligence (AI) whose job is to learn through use, and to assess all of the different aspects that decide your website’s ranking.
Of course, this is massively important to any company, organisation or person with any kind of understanding of search engine optimisation (SEO), as it is a potential game changer. All of a sudden, there’s something new to consider when you are trying to get the maximum impact out of your website.
You see, RankBrain, which Google states is the third most important factor in deciding on rankings, looks at every single web search everyone does. It uses this information to draw up patterns, and to find out what people are generally looking for. Then, it displays this information as your search results, both in terms of what gets displayed and also, and more importantly, in what order.
So how can you use RankBrain?
In order to get the best possible result from a tool like RankBrain, you need to understand a little bit about the way that it’s designed. Previous Google algorithms looked at the string of words that were in your search and took a logical guess at what you wanted, if they hadn’t encountered the specific search you looked for before. For example, the algorithm may not have seen the search term “best sport in England” before, but it can look at what you have written and give you results based on “sport” and “England”.
RankBrain, in the simplest possible terms, does something similar. However, because it is constantly learning, it is able to look beyond the specifics of what you type, and understand the meaning behind the search term.
How to get the most out of RankBrain
Well, it’s not quite as easy as that. Google has been working on this for a long time, and even since it was initially put into use as an early stages beta program, in 2016, the search engine has tried to explain that there simply isn’t any way to “optimise for RankBrain”. What do you do, then?
You simply have to focus on making your website as SEO-friendly as possible. If you can optimise your website for the user, this will, in turn, make it more and more relevant to RankBrain and all the other attached bits and pieces Google has.
Of course, SEO can be hard. That’s why, here at Engage Web, we have the experience and ability in our team to be able to take your website and improve its searchability even more. If you want to see your web traffic increase, get in touch with Engage Web for all your SEO and web content needs.
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