Google hummingbird to unmask lawyers gaming SEO
Public relations executive, Chris Abraham (@chrisabraham), shares that Google’s latest update, named Hummingbird, is bad news for those, lawyers included, who aren’t willing to share of themselves in a real and authentic fashion.
Hummingbird takes on the hucksters, hustlers, & spammers.
Google’s Hummingbird attempts to tear the mask from hucksters, hustlers, spammers, charismatic leaders, and demagogues; and, if their mask is fused on, then Google aspires to bury them at the bottom of the pile.
To do well on Google going forward, you’ll need to invest in your genuine self.
If you fight Google by remaining anonymous, misrepresenting yourself, fooling people, doing bait-and-switches, then Google will banish you.
…Google will find out if you’ve been using Cyrano to write you into the world. If you’ve been using Don Juan’s handsome face and lithe figure instead of your own, with Hummingbird, along with its Panda and Penguin algorithm updates, you will be stripped down to your undershirt and skivvies. You will be revealed.
Bad news for lawyers hiring companies to write content for them. Good news for real lawyers who couldn’t imagine hiring someone to ‘speak’ for them online.
If you invest in yourself, what you can really offer the world, your real voice, your true name and real face, then you’ll be rewarded handsomely by Google.
If, on the other hand, you fight Google and insist on remaining anonymous, misrepresenting yourself, fooling people, doing bait-and-switches, building your success and career on a false name, false skills, and false experience, then Google will banish you, sending you away with only Bing as your back-up plan.
Google’s Hummingbird update is a welcome change for good lawyers. The focus is on growing influence. The more influential you are in niche areas of the law, the more your content will be seen and the greater your word of mouth reputation.
Until now, search engine performance has been built in large part on indexing content on Google and getting as many incoming links from ‘relevant’ sites to keyword packed web pages as possible.
Lawyers and law firms did not need to give of themselves. They could hire SEO companies to ‘game’ Google. Don’t want to write? No problem, hire someone to write for you.
Now search is going to be heavily influenced by social. Do peers, bloggers, reporters, association leaders, and the like believe you are a trusted authority? Are they showing it by sharing across social media what you are saying (writing/blogging). They’ll certainly not share content created for you by a company trying to game Google for you. They can see through that sort of content.
SEO is still real. Legitimate search companies can still offer value to lawyers and law firms. But SEO as lawyers have come to know it is over.
Sure, lawyers and law firms will proceed as nothing has changed until they wake up one day and see that they have been banished by Google. They’ll seek immediate help to cram what cannot be crammed, that being to grow influence via investing in your real self over months and years.
Google hummingbird is good news for those talented lawyers willing to invest in real authentic engagement so as to demonstrate their expertise. Bad news for those lawyers unwilling to invest in themselves.