BERT, which stands for Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers, is a neural network architecture developed by Google for natural language processing (NLP) tasks.

It is designed to understand the context of words by looking at the words both before and after them in a sentence, which allows it to capture more nuanced meanings and improve the accuracy of NLP models.

Importance in SEO

BERT has been a significant advancement in the field of SEO because it has helped search engines better understand the intent behind user queries and the content of web pages.

This leads to more relevant and accurate search results, which is crucial for SEO as it directly impacts a website’s visibility and ranking.

Websites that align their content with BERT’s understanding of language are more likely to rank higher in search results, especially for longer and more conversational search queries.

Example

Before BERT, a search for “park nearby” might have returned results about parks in general, but with BERT, the search engine understands that the user is looking for information about parks that are close by, which would lead to more location-based results.

Do

  • Create content that aligns with BERT’s understanding of language context.
  • Use natural, conversational language in your content to match how users search.
  • Optimize for long-tail keywords and phrases that BERT is designed to understand better.
  • Ensure that your content provides clear and relevant answers to user queries.

Don’t

  • Over-optimize for specific keywords at the expense of readability and user experience.
  • Rely solely on keyword density or stuffing to improve rankings, as BERT focuses on context and meaning.
  • Ignore the importance of quality content that provides value to users.
  • Fail to adapt to the evolving landscape of SEO as search algorithms continue to improve.