Have you noticed a dramatic decrease in the organic traffic that your website is seeing?

That’s likely due to Google’s latest algorithm update: BERT. And no, we’re not talking about Sesame Street.

The latest update to the algorithm is shaking up the Search Engine Results Page (SERP). This is the biggest update that Google has released in 5 years and the cherry ontop to the massive changes that Google has introduced this year. 

In this blog post, we’re going to break down exactly what BERT is, and how to capitalize on it for your business’s website so that you can drive the most traffic to your website possible, and make sure that you’re not buried on the SERPs.

What Is BERT?

BERT stands for (Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers).

Sound like another language? That’s because it practically is. 

But don’t worry – understanding what the acronym stands for isn’t important.

What is important is that you understand that this is the biggest change that Google has made to their organic search platform in years.

Take it from, Pandu Nayak, Google’s Vice President of Search:

When people like you or I come to Search, we aren’t always quite sure about the best way to formulate a query. We might not know the right words to use, or how to spell something, because often times, we come to Search looking to learn–we don’t necessarily have the knowledge to begin with.

At its core, Search is about understanding language. It’s our job to figure out what you’re searching for and surface helpful information from the web, no matter how you spell or combine the words in your query.

BERT Explained In Short

In short, BERT allows Google to infer what you really were looking for.

Most times when searchers are looking for information from Google, they’re just typing in a string of keywords, and not formulating full sentences. 

This may lead to them having to search through multiple pages on the SERP’s until they get to the answer they were looking for.

With Google’s introduction of BERT, they can now provide you with the answers you are REALLY looking for, quicker than ever.