These days, it’s hard to understand how much impact search engines like Google have on our daily lives. Try to remember what it was like to search for information in the before times; it was a time-consuming and complicated process. Whether you wanted to find out the number of a new restaurant or the length of a mile, you had to do some actual footwork to get the information.
As valuable as Google is to today’s society, it still has its limitations. However, all that stands to change with the company’s latest update, Multitask Unified Model, or MUM. This article will break down how MUM works and what it means for your SEO marketing.
What is Google MUM?
According to Google, users have to perform about eight searches to find information for complex tasks. For example, let’s say that you’re planning a culinary road trip across the country. Unfortunately, you couldn’t just type in “how to plan a foodie road trip from Washington to Florida.”
At best, Google may give you directions between each state, but it wouldn’t understand what you really want. In this case, you’d prefer to plan your trip around top-rated restaurants along the way, based on user recommendations and ratings.
So, MUM is supposed to break down complex queries and deliver comprehensive results, just like asking a person. In a perfect world, Google could do most of the planning for you – all you have to do is pay for everything.
How Does MUM Work?
As you can imagine, building a search engine with this kind of understanding of human speech is pretty complex. Thankfully, as artificial intelligence technology is developed, projects like these are no longer a pipe dream.
MUM works by analyzing and processing complicated search queries and running these processes simultaneously. The program has been trained in over 75 languages so far, and it can carry out multiple tasks at once to bring up comprehensive search results. The technology is similar to Google’s current standard BERT, but it’s 1,000 times more capable.
Google MUM vs. Traditional Searches
Google’s current system is a bite-sized version of MUM. Rather than processing multiple keywords and phrases at a time, Google’s algorithms will pick out the ones that stand out the most. You can help find more relevant searches by highlighting the most valuable keyword, but the search engine can’t look up information for more than one at a time.
The most valuable aspect of Google’s search results is relevancy. The search engine will find articles, videos, and images that utilize the keyword in the same way that you mean it. The purpose of BERT is to understand the nuances of language better so that Google can deliver more relevant results. Overall, MUM will use BERT’s foundation and build upon it to create a better, more intuitive search engine.
How Businesses Can Leverage MUM
Since the technology is still in its infancy, it’s hard to tell where it will go once it’s unleashed. However, here are some strategies that we think can work well with the new system:
Tagging and Alt Text Will Become More Important
Since MUM will look up information from multiple sources at once, it will need to verify that everything, including images and videos, is relevant. So, if you’re not tagging or adding alt text to your pictures and video content, you need to start.
Start Producing More Complex Content
You will need to start thinking outside the box when developing new blog posts and social media content. For example, let’s say that you sell hiking equipment. Your posts should start including how your equipment works on various hikes, such as mountain climbing vs. trail hiking. By providing this kind of content, you’ll make it easier for MUM to recognize your relevance to hiking-related searches.
Utilize a Multimedia Approach
Ideally, you should be using text, images, and video for marketing already. However, once MUM becomes the norm, you can incorporate multimedia elements within the same content. A blog post can consist of videos, audio, and still images to make it more relevant to searches.
Need Help Preparing Your Site for the Future of Google? Contact BizIQ Today!
As search engines develop new technology, you need to adapt to keep up. Fortunately, BizIQ can take care of the complicated processes for you so that you can focus on delivering better value for your customers.
Our SEO experts can help you stay on top of current and future Google updates, such as MUM, and be at the forefront of your industry online.
Contact us today and see the results we can get for your website.