Google has a way of keeping marketers on their toes when it comes to its search engine updates. These updates require marketers and SEO professionals alike to make necessary changes to provide optimized websites for Google. Google updates for 2022 include further advancements in its algorithms, known as the MUM update. Google will revolutionize the way users find and experience content via its Google MUM algorithm. It is, therefore, essential to understand what this update means for your Google web optimization and digital marketing techniques.
What Is MUM?
The Multitask Unified Model (MUM) update officially landed in June 2021. It is a multimodal algorithm designed to break language barriers and improve search experiences. This algorithm can take complex queries and provide one tangible answer without doing multiple searches. It does this by accessing information across multiple languages, images, videos, and audio.
What Is Multimodality?
As mentioned, MUM is a multimodal algorithm. Multimodality is a learning technique that compares and combines information from multiple sources to form a single response. In simplest terms, it is much like giving a presentation using a PowerPoint slide that incorporates text, images, and videos to get your main talking points across. MUM will take language data from text documents, audio data from music and sound recordings, and visual data from images and videos to provide users with a more accurate and well-developed answer to their search queries.
Google Algorithm Update History
Since its arrival, Google has long been one of the main search engines used around the world. To stay relevant and provide the best user experience, Google is always looking for ways to improve. Over the years, Google has made thousands of changes to its search. These algorithm updates center around user experience. Algorithm changes largely impact how your business appears in a digital marketing search.
MUM vs. BERT
MUM is a direct replacement of BERT, an algorithm launched in 2019, and Google boasts that MUM will be 1,000 times more powerful than BERT. BERT stands for Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers. It was geared to supply content that could answer common questions, often relying on keywords and key phrases to rank results. BERT’s main improvement was enhanced voice search and added features that used AI to recognize how information was presented on the SERP.
MUM takes BERT’s intentions to the next level. With MUM, Google can now treat media as different modalities. This allows for an improved user experience when using Google to search for information. This update accommodates the increase of non-text sources, such as live streams and podcasts. As the way we share and gather information changes, MUM aims to adapt to it.
Benefits of the MUM Update
Understanding the benefits of MUM requires understanding the answer to the question: How do search engines work? Searching for information, products, or services online isn’t always easy. There is often the need to perform multiple searches to get the information you need. This is typically caused by geographical or language barriers that limit how intuitive the search engine can be. MUM will remove the necessity of performing multiple searches to compare and learn about the searched topic. Users will get better insight in one search with MUM instead of needing to conduct multiple searches.
MUM will provide better results when it comes to comparative information. If a user wants to compare the weather in two different areas, this can be done in one simple result. This prevents the need to do multiple searches. The ability to easily answer comparative questions will open a wealth of knowledge for users across several different topics.
MUM also breaks language barriers. It understands 75 different languages, providing a more comprehensive search experience. MUM will take a user’s queries and compare its knowledge across languages, providing better information accuracy. Google aims to provide an algorithm that is an expert in information and can act as a translator as well, opening up a wealth of information.
How to Prepare for MUM
To prepare for MUM, SEO’s and digital marketing professionals alike, need to continue to optimize websites for Google. While MUM is drastically changing the user experience when it comes to fast, accurate, and well-rounded search engine results, this doesn’t necessarily mean big changes in SEO plans. MUM supports the increasing trend of using multiple forms of media to communicate specific messages. Most successful SEO plans are already using various media to communicate with customers.
Mum largely calls for further refinement of content marketing to stay relevant in search engine results. This includes coordinating content across different platforms that appear in search results. For this reason, SEO plans will continue to rely on high-quality, focused content, including relevant content provided through articles and blog posts.
Searching across multiple languages is one of the biggest changes brought on with MUM. If you don’t already have multi-language SEO, now is the time to add it to your strategy. Having relevant, user-friendly content is more vital than ever, given that you will now compete against contributions from around the world. It is helpful to boost your regional relevance and focus on local interests.
One change that may need to happen is the increased importance of podcasts, images, audio, and video content. As always, you’ll want to continue to provide content that builds brand recognition and loyalty. When you engage your audience through text, images, and other sources of media, you maintain your relevance in line with the MUM algorithm.
Trust the Professionals
If you worry your site and social media platforms are not up to date with the latest Google update, we can help. Zero Gravity Marketing is a digital marketing agency in CT that has helped business build their brand loyalty and maintain a strong digital marketing presence. We provide organic and natural SEO plans. Our SEO services in CT will provide the content, accessibility, and user experience you need to continue to reach your targeted audience. We stay up-to-date on the latest Google updates. Contact us to learn more about how we can help you maximize your search engine results.
