When Google changes our world, content marketers must follow.

The latest iteration of Google’s algorithms, called Hummingbird, released late last year, has implications for the way we write our stories, blogs, features, profiles, case studies or opinion pieces.

Google prefers conversational content because that is the way we search. Increasingly we search the questions that come into our head, such as how can I write more conversationally?, and when we do, all the people who are writing conversationally score high on the organic search rankings.

Google’s new algorithm may have some impacts on your content marketing strategy, but it ultimately comes back to the elements of excellent marketing and excellent media too:

  1. Create useful content.
  2. Make your content mobile-friendly.
  3. Don’t ignore social media.

It’s just one of five big shifts coming to content marketing in 2014, according to the US Content Marketing Institute.