As tends to happen after Google puts out its latest updates for Penguin, Panda, and Hummingbird — what you should think of as the gatekeepers of the Silicon Valley giant’s tech empire — digital marketing firms are freaking out a little bit. The changes to Google’s menagerie of animal-themed policemen are said to affect a full 90% of all listings on the search engine, which earns upwards of 100 billion search queries per month. With 93% of all online experiences beginning with a search engine — the vast majority of which start with Google — the updates aimed at removing low quality links and content from search engine result pages could obviously put a big dent in the revenue of a business that relies on digital marketing to generate buzz and sales.

As a new article from The Guardian details, however, the latest Penguin, Panda, and Hummingbird updates shouldn’t be met with hysteria. In effect, they only serve to continue Google’s trend of pushing web marketing away from spammy link building and content creation practices. Instead, companies will have to shift to content that delivers utility to web users. In short, they’ll have to do what most top tier SEO companies have been saying they should have been doing for the last couple of years.

What Should a “Shift to Content” Actually Entail?
Quite simply, a shift to content should just be about focusing on high quality content that people find some sort of value in, whether that means making them laugh, educating them, or otherwise. Consider, according to a report from Business 2 Community, 73% of web users feel frustrated when they view a piece of uninteresting or otherwise useless content. The latest Google updates do, indeed, place more pressure on companies to put out great content, but if that means tapping into the $278.9 billion American web users are estimated to be spending online by 2015, the smart company will be willing to make the effort.

How are you modifying your marketing strategies to keep pace with Google’s updates? Let us know in the comment section below.