How to stay one step ahead of Google Instant
“Instant takes what you have typed already, predicts the most likely completion and streams results in real-time for those predictions—yielding a smarter and faster search that is interactive, predictive and powerful.” – Google blog
Google Instant features:
- Smarter Searches – Displays relevant search results helping you formulate a better search term
- Faster Searches – Populates predictions before you finish typing, if you see what your looking for, stop typing and click on the desired result
- Scrolling – Users can scroll through predictions and see results change instantly
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Pro’s and Con’s
I have been researching the pros and cons of Google Instant on SEO efforts, in particular the affect on long tail keywords. Only time will tell the full impact Google Instant will have on your particular SEO campaign, but here are some points to consider.
PROS – Users will save time, an average of 2-5 second per search, that can really add up.
It appears that Google gives preference to media rich content, even including thumbnails if videos are available. This might grab a searchers attention before they’ve finished typing their original search.
Which leads to the conclusion: if you want Google to point to your site, it needs to be media-rich and it better be optimized and tagged!
Don’t like it? You can turn off Google Instant by changing your preferences.
CONS – This may lead to even greater competition for keywords and higher PPC costs.
Which is why we still recommend an active approach to SEO campaign management, by targeting the keywords less searched and including 3-5 word phrases.
By the way, Google Instant is not available on mobile applications yet, but it’s coming soon. 🙂
Regardless of what Google Instant thinks I’m looking for, I continue typing my whole thought. I admit, I do look at the suggestions, but so far it hasn’t been very helpful with my searches. How about you?
