By Mashum Mollah
You will need to stay updated with the developments and upgrades that are done by Google continually in order to make sure that you have a high rank and a better SEO result. As you may know, Google keeps on making changes and adds new features to ensure that the users have optimal satisfaction. One such update is the Google Instant Search that you may be curious about like most people.
Google Instant Search was officially launched September 8, 2010, and is primarily targeted for the SEO of the website. Experts in the industry are of the opinions that are diverse and polar different as well.
- Some say this upgrade will have a significant impact on SEO
- Few of them even go as far as to say that it will even ‘kill’ SEO and
- A handful of them says that it will not have any impact on SEO at all.
However, these are all assumptions as the long terms effects of Google Instant Search may not be clear for some time. Nevertheless, there are a few things that you ought to know about Google Instant Search to understand how it will affect you’re natural and waged search strategies in the short term. This knowledge will help you to adjust your SEO strategies as well as your paid search accordingly.
About Google Instant Search
The working process of Google Instant Search is much similar to the auto-completion feature that is typically activated as soon as you start filling out any web form.
- When you type the keywords into the search bar, Google will start bringing up the search results for those words that you have typed so far that are related to the target keywords.
- That means in other words, Google Instant Search will bring up a complete search result only when you type the entire keyword into the search bar and click on the “search” key to start your search.
- Till that time the search result will continue to “evolve” as you type more words in the search bar.
- With Google Instant Search helping the users to guide their search, web users can now find exactly what they are looking for in much less time.
Now the question is does this process affect the SEO strategy of any site? Well, the answer to this is, there is no clear evidence found yet that Google Instant Search has a direct impact on the natural search.
Impact on the web traffic
However, it is found that it can have a significant effect on the traffic that your website may receive especially from those people who are typing in long tail keywords.
An example will make things very clear to you. For example, assume that a user is searching the internet for a company with a long tail keyword “leadership development company.” Also, assume that it is your site that usually comes up first in the search results when the entire keyword is typed in the search bar of Google. Now with Google Instant Search in play, there may be different results coming up continually while the user has yet to complete typing “leadership development.” A few specific types of suggestions that may pop up for such long tail keywords are:
- Leadership development program
- Leadership development training
- Leadership development plan
- Leadership development activities or
- Leadership development jobs.
If the person finds something interesting and catchy to their eyes at this point they may stop typing in the rest of the words and may decide to end their search. They may select one of these long tail keywords right here before they get a chance to view your website ever. This indicates a significant drop in traffic due to the long tail keywords.
In order to prevent such a loss in traffic, it is a good idea and practice to run a couple of tests. You can do this by typing in those specific keywords that you wish to use to optimize your site.
- This will provide you with a lot of suggestions that Google Instant Search will bring up as you start and continue to type in the keyword.
- If you do this, you will be able to find a few additional long tail keywords that you could also use to optimize your site and make the necessary adjustments in your SEO strategy accordingly.
This test will help you to reform your long tail keyword a bit and put the best word in the front so that when a user types it in the search bar, your site result or domain starts to ‘evolve.’
Impact on PPC
Google has however claimed that their Google Instant Search will not have any adverse effect on their search algorithm for the paid search ads. However, if you follow the webmaster tools blog of Google you will see that Google Instant Search results in an increase in the impressions for such search terms, especially for the paid search impressions.
This is because the paid ad impression will start counting as soon as the user does one of the following three things:
- Selects any of the provided links within the search results page where the ad was served
- Selects any long tail keyword from any one of the displayed suggestions of Google and your ad is served or
- Stops typing for more than three seconds and your ads are served as a result of the instant search.
All these three actions will result in the creation of an impression that will be credited to your ad group for that specific keyword. It is for this reason that the possibility of your PPC marketing campaigns may not be well-targeted increases. That means the Google instant feature will decrease the quality score as well as the click-through rate.
That is why experts suggest that you be as relevant and as specific as possible with your keyword selection. You can visit Seomarketer to have a fair bit of idea about using such long tail keywords that will help you to zero in on any specific offer that you wish to make.
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