Google Changes SEO In An "INSTANT"

Google recently rolled out a new search feature called "Google Instant". When you start typing it tries to guess what you are searching for and automatically starts pulling up results. It does this letter by letter, each new letter you add changes the results. If you start to type "orange" it will guess what you are typing through predictive text, just like your cell phone would, but much much smarter. This can save you a lot of time for research and typing, but it also changes the way people find your business online.

The fact is faster results equals happier users. The issue is since Google is showing results before the whole keyword or keyword phrase is entered, will the user actually get to the longer words before they click on a natural result or paid result. Let's say "All natural Florida Oranges" is a keyword you optimized your site for. Users can still find you this way, but when they start to type they get all kinds of results and they may never get the whole way to typing in all those keywords before they choose something. Not only do they get more results they get suggestions as they type. Type in "Florida Oranges" and "Florida Orange Juice" appears as a suggestion, which may make the user change their though process during the search. This makes it much easier for shorter keywords and phrases to get more views, it's a bleed over of search results. This benefits the well ranked short keywords (short tail) and makes it harder for the longer keywords (long tail). The longer keywords will still have the same page rank, but users may never get there...resulting in fewer views.

What's all this mean for your business?
If you are a large corporation and you dominate the keywords in your industry, then you're going to be getting more views. If you are a smaller business you now have to go after shorter keywords, in paid results and organic results, to get as many eyeballs as you have in the past. In our example that means going after "Florida Orange(s)" and "Orange(s)" alike. That's a lot more work and a lot more competition, making it much tougher on the small business.

For more information on Google Instant please see Google's announcement here:

For help with Search Engine Optimization please contact me.