How Google Instant has fundamentally changed SEO
Friday, September 10, 2010 at 4:00PM
The game may have changed, but don't go proclaiming the death of SEO just yet
If you live in the US, you probably noticed that Google has been acting funny the past couple days. The search giant has implemented Google Instant into their engine, showing you streaming search results as you type. It’s a major shift in how Google functions and, big surprise, has the SEO world in a tizzy. Below is a video from Google explaining the new service.
Google’s algorithm hasn’t changed, but the user experience sure has. Time will tell if users love Google Instant and it leads to a major change in how we search. Understanding how people search is the core of SEO, and that being shaken up has a lot of SEO professionals shaking in their booties. But for SEO thought leaders, changing up how they do things is part of the game. In a way it’s actually what the whole game boils down to, as Google is always updating and users constantly change the way they use the internet. As long as SEO pros keep their heads and meet the challenge head on, they should be ok, even if old tricks became obsolete overnight.
Here are some thoughts on what the latest change means for the future of SEO.
The top three spots are more important than ever
Being in the top three has always been a key measurement of SEO success since an overwhelming majority of clicks go to those results. With Google Instant, that’s likely to become even more the case. Users can just keep refining their search terms until they see exactly what they want sitting on top, and as such there is less impetus to scroll down through the results hoping what you are looking for will be there.
Keyword research has to expand
Since searchers will be exposed to many more results, you have many more competitors. Many of those results won’t be of any relevance, but some of them will. It’s now imperative to go play with Google Instant when you’re deciding your keywords to see what other phrases may be thrown in front of your target before they get your site in the results list. Also, Google will be predicting what users are searching for and there’s no way to know for sure what it will be showing them without experimenting with it yourself. And as it’s easier than ever to refine your search query, users are less likely to settle for almost right. This all means that there is greater pressure than ever to find the perfect keywords and that you need to consider adding more of them to your SEO mix than you have in the past.
The riffraff will be weeded out
There are no shortage of SEO “experts” out there who rely on gimmicks to boost search rank. Many of those won’t work anymore, and if they can’t put some brain cells into adapting to the new situation they won’t survive. Google Instant adds yet more factors to SEO and ups the challenge. Expect to see the pioneers and thought leaders not only survive, but do even better. And expect many of the following horde to be picked off.
Proclamations of SEO doom are much like any other such ballyhooing (think Y2K, 2012). The short-sighted among us panic when things change. The ones with perspective roll with the punches and keep moving forward. SEO might one day die if the importance of search engines as a traffic source tanks, which is certainly not impossible. But as long as ranking number one on Google equals massive traffic, there will be people clever enough to keep SEO relevant.
Jason Ross is a copywriter for The Duffy Agency. He loves working on both traditional and social media projects and speculating on the future of the ad industry.
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