What Does Google Instant Mean to Your Business?

Will Google Instant Effect Your Small Business Marketing?

Typical web surfers take over 9 seconds to type their search terms into the Google search bar. Apparently, Google thought this staggering amount of time was unacceptable, and so on Wednesday, they quietly launched Google Instant, an new search feature designed to save searchers anywhere from 2 to 5 second per search.

According to Google, "Instant is a new search enhancement that shows results as you type." Google's thinking is that people can read faster than they can type, and Instant allows surfers to scan the results which change instantly as they refine their search terms.

In Google’s own words:

"The most obvious change is that you get to the right content much faster than before because you don’t have to finish typing your full search term, or even press “search.” Another shift is that seeing results as you type helps you formulate a better search term by providing instant feedback. You can now adapt your search on the fly until the results match exactly what you want. In time, we may wonder how search ever worked in any other way."

*** What Does Google Instant Mean For Web Surfers?

Web surfers will surely enjoy the ability to search quicker. Instant will predict a user’s search phrase and start to show results before he has even finished typing. Google says, “Even when you don’t know exactly what you’re looking for, predictions help guide your search. The top prediction is shown in grey text directly in the search box, so you can stop typing as soon as you see what you need.”

And to speed things up even more, the results appear immediately; the user won’t even have to hit the Search button. No more typing, then clicking, then scrolling, then retyping, clicking and scrolling all over again.

*** What Does Google Instant Mean for Small Business Marketing?

While Google claims that Instant “does not impact the ranking of search results,” the way people search will very likely change. Google’s Ben Gomes believes the new interface will result in more search queries, and this means more organic ranking opportunities for websites that are content-rich.

Google Instant is starting to roll-out to users on Google domains in the US, UK, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Russia who use the following browsers: Chrome v5/6, Firefox v3, Safari v5 for Mac and Internet Explorer v8. Additional domains, languages, and a mobile version will be rolled out over the next several months.

With Google Instant, the search queries are automatically refined as the searcher enters his keywords. This most likely means that users will spend more time searching for longtail keywords, since the longtail suggestions will be made on-the-fly, eliminating the need for the “search, refine, search, refine” syndrome we’ve seen in the past.

Google Instant also makes it more important than ever to rank in the top 5 search results. With Instant, users won’t need to scroll the results or browse to the next page. They can simply scan the visible results – generally the top three to five – and if they don’t see what they’re looking for, they can instantly refine their search term and get a new set of results.

What I don’t know, and Google hasn’t quite said, is where these predictions come from. Are they coming from a user’s past search behavior? From the most popular search queries of the day? From the ad network PPC phrases? It seems that the Google Instant predictions will manipulate searchers into searching phrases they had never really considered, so it would be nice to know how these predictions are made.

*** What Do You Need to Do Now?

First, we can see that longtail keywords are more important than ever. If you haven’t done your keyword research, now is the time! And the best way to integrate longtail keywords on a consistent basis? With a blog. If you don’t have a blog at your website, you should definitely consider adding one.

And of course, the typical SEO process still applies: generate great content, integrate your keywords, build up incoming links, participate in social media, etc.

Google Instant aims at providing a more personalized search experience. As web surfers’ behaviors begin to change, it is up to us as webmasters to adapt.