The recent rollout of Google Instant across various parts of the world has caused many to question the role of SEO in the now changed search engine landscape.
Essentially, Google Instant is the next leap forward in terms of predictive searching, as results are displayed to the user before they’ve finished typing their key phrase. For those who haven’t seen what Google Instant does, there’s a demo available here (https://www.google.com/webhp?sclient=psy).
What this means for the world of search engine optimisation (SEO) has divided experts.
However, the prevailing opinion is that Google Instant has made SEO even more critical to your business.
In the past, a user would head to Google with a search term in mind, let’s say “neon lighting brisbane”
In the time it takes the user to type this search phrase in, they’ve seen 15 different sets of results flash before their eyes. And this doesn’t count any mistakes that require backspaces!
So whereas before you might have been content to just optimise for the keyword phrase “neon lighting brisbane”, you now need to make sure you’re showing for all possible (relevant) variations that show up during the typing of this phrase.
What remains to be seen however, is whether or not users will actually be tempted by, and click on the “instant” results or whether they will just become an annoying distraction.
