Google Instant – Everything You Need to Know

Following two teaser doodles, Google’s big news was finally unveiled to the world on the evening of 08/09/10. The launch of Instant Search.

But what does that mean for searchers? For SEO? For businesses?

You’re about to find out, as The FirstFound Blog takes you through everything you need to know about Google Instant.

What Does Google Instant Mean For Searchers?

First of all, you need to know what Google Instant does. In the simplest of terms, it searches as you type (if you’re signed into a Google account).

That means if you’re typing the phrase “Search Engine Consultants“, you’ll see a number of results pages:

• First you’ll see the results for “Search“. This is without hitting enter. You start typing, Google starts showing results.
• These results will then instantly and automatically update to show the results for “Search Engine”
• By the time you’ve typed “Search Engine Cons“, Google’s autosuggest will guess that you want “Search Engine Consultants” and show you that result.

All of this happens in the time it takes you to type. There’s no waiting. Within a second or two, you’ll have seen at least three seperate results pages.

This should make search faster and more intuitive for searchers. Admittedly, it won’t speed things up by more than a few microseconds if you know what you’re going to search for, but Google are claiming that over a day it will save 11 man hours per second. Which will only make a substantial difference for you if you’re making a few billion searches a day.

For at least a few weeks, people will be trying Instant to see what the fuss is about, and they’ll probably enjoy the experience to begin with. After that though, it could well get distracting, but it can be turned off with a few clicks.

In short, as a searcher Google Instant will either save you a few seconds every year, or it won’t do anything because you’re not using it.

What Does Google Instant Mean For SEO?

It means more reading. This Twitter post just about sums it up:

“[phrase1] google instant will [phrase2] SEO”. Dynamic seo blog post title generator for the next week.

Over the next week, or month, lots of people are going to claim lots of things about Google Instant and SEO. But this hasn’t changed the way that Google ranks sites, it’s just made search faster. It’s too early to see what effects (if any) Google Instant will have on SEO, but here are a few of our instant, knee-jerk predictions.

• The Long Tail won’t die. It’ll thrive. The novelty of Google Instant is that the more you type, the more fun it is. So people are just going to keep typing. They won’t put in one generic key phrase and start drilling down, they’ll just keep amending that key phrase until it’s extremely specific.
• Instant won’t kill SEO. It might mean that SEOs have to change the way they do things, and it may mean looking at key phrases differently, but it’s not changed the Google Algorithm. The majority of what we do has no reason to stop working overnight. Besides, if you read some blogs, everything will kill SEO. Nothing’s managed it yet.
• The novelty value could wear off. Google Instant doesn’t offer that many benefits to searchers. It’s not saving much time when people know the phrase they want to search for, and it’s easy to turn off when it becomes distracting. Yahoo! tried a similar thing a few years ago, and it bombed.

What Does Google Instant Mean For Businesses?

It means you’re going to need some sort of SEO, if you don’t have it already. With instant results, people are going to refine their searches more. They’re not going to type “shoes” and then sift through pages and pages of results – they’re going to get more and more specific until they find the results they want. And if the novelty wears off, then a professional SEO campaign will still bring in more business from people using the vanilla Google search.

If you don’t currently have any SEO on your website, give us a call on 0161 909 3400.

In Conclusion

Google Instant might not be the game changer we all expected. It’s going to make SEO more relevant to businesses, not less – so it’s probably going to lead to more of the same. It’s too soon to say what it is going to be, but what it isn’t is an SEO killer.

Over a third of marketing directors surveyed are predicting an increase in marketing spend, with SEO coming out as the most important medium. Obviously this is great news for SEO companies and marketers, but what does it mean for everyone else?

It Really Is Time to Invest In SEO

It’s not just the top marketing directors interviewed that will be investing. More and more people are beginning to prefer online purchases, and SEO is a great way to attract those customers. As such, more and more businesses are implementing an SEO strategy. Including your competitors. If you don’t want to fall behind, you’ll need to invest soon.

To make sure you’re staying ahead of the game, call FirstFound now on 0161 909 3400. We’ll help you top the search engines.

It’s not all about SEO – see how Social Media can help your business (and take advantage of our Free Guide), or find out about our great PPC offer.

We know, we know. It’s July. The sun is shining. People are wandering the streets of Manchester topless (why?). Beer gardens are full.

Who’d be thinking of Christmas at a time like this?

Well, you should be for starters.

If you’re running an SEO campaign, you need to stop thinking about margheritas and start thinking about Eggnog. Why? Because November 29th is far too late to start changing your SEO to target those lucrative phrases. After all, people start their Christmas shopping in October!

SEO Christmas Timeline

July – Start considering the phrases you want to target
August – Make sure the site is set up to target those phrases
September – Fire off a few Christmas-shopping themed blogs and offers.
October/November – Christmas shopping season starts
December 25th – Turkey.

Photo Credit

And we’re not just talking about the thousands of people who’ve spent thousands of pounds on flights and accommodation in South Africa. A number of news sources are reporting that England’s capitulation to Germany could cost UK businesses millions of pounds.

Admittedly, we imagine that the people who sell small flags and red & white facepaint will be hardest hit, but as the feelgood factor evaporates people won’t be spending as much money.

Luckily though, The FirstFound Blog has come up with a few ideas for selling on your leftover World Cup merchandise;

Flags - Andy Murray’s through to the quarter finals of Wimbledon! So take a bit of blue paint to those St George’s crosses and sell Union Flags to the millions of people who’ve just decided they love tennis. Best hurry though, Murray’s inevitable exit is only a day or two away.

Vuvuzelas -Waterproof, kitsch and slightly vase-shaped Vuvuzelas are perfect for making your very own kitsch vases! Nothing says “I love you” like petrol station flowers in a piece of cheap plastic. Husbands sneaking out to watch Argentina vs Germany will snap these up.

Team Posters -Carefully cut out the players’ faces from your posters, attach to dartboards and voila! The perfect present for anyone who needs to vent some frustration – or anyone Scottish.

Alcohol – Millions of people slightly depressed about the World Cup? Nope, we’ve got no idea how you’ll shift all that beer. In fact, you’re best off dumping it. There’s a great spot just outside FF HQ…

Once you’ve dropped off that beer, take a look at our free social media guide, or cheer yourself up with a new Leven Internet website.

Many schools and businesses (including FirstFound) will be finishing early to allow people to get home/to the pub/to the giant big screens in every city centre on time for the 3pm kick off.

However, other businesses are asking staff to juggle work and football by giving them the opportunity to watch at their desks. One Manchester finance company is even offering staff the chance to buy (alcohol-free) beer.

But wherever you’re watching, today promises to be an exciting day. All four teams can still progress, and a certain set of results would lead to a coin-toss to see if England will beat the USA to a place in the second round.

Our fingernails are chewed to the bone already.

Foursquare – One Giant Promotion Possibility

Foursquare is an addictive social networking game, played on the mobile phone. Players are awarded points for visiting shops, cafes, restaurants, parks and other places of interest. They use their mobile phone to ‘check in’ to a location and can leave ‘tips’ – brief notes telling other people about fun things to buy, see or do at that particular venue. I can’t help but see this as one giant promotion possibility!

How do you get involved in this game? It’s simple! The basics you already understand, so the obvious thing to do is sign up and make sure your business is featured.  Anyone can add a new venue, and signing up is a relatively quick and painless affair.

Once a player has visited a venue more times than anyone else, they are awarded Mayor of that location for the week. If I ran a business, the very first thing I would do is offer each weekly Mayor one free drink, sandwich or maybe a small discount on a purchase. Just a small incentive that will encourage everyone to compete to be your best customer!

There are a number of other creative ways you might further influence potential customers – perhaps you could leave a tip, encourage people to try a particular product or service. You could even let people know about a great deals or offers you have (be careful to write it as advice from another member of the public, not too obviously promotional!).

Each badge is won by a player doing something specific. For instance, the Bender badge comes from checking in to the same venue four nights in a row, the School Nights Badge is won by checking in to a venue after 3pm on a weekday.  There are a lot of badges, awarded for all sorts of crazy scenarios. Many businesses will probably find there are some good reasons to encourage people to obtain a particular badge from them. For instance, if you find yourself busy at weekends but are not seeing many sales during the week then the School Nights badge would be perfect! Could you encourage people to earn it at your shop?

Launched in March 2009 in the U.S., Foursquare has steadily expanded across the globe, entering a large number of UK cities only last month.  At the time of writing this is still a growing phenomenon and little known outside of the U.S. It is also more suited to the newer generation of mobile phones such as the Blackberry or iPhone, where Foursquare provide their own custom software that runs using your Internet connection.  Potentially anyone can play using SMS to ‘check in’ with any phone.

As this continues to expand, those who get involved early will have more space to promote themselves and a greater potential to lure customers to visit more often!

During his five minute interview, Chris covered burning questions such as “What do Search Engine consultants do?”, “What is split testing?” and “Is the Internet replacing the high street?”

With Christmas fast approaching and the weather worsening, Chris was quick to point out that people would much rather do their Christmas shopping in a warm house than on the sunny streets of Greater Manchester, and confidently predicted that Internet sales would rise again over this festive period.

Chris’ full interview with Channel M reporter Andy Crane can be seen on the MEN website.

Hosting that Meets the Needs of Your Business

So how does all this affect your hosting and SEO? Well, to help cope with the ever-shifting sea of search results, search engines will rapidly move an unavailable website down the rankings until it comes back online. This often causes downed websites to disappear in a matter of days, rather than weeks. Doing this allows the search engines to preserve their quality of search for users and ensure they rarely recommend a link that is broken. If people begin clicking your broken link, If you have a problem with hosting that is addressed quickly, you can expect your site to reappear back up to where you were fairly rapidly. However, if the problem persists for any length of time – say, a week or more – it will have far-reaching consequences for your search position which may take months to claw back.

I like to compare it to your shop or business premises – you wouldn’t dream of tolerating a building with major structural problems, where the electricity cuts out periodically or the water stops running now and again. Having a server that occasionally experiences problems is just like politely asking all your customers to leave until the issues with the shop are resolved. Do this regularly enough and some of the customers will stop coming back entirely!

The Importance of Getting Your Hosting Right

Getting your hosting right will provide a solid foundation upon which to build a successful online presence. But speed and reliability are just two ongoing factors. Before you begin building, it is important to consider the technical needs of your website are met in the same way your premises must meet the needs of your business. Do you need database support for an online shop, blog or content management system? Will there be sufficient file and SQL space for your website to grow? Do you have special requirements such as HTTPS and SSL which will allow you to take payments online?

As always, all of these questions can be easily answered by thinking about your target audience, and their needs. Doing this before you start building will help ensure you minimise any potential future headaches and avoid most major obstacles when promoting your site.