When Google launched their brand new search engine enhancement Google Instant two weeks ago it sent the whole world of SEO/SEM into a frenzy. Every search marketer was asking questions, and nobody had any answers. (I can picture the nightmares already) But don’t worry search marketers you can slip on your onesies and sleep uninterrupted, because EIM has some answers for you.
What does Google Instant mean for SEO?
1. There is no change to the organic ranking algorithm
Although user experience is significantly affected, Google search results will be ranked the same as always. (Don’t worry first pagers, your ranking will stay the same)
2. It’s very important to rank above the fold for general terms
There’s been a lot of talk that Google Instant is the death of SEO, but contrary to that rumor it has caused SEO to be even more important than ever. Before instant 68% of people didn’t go past the first page, now that instant is implemented it pushes all of the results down and to get to results on the bottom of the page you have to scroll down. This means that more than likely the results above the above the fold will receive a significantly larger amount of traffic then the results below, which means you want to optimize to not only be on the first page, but in the top 5.
3. Optimize for both Short-Tail and Long-Tail Keywords
Now that instant’s auto suggest plays a larger factor then it used to, it is important to optimize for those more generic terms so you show up for the early rounds of auto suggest.
