Question

Topic: SEO/SEM

Your Thoughts On Google Instant Seo

Posted by Anonymous on 9/9/2010 at 11:33 AM ET 100 Points
With the launching of Google Instant yesterday and all the hype on how SEO is becoming irrelevant I would like to get your take on this matter. Instant will surely effect long tail keyword effectiveness and with this new feature of the big G I am sure a re-assessment of current SEO strategies will be prudent.
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  • Posted on 9/9/2010 at 1:28 PM Accepted
    I think iGoogle will have the effect of increasing the cost of search advertising (and SEO), as those long-tail (less expensive) keywords will shrivel up and die (or at least become less and less effective).

    It's going to be analogous to what happened to the cost of producing television commercials when color television replaced black-and-white television 60 years ago. The actual cost of B&W production didn't go up ... it vanished. And it happened quickly. What was left was the more expensive color technology, so the cost of production went up.

    The impact on businesses will be that marginal advertisers (who were just making it because of cheap long-tail keywords) will have to find another medium or go away altogether.
  • Posted by excellira on 9/9/2010 at 9:00 PM Accepted
    I'd be hesitant to give up on traditional SEO tactics for the time being for a number of reasons:

    1) While they are highly successful and create a lot of great applications, most of Google's inventions die or end up relegated to the sidelines. Google Live for example. Many users that I've discussed this with find the feature to be annoying. If this ends up as consensus then the feature would require a significant revamping or it could end up in a subdirectory near Google Live.

    2) For the most part, the ranking of web pages hasn't changed as a result of Instant. The same principles apply.

    3) Context changes with the addition of each character. The user will still be required to input a certain number of characters to find results relating to their query.

    Will SEO change? Sure, but, anyone in the industry is used to change. Will SEO be irrelevant? Unlikely. Is SEO dead? I'm growing weary of all the sensational link-bait articles suggesting this. If it's dead how come we find more and more pages requiring optimization?

    The changes with Bing/Yahoo and Google seem to me like opportunities.
  • Posted on 9/10/2010 at 12:22 PM Author
    @ mgoodman: I agree . It is my opinion that this latest Google invention will eventually make long tail searches less valuable. I loved these long tail key phrases due to their higher CTRs and conversions. Matt Cutts seems to disagree on this , he claims that long tails will become more valuable as the user will just continue typing his/her query regardless of instant results .My analysis of the present situation is leaning towards the more general search terms being a lot more expensive as everyone is going to want to be there. Google is a very smart animal and G instant was really built to build up their ad revenues IMO.
  • Posted on 9/10/2010 at 12:48 PM Author
    @excellira : The immediate results is that the first 3 organic listings just got a whole lot more valuable especially for the non localized keywords and I'd expect everyone to try to compete harder for those terms. I also noticed the increased importance of Google places as these show up before the true organic listings and with blended search these become prominent even for short term keywords.

    Steve Rubel IMO is a genius he rode that buzz very well. If you look at his past musings he also predicted the death of myspace, facebook, twitter lol. Although I fully disagree with him and his ilk you have to applaud their handiwork. These are PR hacks and they are apparently some of the best at what they do.

    I contemplated on shifting strategies to Yahoo and Bing but their traffic especially for the industries that I service is pathetic. Even with #1 placements for generic keywords .

    I guess the game has changed and I'll wait a bit before I start optimizing for letters . LOL
  • Posted on 9/10/2010 at 1:20 PM Author
    @dvogel: It is true that most of the people I know use browsers and toolbars to search but I feel there are more than 50% of users who use the Google search page out there. I agree 100% that long tails are highly effective and these drive high conversion rates but now we have to assess the baseline for CTRs with an expected spike in impressions across the board. Matt Cutts shares the same thinking with you when it comes to long tails but I just couldn't buy into that concept right away without seeing data. I run several PPC campaigns and I will check the analytics data over the weekend.

    It's an exciting time for all of us and we have to again keep on diligently learning and re-learning the rules and I am just glad I have you guys to confer with and exchange insight.
  • Posted by excellira on 9/10/2010 at 2:26 PM Accepted
    "The immediate results is that the first 3 organic listings just got a whole lot more valuable especially for the non localized keywords and I'd expect everyone to try to compete harder for those terms."

    This has been the trend anyway as a result of Universal search and myriad other elements being worked into SERPS. Perhaps the only page region that will make sense will be the paid side which hasn't changed much, driving more revenue. Do you think quality, user experience, or revenue is the motive? ;-)

    Also, unlike PPC, SEO is a longer-term strategy so making radical changes to optimization plans could make or break you depending on whether this is a lasting feature. Mayday had set the stage for a different long tail and this seems to reinforce it.
  • Posted on 9/10/2010 at 2:48 PM Author
    Lol hmmmm... that is a tough question Excellira. I think Google is "spiking" the punch to much. I strongly feel they want us intoxicated with really expensive short terms again. I've seen my PPC cost go up across 8 accounts since Wednesday without significant change in conversions ( discounting landing page effectiveness) . Well we'll see if this invention is a keeper. I'm just really hating it right now. What's your opinion on the long term effects on long tails ? The SEO/SEM community seems split on this issue.

    Shame on you to imply The G just cares about revenue :P.. LOL they're all about making the user experience more gratifying and improving the quality of our online lives.

    Dear Google,

    Who's "gaming" who?

    Seriously,
    SEO Whitehat, Greyhat and Onyx.

  • Posted by excellira on 9/10/2010 at 3:28 PM Accepted
    It seems that they are looking to milk their cash cow since their other ventures have yet to contribute much to their bottom line. I think we probably will continue to see efforts toward this end until users start getting fed up and start using other means to obtain the information they need. Twitter and to a greater degree, Facebook, represent a real threat that didn't exist before.
  • Posted by Gary Bloomer on 9/13/2010 at 5:37 PM Accepted
    Instant Google can be turned on and off. But let's be clear on one thing: any talk about the death of SEO is premature.
  • Posted on 9/13/2010 at 6:25 PM Author
    Yes Gary I agree with you 100% on the death of SEO issue . Excellira pointed out that Rubel and his ilk used this very well as link bait and that's all there is to that. On a side note traffic on our PPC campaigns is increasing not only on impressions but also CTRs . My PPC campaigns are limited to geographic locations and I use a lot of negative keywords I am seeing an increase on conversions too over the past week. I guess Google did implement Instant to push Adwords. As a direct result of this traffic Adwords wants us to increase our daily spend.
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