Google Instant. Are we in Trouble?

[TuneyFish]

Alex, great post and I agree it comes down to the content.

SEO is secondary to content, but doesn't necessarily mean it has to come in that order.

Yes it is true you need content in order to perform SEO, but if you don't consider SEO prior to creating the content then you could be missing many opportunities.

I've found the best way to start is with an overall analysis or audit of what you currently have in terms of content. Then you can look at your stats, primarily keywords driving traffic and rankings of those keywords tracked weekly.

If you are ranking highly for 2011 Lexus IS 350 then your reports should be showing many different variations and modifiers of this query.

Ideally, you'd have one page for each major keyword term (word or phrase) and it would be optimized for that query. So you may have 2011 Lexus IS 350 in the title tag but your h1 tag has 2011 Lexus Models - IS 350

After you've done well with the onpage stuff the real work comes from link building, and simply looking at who you're trying to beat and what their onpage and offsite SEO looks like.

If all this sounds like too much work, now you have an idea of why it's important to rank for the terms that actually convert and engage the user because if you rank really well but everyone just bounces don't expect to maintain or improve until your quality and page structure (site nav) improves.

 

[TuneyFish]

@Joe Pistell - loved the example of people looking at the keyboard and the video - it's awesome that you know your customer but is there ever a point where you think you could be losing some higher quality customers by this?

I am not saying that your customers aren't high quality, I'm just saying why not specifically seek out the influencers on the web who can tweet about your service, or a blogger that writes a post that gets seen by thousands. Perhaps you do, and you were just generalizing the majority of the population and their computer usage.

Its just surprising to me that more and more dealers aren't building relationships with those who could lead to a lot more sales through word of mouth.

 

[Gilbert Chavez]

Joe you have the perspective of an old school car guy, but it's about Internet stuff not car stuff. Kind of a holy than thou because you have some technical expertise behind how search works. Good for you. Calling everybody stupid because they can't tell the difference between a browser and a search engine is disparaging to the consumer. No error here. Instant is going to be a huge hit and already is. The average surfer see the words pop up and is fascinated by what comes up. Saying that 98% of people are too stupid to have to look at their key board to type is just condescending.

 

[Jeff Kershner]

Google’s Autocomplete feature where drop down suggestions while you type has been around for a while. I've always liked the feature, and I would say it has influenced my searches by maybe 30%.

Now Google has launched a new eye catching feature that changes the fact that you need to type your entire search term in and click the enter button to get your results. Assuming you don’t look at the keyboard when typing the whole search term.

I personally like the feature and agree that it will help educate the average user on how to really search. It amazes me how many people truly do not understand search, how it works and how you use it to find what you are looking for.

With that being said, I agree with Matt in that we now have less real-estate for organic placement especially with local search while this will benefit Googles pockets as paid search now has even more prime placement.

 

[Joe Pistell]

Mashable Headline Reads: "POLL: Google Instant Wins Popular Vote from Mashable Readers"

http://mashable.com/2010/09/11/google-instant-pol...

 

[Joe Pistell]

The Headline is accurate, but, is that the real story?

--53% Like

--47% Unsure or Don't like

The results are mixed at best AND the poll results exactly mirror the "hot and cold" thread we have here.

If I was the lead project manager on Google Instant and saw these Mashable Poll results I would be looking for other signs of discontent in the stats to confirm/refute the poll.

In this classic DR debate, Google will tell us which debaters were right. There are 2 outcomes. Instant Search remains the default, or, Google sets the default back to "old school" and let Instant Searchers "opt in".

It'll take Google several weeks to pour over the data and make the call. It took Google a few months to tun off the "fade in links".