You’ve researched keywords. You’ve filtered phrases. Your on-page and off-page content and metadata are optimized. And your site’s ready to pull out and ahead of the competition. High ranking is within reach, and glory is yours for the taking.
Then some unknown — with a name that starts with a capital “A” — shows up before you’ve even had a chance to take a breath. Bam! You’re right back in middle school, and this year’s teacher decided to rearrange the seating, and your name might as well start with a lowercase “z.”
Based on the gasps I heard last week, you’d think that the launch of Google Instant blew out all the hard-fought SEO and shuttled the keyword crunchers back to their secret lairs to start all over in their quest to find the holy grail of search. You’d also think from the deafening silence that this change had finally stumped the search gurus and the online marketers who typically have so much to say (and sell) around the topic. For me, it got me thinking that maybe Google had it right: Put the power of search back in the hands of those doing the searching.
The instantaneous results, based on the predictive Google Suggest feature among others, are served up based on the spelling and relative popularity of a search term or phrase. The spelling, well there’s not much we can do about that at this point, but it will be interesting to see how many folks bum rush GoDaddy for new domains and how creative they get with the (mis)spelling of their names. Watch out for interesting approaches to content development as strategists and writers attempt to navigate these new rules. The world of search could get very interesting over the next few months as we watch the impact — letter by letter — of anticipating search in real time.
What I find most interesting, with the potential to make significant impact, is the increased influence of popularity on search results, real time or not. More speed and disruptive display adds another dimension to what could be a great push toward the democratization of results. Sure, the Google filter is there, and this won’t be a true, unadulterated presentation of available data (oh, they’re anticipating NSFW search and you won’t like the results). Yes, there will be those users who are distracted by the bright and shiny results that pop up immediately. But what could really make Google Instant an instant and long-lasting hit is the user-centric nature of the process and the product delivered. I’ve been searching for that and can’t wait to see the results.