Matthew Hessler, Account Director for Trada, was kind enough to call in from his castle in Edinburgh to weigh in on the buzz surrounding Google Instant. Keep an eye out for the next installment of MasterPPC Theatre next week, when Matt tackles Bing: Is It the New Hotness?
So last week, Google released Google Instant, which is a new feature on the main Google search page. It’s essentially an amphetamine-laced predictive text. It’s neat to watch. Google says it’ll save us time, too: so we can spend less time looking FOR cute boots and more time looking AT cute boots.
Here’s how it works. You drive over to google.com and start typing in a search query. As quick as lightning, Google attempts to predict what you’re looking for – and it populates the page with results. Each successive letter may beget a different term. The results include both organic and PPC, just like before.
But how does this affect advertisers running campaigns in AdWords?
The feature is brand new, but we can look at the way it works and come to a few conclusions:
1. You don’t need to flip out about impressions spiking.
Google will log a Google Instant impression only if the searcher pauses for more than three seconds or clicks on an ad. The results should be minimal – and remember, your competitors are experiencing the same effects.
2. No, you shouldn’t start buying up all the ‘incompletes’ on your keywords.
Google Instant just doesn’t work that way. Spend your energy and money on #3.
3. You’ll want to get more competitive on head-of-tail keywords – and have a diverse strategy.
Long-tail keywords are still in play: after all, people searching for specific things will likely type in the complete phase. And don’t forget that a huge percent of Google users operate through a toolbar search box. Google Instant only applies to the google.com search homepage.
4. You’ll be rewarded for your SEO efforts.
How does Google decide whose ads and organic listings show up for each of their predictions? It’s all based on domain authority. This doesn’t mean just the Goliaths will win. It does mean that the smaller guys need to work on their page rank (but you were all doing that anyway, right?).
We say Google Instant isn’t a game-changer – but it should be considered when working on a well-rounded web-marketing strategy.
Want more? Check out this New York Times article (where Matthew Hessler is quoted) or this great post from Eli Feldblum on TechCrunch.
