‘Google Adwords’

The average user of Google services such as Google Plus, the search engine, Gmail and Maps may not even be aware of the applications and services to be cut in the near future. For most, relatively little will change in their day to day lives, but for a few the cutting of Google services such as Knol, Bookmarks List, Wave and Friends Connect may come as something not planned for.

 

Why The Cutting Of Google Services?

The US based company is in a process of streamlining the services and products offered. As with any growing company, house cleanup may be needed every once in a while, and that is exactly what Google is doing. The idea is to offer more focused products and services and to put more emphasis in beating the social media giant Facebook with the new Google+ social network, which would have been better off, if named Google Circle.

Although the company has seen tremendous growth in Google Plus, usage of the service is still not on par with that of Facebook. Unless users migrate from Facebook to Google+, one should not expect the social network to overtake Facebook or even be a real threat to it in the near future.

Failing Products And Services To Get The Boot

The cutting of some of the Google services is aimed at products or services which have failed to get off the ground or achieve what the company has hoped such would. Some users have expressed concern that more services may be cut and they are thus a bit sceptical in signing on for new services.

The company wants to integrate such services and products with their successful products and thus ensure a more streamlined and easier to use Google. Users accordingly have nothing to fear, most of the useful services stay intact.

Which Products Will Be Cut?

The cutting of Wave as a Google product comes as no surprise. The service combined online collaboration and instant messaging. Development on it has already stopped a while ago and it is now recommended that users opt for the open source projects such as Apache to replace it if they still want to make use of the Wave technology.

Google Gears, the offline browser functionality delivered less than expected and users are no longer able to download it. Applications such as Gmail offline will be incorporated into Chrome allowing for access to it and other applications such as Google Docs through Chrome.

The next item on the list of Google services to be cut is the Search Timeline. Graphs of historical search trends can in future be found by means of the google.com/trends.  Friends Connect also gets the boot. It is a service that allows webmasters the ability to enrich the user experiences through the addition of social media type characteristics to the sites by means of snippet embedding. Webmasters are encouraged to promote Google+ instead.

Bookmarks List, allowing the sharing of bookmarks among friends is perhaps one of the services which will be least missed. Knol, launched as far back as 2007 never really took off. It was designed as a Google service allowing for collaboration amongst experts in the creation of articles. The company has, however,  indicated that Knol will still be working until the end of September 2012.  Google has also indicated the cutting of Renewable Energy Cheaper than Coal known better as RE<C.  According to the company other companies are now better positioned to continue research in driving the price of renewable energy down. They have published their results to help other companies in their research.

 

Caution Regarding Announcements Of New Products

The company has also indicated that their future announcements of new services and products may not be so hyped up since expectations may be more than can be delivered. They will only announce a few projects every year following the example of rival firm Apple. Most people, however, speculate that Google is cutting services in order to put more resources into Google+ in order to beat Facebook.

New Products & Services Launched

While the cutting of Google services such as Knol, Friends Connect and RE<C may come as no surprise, the addition of services such as the online music store, at present only available in the USA, is expected to keep the company solidly in the run. Users with Android based devices will be able to purchase MP3 files from a library of more than 13 million music pieces. With Sony Music Entertainment, Universal, and EMI also supporting the library, it is expected to give Apple a run for their money. The music store is integrated with Google+ allowing for sharing of music pieces amongst Circles.

Google MAPS – Extending Views Indoors

The company has taken its technology indoors as well, allowing for indoor viewing of some museums and other places of interest. The project is operational in several cities such as Paris and London. Unfortunately, it is not yet available in South Africa. Places to be viewed will include restaurants, repair shops, gyms and shops. Businesses have been invited to join, but have been asked to warn their clients of the photo shoots before filming starts. Users will be able to get 360 degree fish eye views of the locations.

Large scale usage of the MAPS feature will be charged from January 2012. Travel agencies and booking firms making extensive use of the MAPS will have to cough up if their map hits are in excess of 25 000 hits in a given day.

Data Crunching

Another service announced not for cutting by Google, but as something new to help companies identify and analyse large data sets with tools available from the company is that of data crunching. The BigQuery is seen as revolutionary in the sense that it can process a tremendous amount of data within only a few seconds.

Although cutting of Google services is thus eminent, new services are added and more streamlining is done. As such users can also expect more integration of existing services, whilst all the extras not delivering will be dropped.

Google changes AdWords algorithms to improve the user experience and in the process even the innocent can get caught up, just to find their campaigns suspended without any warning. It is essential to get and stay informed about search and sponsorship algorithms if you don’t want to find the door closed even if you have paid for the ads already.

What is the Idea Behind the Changes in Algorithms?

It has happened to a few publishers making use of AdWords to drive traffic to their sites. According to Google the idea is to get a balance between the ads, content at the landing pages and the relevancy of the keywords in the sponsored ads. All three the above will be considered when ranking a landing page for relevancy and quality. Google wants to improve the user experience and that may mean a few suspended AdWords accounts along the way.

Responses of Campaign Owners

AdWord campaign owners whose accounts have been suspended complain about the lack of communication channels and getting back into the game. For some every day lost can mean hundreds to thousands of hits lost.

Positive Points

On the positive side landing pages showing good quality content, relevant to the keywords selected for bidding and the wording of the ads, can get a boost up in the rankings. Do it right, and you will be a jackpot winner, do it wrong and you can find your website out on the cold.

 Prior Testing

The Google AdWords algorithm changes have not come without any prior testing. Latin America was the test base and but the gloves are off. Website owners, web marketers and AdWords campaign managers should immediately take note of changes and respond quickly to ensure that they will not lose valuable traffic and of course, sales which go along with such.

Variation in Quality Scoring

One can expect variation in the quality scoring, but with a few bumps and bruises to be expected, mostly on the part of AdWords campaign managers, Google has indicated that users will within a few weeks be able to get more relevant, better structured and high quality landing pages when they hit the sponsored ad buttons.

If your AdWords campaign has been run the right way without over optimization, selection of relevant keywords, and you have given the user a quality landing page, you should not expect a lot of change during the next few weeks. After that you may see more hits and maybe even more sales because of the new algorithm.

Tweak for Incentives

The better the pay-per-click ads are in answering the user query the higher the score. With such also will come improvement in the PPC Ad Ranking. Your landing pages will be higher in results page positioning and you may also see a drop in the cost per advert. At the end of the day, not only the user, but supposedly also the AdWords and landing page owner will benefit.

Contrary to what one may feel such as that it is just another penalisation method, the changing of the AdWords algorithm is indeed based on an incentive scheme. Keep in line and you will be rewarded for playing according to Google’s rules. Come to think of it, the idea is not too far off. As the company that enables website owners to generate traffic and sales through sponsored ads, Google certainly has the right to change the algorithm for improved overall results and user experiences.

Quality Score

It is simply a way for Google to measure the relevancy of the keyword and the landing page as well as the quality of content on the site. Several factors are considered such as the matching of the user query with the keyword and the text at your landing page. It is thus a relevancy score.

Every time a user enters a keyword and it is matched with your keywords, you have the opportunity to deliver an ad. If the ad works out to be relevant based on the text at the landing page, you score.  The whole system is updated on a regular bases and your AdWords quality score can thus fluctuate accordingly.

Factors Taken Into Consideration When Calculating the Quality Score

If you want to know whether your campaign will benefit from Google’s alteration of AdWords algorithms you must look at the click-through rate, relevancy of the keywords and the landing page quality together.

Click-Through Rates

Google assesses whether the click-through rates (CTR) of the selected keyword matches the sponsored ad and also assesses the history of such. The next consideration is the click through rates of the display addresses in the specific ad group and then finally, also the account history. If there are sudden changes, expect alarm bells to go off at Google as well.

Relevancy

This is where it becomes important to ensure that the keyword is relevant to the adverts in the group and that the keyword matches the search queries. In addition, the account performance for the region where the ad is delivered is also taken into consideration.

Quality

Have you ever clicked on a sponsored ad and then wondered how the landing page is relevant to your query? If so, you will understand why Google is going through the AdWords fine-tuning motion. The user experience must be improved and as such good quality, relevant content to the keywords, region where keywords are displayed and the transparency of the page will be important. This means that the user should not have to think whether the right page has been delivered, but must immediately know that the page is relevant and of high standing quality.

The transparency factor should not be ignored. If your page has any form where the user will enter data, there should be enough information regarding for what purpose the information provided will be used.

Minimize Navigation Difficulty

The focus is user experience improvement and to do so Google has to change the AdWords algorithms to also consider how quickly a site or page loads and how many irritating pop-ups there are. The best way ensure ongoing campaign success is to adapt. If you don’t know how, get in expert SEO and PPC management help.

It is time for someone to make a life size banner and hang it on the Union Buildings which says;”I Love You Google, Will You Marry Me? Why the excitement? Google Wallet is the extra mile to show that it is possible to bring the future to the present day.

Although South Africans will still have to wait since retailers hardly line up to get the required NFC readers locally, Google Wallet is now operational on a new level in the USA.

Google Wallet Explained

Most people by now are familiar with electronic purses such as PayPal and Monsterpay allowing you to request money from others, receive payments and to do financial transactions. You simply need to link the e-purses to an allowed bank account or card and the transaction can be done.

Android Application

Google Wallet, an Android application, works on the same principle, so that is not new, but the fact that it is a mobile application allowing for one’s phone to become a purse is exciting. All it does is to store a virtual record of your cards on your mobile phone as well as any offerings in terms of coupons and gift cards and any loyalty points. Simple enough one will think, but getting it so simple is where one has to tip the hat to Google. Instead of having all of those cards in your purse you will thus have virtual cards on your phone. This means the phone becomes the purse.

Use Your Phone To Pay

If you attempt to pay with your phone at just about any retailer, you may get thrown out simply because the retailer sees you as a bit crazy or perhaps another scammer. You can make payments where there are NFC readers. The wallet is not yet compatible with any phone, but the tap and pay app can be used with Nexus S 4G. So at this moment you will need a Nexus S 4G phone.

Payment Steps

Once you are at a reader simply tap your phone lightly against the reader – there is no need to hit the reader. Payment is rather simple. It would be wise to first look whether you see the PayPass logo to determine whether the retailer will accept contactless payment methods. The Google Wallet transmits the required payment details by means of wireless communication. You will receive the required confirmation on your phone that payment has been sent. Just wait for confirmation and your slip from the merchant and you are done.

No Network Connection Needed

The beauty of it all is that you don’t need a network connection although the phone must be on as well as the screen.

How To Get The Application

If your phone supports the Wallet, it will have it on when the software update is done. It is a free application and new users receive a start-up Prepaid Card when they activate their cards. Google Wallet is similar to Google Checkout and PayPal in the sense that you have an electronic means of payment, but differs in the sense that Checkout allows merchants to receive online payment, but Wallet allows for payment at normal offline centres.

Credit Cards Supported

At present Citi PayPass MasterCard credit cards are supported as well as the Google Prepaid Card although plans are to support all the main credit cards. With the Prepaid Card you can still use the Wallet if you don’t have an eligible credit card. Simply add funds to the card by means of a credit. Note that it is not a physical card, but a virtual one.

 

How Secure Is The Payment?

In a country where the possibility of cell phone theft is always there one can understand the concerns of users. If your phone is stolen it can mean wipe-out time. Google recommends that you then immediately contact the credit card company to stop your facility in addition to reporting the phone was stolen. Payment details are stored on a chip, which is separate from the main operating software and only allows authorised apps to access it for transactions. In addition, Google has also ensured that a PIN security is in place. Malicious apps will not be able to enter the Secure Element. You must first enter a PIN for any transaction to take place.

Records Of Purchases Are Not Complete Yet

At this stage one will not get a record of products bought using Google Wallet, but Google does keep record of the transaction time and the credentials used. You have the option for enabling recording of the location of the purchase as well as exactly when it took place.

Gift Cards & Loyalty Cards Can Be Loaded

You can also pay at merchants with gift cards stored on the Wallet. The same applies for loyalty cards at relevant merchants.

South African Situation

At this stage South Africans can still just read about the Google Wallet application although we can use Google Checkout for online payments. A few things need to kick in place before we can also reap the benefits of this highly advanced method of carrying money including getting the right phone, credit card to at least fund Google Prepaid, and then we have to find shops which support wireless payment. It has been rolled out in the USA, but retailers here will also have to catch on and our users will need to support the system by investing in the right handsets.

Challenges

Google even faces the challenge of educating the public and getting the readers at as many outlets as possible. Considering that many South Africans are still too afraid to make online payments, one can imagine how concerned they will be with the possibility of their phones being stolen and used. Fortunately the PIN is in place and with all the levels of security embedded, Google Wallet should be one of the safest and most convenient means for paying for goods.

 

Click fraud costs the advertiser loss of income and also increases the cost of Internet marketing. Advertisers monitor clicks and adjust their marketing spending accordingly. The price per click is adjusted according to keyword popularity and the total of advertisers competing for the keyword.

If the keyword is particularly popular, click fraud can lead to depletion of an advertiser’s budget within a day. Given the consequences of such criminal activity, it is understandable that advertisers call for more effective methods to prevent people from simply clicking on their ads.

Clicks mean money and if the clicks are valid such actions mean money for the advertisers, but invalid clicking lead to money loss for the advertiser. It drives up the cost per click while at the same deplete advertiser budgets.

What Is Click Fraud?

Clicking is the action of selecting a sponsored (pay-per-click) ad to go through to the advertiser website or the landing page of the ad with the purpose of learning more about the product or service offered. If, the selection is not based on a sincere interest in the advertiser’s offering, but simply to drive up the cost for the advertiser and thus eliminate competition, it constitutes click fraud. Another reason why such is done is when an Adsense income generator makes use of unethical means to gain more income from selecting sponsored ads on their page. They normally do this from various computers or pay others to do so to get more income.

There are thus two main types of click fraud:

• Network ad publisher fraud
• Targeted competitor ad fraud

Targeted Ad Fraud

In this type of fraud, the fraudster targets the ads of a competitor company and generates hundreds of false selections to deplete the budget of the competitor. Small businesses suffer most as they have limited funds for their online marketing campaigns and as such it is possible to get rid of all the small players in order to drive the traffic to larger players.

Does Click Fraud Cost Google?

Although Google does get money for every click, they also pay out for such. In addition, the whole sponsored ad network integrity is affected. Companies want to know that the click-through rate is accurate and that the actions will generate leads as well as sales.

What Does Google Do About It?

Google has a system in place to detect click fraud and offers the service for free simply because they want to ensure the integrity of their ad network stays intact. The three step system includes filters to assess whether a clicking action is valid. The filter uses data such as IP addresses, rate of click, time spent at the advertiser site and dates. Further offline assessment is done where not only automated filtering and analyses take place, but also human based analysis. The next level is that of Google reacting upon an advertiser report of possible fraud. If the advertiser’s suspicion of fraud is confirmed by the Google team, reimbursement takes place. As such Google also stands to lose a lot if the invalid clicking is done.

How To Identify Click Fraud

If you are an advertiser and suspects invalid clicks there are a number of ways to confirm your suspicion and to stop the actions. For one, if your ad budget is suddenly depleted without any leads or sales then you already have reason to be suspicious. Should the budget for one month be R1000 and be enough to drive adequate, relevant, and valid traffic, but the next month R3000 is not enough, you may want to look into it. Audit the netlog files and if any suspicious clicks are found, report such to Google or the Pay-per-click company immediately.

If you are a second tier publisher, thus have a website where sponsored ads appear, and find that your income from the ads suddenly drops, you need to investigate. There may be another company stealing your Adsense income. If you find that there are many clicks which Google doesn’t pay you for, investigate. Check if there is any malicious code inserted in your code and also change the ad codes. In addition, ensure that only specific sites may display ads from your ad publisher account. If such continues, Google may ban your site from displaying sponsored ads. Report suspicious activities to Google.

Advertisers Still Pay For Fraud

Advertisers stay the victims as the estimate is that around 10% of clicks are not valid. Taken into account that with other methods of advertising one seems to lose more money than with online ads being clicked for no valid reason, the ten percent may not be that much to pay for the convenience of reaching targeted audiences.

New Pay Per Click Schemes

Unfortunately as Internet advertising grows and new methods for detecting click fraud are developed, so too will the fraudsters come up with new schemes to go undetected. One way of accomplishing fraud is by creating a site that offers ad or information space. The advertiser displays their AdWords on the site while thousands of second tier publishers gain commission. The publishers share their commission with the fraudulent site, not knowing that the site is indeed a fraud. Once the affiliate signs up, an email infected with spyware is emailed to the unsuspecting affiliate. It infects their computer and when they then visit valid sites, they receive pop-up windows and often purchase from those ads which they would not have done otherwise. It is more complicated, but just one example of how fraudsters go about to bypass the system.

Google has faced numerous class action lawsuits and Yahoo! has also been on the receiving end of such, but both have taken action through improved click fraud detection systems and through refunding policies. The only way to prevent large scale fraud and becoming the victim of such is to regularly monitor netlogs, Google Adwords budget accounts, clicks, and if you are a second tier publisher, the income statement and channels.

Google announced its Google Instant feature on September 8, 2010. It has certainly rocked the SEO world with hundreds of bloggers and web marketers speculating about the possible outcomes for SEO. Some have said that Google Instant will kill SEO, while others commented that it would certainly change search behaviour, and thus keyword selection for both organic searches and AdWords. To fully understand the possible implications for SEO and web marketing, one must also review how the user is affected by the new feature and why Google has introduced it.

What Is Google Instant?

It is a new improved search feature allowing for the displaying of results as a user enters the search into the search box. The idea behind the technology is to improve search relevancy and decrease search time. Google claims that the Google Instant feature can reduce search time with up to five seconds on each search. For the busy user, it will most certainly ensure better time management, but will the results be better?

Doing a few searches on terms, it has become obvious that in most cases the dynamic nature of the enhancement does allow for more relevant search results. Google argues that people read quicker than they can type. With that in mind, possible searches are immediately listed allowing for the user to select one of the suggestions or to complete the key phrase. As such a user will be able to ignore the suggestions. With the dynamic nature of the search facility, Google Instant picks up on the search behaviour of the individual and will adapt suggestions to be more relevant as it learns.

Users no longer need to complete the search phrase and enter before they get an idea of what is available. Google displays the possible search phrases as the user types. If the search phrase is close enough to what the user had in mind, the likelihood for someone typing the whole phrase before entering diminishes. The user can adapt search strategies on the go and will not need to first glance at a page for results before adapting the search. By quickly glancing at possible phrases or keywords, immediate, and more relevant searches, can be applied.

Benefits Of Google Instant For The User

- Quicker searching and thus time savings.
- Suggestions based on AI predictions provide search guidance.
-The most relevant suggestion is visible in light grey directly in the search box allowing the user to stop typing and simply entering for display of results.
- While typing results will appear, allowing for more time savings.
-The user can immediately identify whether the search results will be relevant.
- Since the user still has the choice of turning the feature off, the more conventional static search facility is still available.
- The user can still filter results with the Safe Search facility to protect against offensive language and sites. User control is thus still intact.
- Search as you type allows for glancing at the results as a user types. Since a person can still glance and take in information while typing, the results will be better.
- None of the functions of the Google search page are lost.
- Higher level of interactivity for the user.
- The less sophisticated user will be able to get better results while the advanced searcher will be able to use the predictions for quickly narrowing in on results.

The benefits of Google Instant for the user are obvious. One may ask why Google has decided to change the way searching is done when clearly everyone was used to the static searches. The answer is obviously for better results, but really thinking about it, it all boils down to staying ahead of the pack. Google needs to ensure highly relevant search results and will thus need to constantly change the interface for improvement of such. Since most website owners have begun to optimize, the web now consists of billions of well optimized pages competing for the same keywords. One may consider whether search results are that relevant with static searches at the end of the day. The feature is thus a welcoming change allowing for natural query language combined with settings of predicted keyword phrases.

Implications For Paid Searching (AdWords)

Advertisers paying for the total page impressions may in future find that their click through rates will be affected while the amount spent on Adwords increase. Such advertisers may want to consider changing their payment to that of payment for click through rate rather than page impressions. The Quality Score may thus be affected by the increase in impressions. The safety net according to Google however, is that for an action to count as an impression the user must click, enter or search the advert or must at least pause for viewing of the associated SERP. This pause period must be at least three seconds which should thus balance out the possibility of Quality Score being affected. Theoretically then, impressions should decrease rather than increase. Unfortunately advertisers will have to give it time to see the real impact of Google Instant on their page impression rates.

The two word key string may still keep its popularity amongst users and the advertisers. Users refine their two word key string (mid tail) searches as they type even when Google provides predictions until they see the phrase that they want. In this instance, not much change is expected in the sponsored clicks and web marketers are expected to keep the same strategy in keyword selection when it comes to Google Instant as they have used with the classic Google approach.

Long or Short Tail?

Since prediction suggestions may appear after the user has typed the first word in a keyword string, websites optimized for single keywords rather than phrases may be pushed up in the search results of organic searches. The sponsored ads appearing on the search results page may thus refer to the first keyword in a string and as such advertisers will have to make sure that they select single keywords for their AdWords campaigns as well. The advertiser thus must make sure that the user sees the advert earlier rather than later. This however, could also cost the advertiser more than for a longer keyword string. The cost per click may increase for the advertiser focussing on this type of strategy. AdWords campaign managers will have to monitor the process over a period to assess whether shorter and thus broader terms bring better results for them than the longer, but more specific key strings. Weighing the costs will thus be a major consideration in selecting the shorter and broader terms or going for less traffic, but more targeted and perhaps also cheaper traffic by means of the long tail method.

Brands To Get More Exposure in Paid Ads

Brands, related to a specific industry, may experience more impressions and thus higher click through rates. This may influence the quality score and they may pay for it. To prevent brands from suffering under the new search system, the quality score assessment done by Google will have to be adapted in future. Some believe that indeed, brand bias exists with the new system, providing some brands preference related to a specific industry over others. A brand with the industry name included in the brand name from the start of the word will thus get more untargeted traffic while others related to the same industry without the industry name in the brand name right at the beginning of the name, will experience less traffic. It is thus a two edged sword. Either a brand gets high volume traffic, but not targeted or gets less traffic, but also less exposure.

Brands Thus Have More Preference With Google Than Generic Terms

If a campaign manager has hoped to make the most of generic terms, the bad news is that there is a bias towards brand names when it comes to brand versus generic terms. Both will have to be targeted, but some brands will definitely lose as explained earlier.

Paid Ads Will Experience Visitor Traffic Differences

As explained, several shifts in keyword traffic can be expected for paid ads. Google for instance, may show ads for related companies near a specific location when a user types in such a search. A search for Johannesburg may lead to Google showing guesthouses near Johannesburg. As such Johannesburg guesthouses may get more impressions and the term guesthouses may experience a reduction in impressions. Time will tell.

Ads Displayed While A Search Is Typed

In the past Google has displayed public ads and other ads when there were no relevant ads to a search or particular website content. The feature is now to display ads as the user types. The paid ads campaign manager will want to get in on the displayed ads and as such research will have to be done. The idea should be to have one’s ad displayed while the user is still typing the search. Keyword research for organic searches must thus be done as well as for the possible suggestions by Google. The marketers will have to assess which types of ads will be displayed while the user types the search and make sure their ads are also displayed during the period. It means a lot of hard work ahead for most.

How Does Google Instant Change SEO?

With searching behaviour changed, SEO has to be adapted. Companies able to change their optimization of web pages quickly enough to reflect such will thus get the top rankings first. It is generally accepted that the single website owner doing optimization will at the end of the day see a decline in traffic. The larger website owners making use of SEO companies and specialists will thus definitely have an advantage. The secret will be to change optimization and keyword selection over the next couple of months to reflect the new searching behaviour of users.

The good news for SEO companies is that organic searches will not fall away. The users will be able to view more search results in one session. The predictions and streaming make it possible to quickly change a search to be more relevant to the intended query. Google thus leads the users in searches. We may even see users become more sophisticated in their search techniques based on the displaying of predictions by Google.

Users will still however, use Google organic searches for information retrieval. This means that just as in the past, when the majority of people used the organic search facility of Google and a tenth of the users clicked on sponsored ads that the same will apply for future searches. The pages on the web will not change, and all that will happen is that for some websites the traffic may decrease and for others it will increase. A well ranked site in the classic Google environment will also rank well in future whether or not Google Instant is applied.

Searching Behaviour Of Users Will Influence Key Strings

The head and long traffic may decrease while the fat tail traffic increase may become more. This will be the case as Google Instant provides predictions which may lead a user to be more specific. If someone for instance, types in Seychelles, predictions such as Seychelles holidays or Seychelles diving may prompt them to be a bit more specific. The users applying a specific approach such as typing Seychelles romantic holidays may be prompted to be less specific through predictions such as Seychelles holidays.
With the interactivity gained with Google Instant, the user may become less willing to scroll down to the bottom of the page or to the second page for more results. As such, the top five search results will get more traffic than before. Generic pages which are also well ranked, may in future far out perform the more specialised, but lower ranked pages. The trend may be caused by the predictions which are supplied by Google when the first three letters of the keyword is typed in.

How Does Google Instant Affect Natural Searches?

Advanced searchers may continue searching with the Boolean Operator style and sophisticated methods, but they are in the minority. Since most searchers make use of natural language queries, SEO specialists may have to reconsider their optimization strategies. Whereas a long phrase would have been used in the past directly, the user now gets predictions even before the first and second words are completed. As such users may often opt for mid tail predictions. Since natural language is so dynamic, it may take a long time before users typing in the whole long string will be able to find exactly what they want through the long tail method. Google has to adapt and predict more. So for now, it will still be the shorter phrases that will steal the limelight.

How Important Will Rankings Be?

Top rankings will become even more important than before. The top five results will become the focus point as the SERP has to be moved down to show the search suggestions. The user thus will always be able to see the top ranked results and in most likelihood will select from the first five more often than before.

Has Google Regained Control Over Keywords?

The answer must be yes. SEM and SEO specialists have tried their best to keep up with the many index algorithms of Google and many have succeeded. This of course, also compromised the search results as more manipulation of search results could take place by skilled SEM and SEO specialists. Google has taken an important step in regaining control over the search results by now recommending the most likely and relevant phrases to the user.

What Should the SEO Do To Make The Most of Head Terms?

Considering that the head terms will play an extremely important role in keyword searches and traffic to a site, the SEO may have to focus more on the one word head term to drive as much as possible natural search traffic to a website. The SEO must do several searches, and exceptional keyword research to find out which natural language phrases are used most and optimize for that. This inevitably means more work on the part of the SEO to find out which suggestions or predictions are offered by Google at every stage of a keystroke for a particular keyword and keyword string search. Top five ranking must be gained for the particular suggestions to ensure that the users click on a particular site. The rest of the sites will get the breadcrumbs, and although such may still be high, a drop in traffic can be expected if the SEO and SEM do not adapt their optimization and marketing strategies.

With the expectation being that more people will do fewer searches or never finish their intended searches before clicking on an ad or organic search result because of a suggestion or display of ads made by Google, the SEO and SEM will have to be adapted to such. You will thus focus on head terms, brand terms and of course, ensure top five ranking.

Some Other Considerations When It Comes to Google Instant

People have raised concerns about possible slowing down of their Internet because of Google Instant. Google has indicated that it would not happen and when compared to other web services including video, the connectivity will be fast. Google also said that they tried to minimize the data sent versus data receive ratio during each search. Some users still have slower connections, and they are the ones that will be negatively affected, but then can turn the feature off. The feature requires Internet Explorer 8, Firefox 3, Google Chrome 5 or 6 and Safari 5 for Mac. Many users may still make use of older browser versions and may thus not be able to utilize the full potential of the system. The classic way of searching will thus not completely fall away, and as such the SEO and SEM must decide whether or not they will still optimize for the old way of doing things as well.

In summary one has to look at:
• Browser capabilities of the user.
• User preferences – such as still wanting to use the classic search methods.
• Internet connectivity speed.
• Natural language versus Boolean search usage.
• Possible Google predictions for every keystroke.
• Brand names and generic terms.
• Traffic shifting.
• Top five ranking.
• Head terms, middle tail and long tail searches.

With the roll-out of Google Instant, a new playing field has opened. It will be up to SEO and SEM marketing teams to make the most of the feature. Those who fail to adapt their optimization and paid ad strategies will be pushed to the edges. For a site on the Internet competing for the top five positions, such a push could mean the end of the site or the ad campaign.

Smaller sites or companies with less capital and resources to spend on such will suffer while the big guns will get bigger. The secret to survival will thus be to get a top SEO or SEM team or company to be on the job of getting your site in the top five rankings for every head, middle and long tail search. In addition, you must ensure that your site ads are also displayed while the user types. Adapt or die will be the phrase for future SEO. The king of the Internet – content, is certainly not dead. The SEO and SEM will just have to make sure that the user gets to see that content, and once at a landing page, the user must not have reason to leave without subscribing, coming back, recommending or buying.

Making the most of Google Instant is the focus of iLeadOnline. We welcome the initiatives of Google and closely monitor the influence of its features on search behaviour, and thus optimization, for paid ads and organic searches. Contact us today to help you get to the top five rankings.