While the net fills with the buzz of SEO now being dead as a result of the latest Google innovation being rolled out across the planet. Nothing could be further from the truth.
With many years of experience with search engine optimization, I have learned to never look at any change as having potentially disastrous consequences. Rather, I look deeper and search for the opportunities and advantages I can gain from such changes.
Let’s get five of the biggest myths going around the net about Google Instant put to bed………..
Myth 1: It’s the death of SEO!
Complete nonsense. The search results remain the same for search query. There is in fact no real change as to how Google decides which results are most relevant to display for any given keyword phrase.
Myth 2: We should be trying to optimize our sites for partial words. i.e. instead of optimizing for keywords like internet marketing tips, we should try and optimize for the letter “I”, or for “In” Or perhaps “Int” to stand any chance of getting our pages listed for such a keyword phrase.
Again total nonsense. Let us take the example of the keyword phrase internet marketing tips. The user starts to type in the first letter and Google goes to work almost instantly trying to predict what the user is trying to search for. Results will start to show for iTunes and iPhones. Google may suggest things like Ikea or imdb. Now in goes the second letter of “n” and Google now predicts that you are looking for info on the movie Inception and suggests you may be looking for information on inspirational quotes or internet speed tests. Let’s put in the third letter now of “t”. Now Google is showing results for internet speed tests and suggesting internet radio.
Now lets face it, there are no results for anything to do with internet marketing tips showing up so far. What is showing up is results for what Google predicts you are searching for. The results that are showing up are the same results that would show up if you actually typed in the full keyword phrase that Google is suggesting for the search results. It is not showing results optimized for the letter “I”. Or for “In”, or indeed for “Int”. So why bother optimizing your site in that way. Instead you should continue to optimize your site to rank high in the results for full keywords, or keyword phrases relevant to your content.
Myth 3: Google is now serving personalized and localized search. I need to concentrate on optimizing for this now.
Actually, Google has been personalizing results for users signed into their Google account since 2005. From December 2009, it’s even been personalizing results for users not signed-in to an account. Personalized search is a variable that you should have already been considering for some time now.
Myth 4: This is the end of long tail keywords as people will find the results they are looking for with one or two words.
If you think about it rationally, the complete opposite is true. Let’s go back to using our earlier example of the keyword phrase “internet marketing tips”. This was once considered a long tail keyword, but it is not quite so easy to rank for these days. But it consists of three words and that is perfect for an explanation as to why long tail keywords will actually benefit more over time.
So, the user goes to google and is looking for some internet marketing tips. Now they are at least going to have to type in “Internet Ma” before Google even starts suggesting that they are looking for internet marketing, while results are being shown for “Internet Magic”. Well, the user knows they are not just looking for any old internet marketing, they want something a bit more specific. They are looking for tips. Perhaps if Google was suggesting “Internet Marketing Advice”, that may sway the user as it could yield a result pretty much what they are looking for. But they are not. Even when the full word of internet marketing is typed in, the closest suggestion is internet marketing strategies. Now that’s pretty different from internet marketing tips. So the user is most likely to continue typing and as soon as they get to “internet marketing t”, up comes the suggestion of internet marketing tips. So now they just click on Googles suggestion and they have their desired results. End of search. Or is It?
Depending on the actual results that show up, their titles and description, the user may well just decide to refine their search a little bit further. The first 3 results I see when I type in internet marketing tips is a site offering free internet marketing tips and a course. The second is for a site offering marketing tips and ways for me to make money online. The third is offering internet marketing tips for small businesses. The very fact that those three sites have appeared, each offering something a little bit different, as a user, I have either found something that fits exactly what I am looking for, or I am starting to realize that I perhaps need to refine my search a little further and get a better selection of results all orientated to exactly what I am after. For instance perhaps the first result fitted rather well, because the tips were free. But the rest of the results did not fit. So I am now tempted to go back up to the search bar and add in the word free. As soon as I do that of course, I then get a different set of results all offering free internet marketing tips, or advice.
Now my original 3 word phrase I had in mind for searching just went to four words. Now I just noticed that the second site was offering those free tips by email weekly and that’s got my interest. I might visit that site, or I just might go and add the words by email to my search to see what results I get. I am up now to a six word very long tail keyword phrase of “internet marketing tips free by email”. Now here’s the real crazy part of all this, I did not even know that I was looking for that service when I started my search. I only started to realize that this is what I wanted as a result of looking at some of the results coming up during my original search query. I was never tempted to go for a shorter keyword phrase result, because the results were not relevant enough. But once I got relevant results, I started to realize I could quickly get more results that were going to really interest me if I simply added in another word or two to refine my search a bit more. I ended up typing in a long tail keyword phrase, I had not even thought off prior to typing.
Myth 5: As there are no real changes to the actual results that Google displays for any given keyword phrase, I can just continue my optimization as I have been doing for some time.
Well, while the answer could be yes, which would then mean that this is not really a myth as such. It is perhaps more accurate to look at the opportunity that Google has just put in front of you. Over the long term there is no doubt in my mind that the way people will search on Google is going to change. I have already touched on this concept by explaining the long tail keyword scenario in the last myth. However, that is just scratching the surface. I am not going to go into every scenario in this article. Rather I will look at the various opportunities individually and what can be done to best position yourself for them. So while continuing to do things as normal for optimization is not going to have any significant adverse effects on your website traffic counts [unless something else comes out of Google we are not prepared for], there is no doubt that for the smart guys involved in seo there are a lot of opportunities to seriously leverage to their advantage. Stay tuned as I start to reveal my thoughts over the coming days and weeks.
