Check Your Analytics - Google Instant Search is Here

So, what the heck is Instant Search? Here is a note from Google:

Google Instant is a new search enhancement that shows results as you type. We are pushing the limits of our technology and infrastructure to help you get better search results, faster. Our key technical insight was that people type slowly, but read quickly, typically taking 300 milliseconds between keystrokes, but only 30 milliseconds (a tenth of the time!) to glance at another part of the page. This means that you can scan a results page while you type.

The most obvious change is that you get to the right content much faster than before because you don’t have to finish typing your full search term, or even press “search.” Another shift is that seeing results as you type helps you formulate a better search term by providing instant feedback. You can now adapt your search on the fly until the results match exactly what you want. In time, we may wonder how search ever worked in any other way.

So how does this new and improved search effects all store owners?

• You may begin to see an increase in impressions. This will be because your site is going to appear as user's type in their query. In the example above, our site would come up for leather dog collars and create an impression even though the customer was looking for a leather dog lead.
  
  Impressions are counted when your site is displayed after they have completed a query, after a customer begins to type a term and clicks on a link from that page, or the customer stops typing to look at the results for 3 seconds or more.
  
  
• Websites showing near the top of the results for short-term queries may get more clicks as Google guesses what they need.
  
  
• Be careful if you are only relying on long-tail search queries. Customers may find what they need faster.

Tips You Can Implement Today

• Take your top converting products and perform an instant search for these products. What keyword phrases are coming up and are you showing up?
  
  
• Want to show up for broader search terms? Become an expert. Write books, write articles, and others will begin to link to your website as the expert in your field.
  
  
• Take a look at your PPC campaigns and adjust as necessary for broad search terms that come up quickly for key products with high conversion rates.
  
  
• Pay attention to what your analytics is telling you.
  

In the end it all comes down to giving Google what they need to rank you #1.

What they need is to make the web search experience better. According to Matt Cutts, this is what Google wants to do well:

• Google wants the most comprehensive index of the web.
  
  
• Google wants to return relevant, USEFUL results.
  
  
• Google wants to return search results fast.
  
  
• Google wants to improve their user interface.
  
  

Now look at your website. Are you giving Google want they want? Are you providing relevant useful content? Is your website downloading fast? Is your current design using the latest techniques to be crawled faster? Is your store improving the interface, increasing conversions, and thereby making it a better shopping experience?

These are the questions that you have to ask yourself and be ready to honestly answer right this minute because Christmas is right around the corner.

Make sure whatever you do, TEST TEST TEST.

Need someone to look over your website?

Sincerely,

Shawna Seigel
(Formally Shawna Fennell but, I got married on the Fourth of July!) Click To See Pictures

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