Google Instant - A Digital Marketing Gimmick Or Smart Strategy?

Recently, Google launched a feature called 'Google Instant' to speed up the way people search for content on Google search. This feature begins to display results as people type in their search query. Basically, it just means that Google will now 'auto complete' search terms, displaying new results, as more letters are typed in.

Described by Google as 'search at the speed of thought', Google Instant strives to be a revolutionary search product, which predicts the query of a searcher before it has been fully entered. Various digital marketing experts have studied this feature, and have discovered both pluses and minuses. Many are unconvinced about the superior claims of Google, and don't believe that Google Instant will change digital marketing much.

Why has Google developed this product?

Google has usually failed miserably when it comes to social media products. According to some digital marketing blogs, Google's inherent belief that social media websites are a threat to their empire has hindered them from creating successful social media products. Some of their failed social media platforms like Google Buzz and Google Wave bear testimony to this reality.

With Google Instant, Google has gone back to its origins in web search to create a solid base from which to combat the emerging threat of social media platforms. According to various digital marketing experts, Google has suspicions that one day social media bigwigs like Facebook may add a web search function to their user pages, which work just like a dedicated search engine. With the additional benefit of user profiles, business groups, instant messaging and online games, users are more likely to select Facebook as the homepage of their browser, making Google redundant.

Does Google Instant help in digital marketing campaigns?

Presently, users have to be signed-in for Google Instant to work. They also need to have a reasonably fast Internet connection speed. This means that approximately 85 percent of Google users will not be able to make use of this feature. Users who are able to use Google Instant are expected to get faster results, making them want to search more. This would benefit digital marketing advertisers, who would get more visibility for the websites they are promoting.

Some digital marketing specialists feel that a faster search would not affect users much. As people spend hours eating food or sleeping, a tiny difference of 2-3 seconds would not be noticed. Google Instant is also not expected to have impact on SEO for digital marketing purposes. There may be a few black-hat fanatics who are bent on finding a way to beat the system, but until they do so, we will have to continue to rely on unique, well written, naturally optimized content.

Qudos Digital is a leading digital marketing agency and can be contacted on 020 8891 2077 or info@qudosdigital.co.uk.

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