Google Instant Previews: A New Digital Marketing Tool

In November 2010, Google launched 'Instant Previews', a new search feature complementing its Google Instant product. This new addition enables users to preview the landing page of a search result, before clicking to view it.

Over the past year, Google has released many new innovations that could help digital marketing professionals. From Google Instant, to Google Places Search, and now Instant Previews: these services could radically change the way companies and marketers plan their digital marketing campaign.

How does Instant Previews work?

Before we discuss the benefits of this digital marketing feature, here is a bit of information about how Instant Previews functions:

There is no change to Google's basic search function, but on the search results page, beside each search result, you will be now be able to view a small magnifying glass icon. If you roll your mouse over this icon, you will be able to view a preview image of the webpage, to the right of the link. This image is a small screenshot of the actual page you would land on, if you clicked on that particular link. The screenshot image is not a live preview, and may actually be a few days or even weeks old.

Google conducted internal testing after introduction of the feature, and discovered that the satisfaction rate of users increased by five percent, for those individuals who visited a link after viewing the preview screenshot.

What does this mean for your brand?

Google Instant Previews allows users to have a sneak peek into the content of a particular website. Websites that are badly designed/or made up of a technology like Flash, are in for trouble from the beginning. For example, take a look at the M&M website. It is pretty well designed, but because the main homepage is made in Flash and has a 'loading now' image, the Instant Preview looks pretty uninteresting. If you have spent a lot of time designing a Flash website, Instant Previews could wash your efforts down the drain.

The immense power of Google to penetrate markets has always forced digital marketing professionals to adapt quickly to new launches from its stable. Google expects this feature will help users avoid spam pages that have managed to garner good rankings on its search engine, and haven't been blacklisted as yet.

What does this mean for digital marketing experts?

When Google Instant was introduced, digital marketing professionals were forced to reformat the key phrases they had bought, as people gained the power to edit their queries as they typed. With the launch of Instant Previews, people in the business of digital marketing need to analyse how their CTRs and overall conversions will shift, especially if they have unappealing content and website structure, which users will be able to view in the preview image.

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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