Digital Marketing Agency | Barracuda Digital

Google Instant was the biggest change to the Search Engine Results Pages in a decade, with an impact on PPC and SEO campaigns.

Google have now added more complexity to the equation by adding instant previews of the landing pages for each result. Google also highlights the most relevant sections on the landing page for the user search query. Users activate the feature by clicking on the magnifying glass next to the result they want to preview. The preview takes around a tenth of a second to appear.

How will this change my search traffic?

If Google Instant changed the keywords we used to search with, Instant Previews changes the choice of website that we click on.

Click Through Rate effect

Having the chance to preview the landing pages gives the user a good early indicator if yours is the type of website they want to end up on.  Whilst searchers can’t trawl through the content of your landing page from the preview, they’ll get a good picture of your landing page design. We’re yet to test the results, but the winners are going to be websites with a clear and simple design; where the text is in short paragraphs and there isn’t too much of it.

A visitor takes an average of 6 seconds before they decide whether to stay or leave. Instant Previews will probably mean that a proportion of them – having reviewed your landing page – will never arrive in the first place.

The positive news for genuine merchants is that those websites that rank highly purely due to their dense, keyword rich text are going to see a drop in CTR. No-one is drawn in by a block of text. And that means that the user is going to look elsewhere for their visit.

Conversion rate effect

Of course, the upside is that having had the chance to preview the results, the visitor has already decided that yours is a website they want to interact with. Having arrived on your website they’re already in positive frame of mind, and are more likely to convert. So Instant Previews should boost conversion rates.

That’s it

Over the coming weeks Barracuda Digital will be gathering data about the affect of Instant Previews on both SEO and SEM campaigns and we’ll report what we find here. Any comments please leave them below.

A few weeks Google revealed what many in the search engine community have called a revolution. Google Instant displays the complete search results as you type; ads & organics – the lot.

There was a lot of speculation about what effect this would have on the PPC and SEO industry. Some feared the death of SEO. Others speculated a rush towards head terms away from the longer tail. So now the dust has settled, what are we actually seeing?

Here’s what we did

Barracuda Digital analysed the effect of Google Instant on our PPC campaigns. We looked at generic searches rather than brand, and measured what happened immediately before Google Instant with what happened straight afterwards.

And here’s what we found

1. Impression up, clicks up

Straight away we saw a 25% to 32% spike in impressions. This led to a more modest rise in clicks – between 2% and 4%.

What is also interesting is that whilst impressions immediately spiked, they then tailed off – not all the way back to pre-instant levels, but have settled around 10% up. Our view is that users were intrigued by Google Instant, and aside from the inevitable boost in impressions there was also a lot of experimentation by users.

2. Click Through Rates drop

A bit of an obvious one this. Of course, if impressions rise more than clicks, the the CTR drops. If you are targeted against CTR then this isn’t going to look good on the reports, so make sure mark them with the launch of Google Instant to explain what’s going on!

3. Quality Score unaffected

Despite the drop in CTR, keyword quality scores remain affected. Whether this is because CTRs for all advertisers have dropped, or because the QS measure takes Google Instant into account, we’re not exactly sure.

4. Boost in traffic for high positioned ads

We’ve seen a very modest – less than 1% – increase in the proportion of traffic an advertiser receives when in the top 3 positions. So our conclusion is that Google Instant encourages users to click on ads in the top positions. This may be because they’re flashing right in the users eye-line as they search, and are therefore more likely to attract attention.

5. Reduction in traffic from low position ads

We’ve seen a 1.1% decrease in the traffic from ads in positions 6 – 10, due no doubt to the same reason as the high positions are gaining traffic. Google is robbing Peter to pay Paul. Or Dave, as the case may be

6. Increase in traffic from head terms

We considered a head term as a keyword delivering traffic in the top 3% of all advertiser keywords. Overall we’ve seen a 6% increase in the proportion of traffic coming from these keywords. That doesn’t mean that the longer tail keywords are sending less traffic – remember total traffic is up. It’s just the proportion of that traffic coming from head terms has gone up.

7. Conversion Rates up

Although only modest – 0.7% – overall conversion rates for advertisers are up. Maybe Google Instant is living up to the hype of giving searchers what they want, and fast?

That’s it

Rather than a sea change in how we user search engines, the effects of Google Instant appear to be a lot more modest. But the good thing is that so far Google Instant looks like a win for users and advertisers alike. And there’s no doubt that PPC campaigns need to be adapted to take advantage of these modest changes.

If everyone used Google Instant, just imagine how much time we’d save!

Google Instant launched yesterday. It’s probably the biggest change to the Google User Interface in the last 10 years, and Google’s Marissa Mayer is calling it a “fundamental shift in search.”

So what is it?

Google Instant predicts what you’re searching for, showing the results as you type. It uses the same technology as the auto-complete that usually fills in the search field. As you carry on typing, Google predicts your query and changes the search results as you go. It only works if you’re logged into a Google account.

Why have Google made this change?

Google reckon that this makes searching faster (up to 5 seconds less according to their research). Just imagine how much time we’ll save globally with Google Instant [INFOGRAPHIC].  They also say that good predictions help guide the user, and the instant results save the hassle of hitting ‘search’ or return.

It’s local and its personal

Google instant tailors the search results depending on where you are and what you’ve searched for before.

How does it affect my PPC campaigns?

PPC ads show for predicted queries, but obviously change as the search query grows in character length.  The fear is that this will massively increase impression count without boosting clicks: CTR falls, quality score falls.

However, Google says that not all results pages count as an impression. Its only if:

*the user clicks on the page after beginning to type a search query
*the user chooses one of the predicted queries from Google Instant
*the search results are shown for at least three seconds

Here’s an easy diagram to show you what counts as an impression.

We’ve certainly seen no increase in impression count but it is early days.

The potential upside is that the user gets a more relevant search experience. If your ads are tailored to that, then they’re more likely to buy.

How does it affect my SEO campaigns?

Probably not  at all. You still need to focus on a balance of those queries that bring you decent volumes and decent conversions. The chances are that Google Instant will boost relevancy; so make sure your titles and descriptions accurately describe the content of your page, and encourage searches to click through.

Have you tried Google Instant? What do you think? Leave us a comment below.

UPDATE 5.10.10: We’ve now carried out research into how Google Instant has affected PPC. Take a look!