A lot has been written about Google’s relatively new “instant” search functionality. Some say that it is the death of SEO… Yeah right, we’ve been down that road, many times. Google’s Matt Cutts has also chimed in on Instant Search and SEO. In the Q&A section of his blog. “Q: Does Google Instant kill search engine optimization (SEO)? A: No! Almost every new change at Google generates the question “Will X kill SEO?”…” There are many, many more SEO’s that have varied takes on what Instant Search means to Search Engine Optimization.

Google Instant Search – What is it?

According to Google “Google Instant is a new search enhancement that shows results as you type.” Resulting in faster searches, Smarter Predictions and Instant Results, all true and the reasons for the improvement are clearly documented on Google’s page. And that’s it in a nutshell, Google will offer next word suggestions based on what you’ve previously entered into the search box.

Example:

If I type in “ipod” here are the results:

Notice that the “ipod touch” is what Google thinks is the most relevant search for “ipod” and “nano” being second. If I continue my search with “ipod touch” I get:

The organic search results and shopping results didn’t change much (of course not! It’s where Google thought I wanted to be when I entered “ipod”) but the paid ads and placements changed considerably since I’ve actually entered “ipod touch” the ads reflect the additional search word. The affect this will have in ads impressions is something Google is still tweaking and you might see variances in ad impressions and changes in quality scores. Now what happens if I didn’t go with Google’s first suggested search term?

Okay now things have changed considerably (although you can’t see most of the changes with the above screen shot). Clearly the shopping results and the paid ads changed and the suggested changes in the search query change as well.

Okay so how will Google Instant change SEO?

Good question! If searchers get into the habit of paying attention to Google’s suggested changes to their search queries and Google does a very good job of predicting what its users want, it may very well change everything! A couple of possible outcomes are (and some early testing supports):

1. The long tail keyword searches that Google suggests to the searchers, and your site ranks very well for, will drive more traffic to your website and long tail searches that are not ‘supported’ by Google Instant may suffer a drop in traffic even if the ‘non-supported’ long tail drives the most qualified traffic.
2.   Another highly possible outcome is sites that reside on the second page of Google’s results for “short tail” keywords will show a decrease in traffic. 

Google Instant Search and Keyword Research

Google Instant offers SEO’s a much deeper look into Google’s back end algorithms. Just as Google’s tilde search (as Carolyn’s wonderful blog “Using the Tilde “~” in Keyword Research for SEO” describes) gives insight to what Google believes are related words, Instant search will help find the ‘long tail’ search terms that will drive the most (and most relevant) traffic to a website. For SEO companies and practitioners that are quick to adopt changes in the SEO world, Instant Search will be a wealth of information we’ve never had from the preverbal “horse’s mouth”.

Google AdWord Quality Scores

To keep this as simple as possible were going to only talk about PPC on Gooogle’s “Search Network” as the QS (Quality Score) metrics change depending on the ad type. As most of you may know, Google rates the “Quality” of your keywords on a scale from 0 to 10. Many factors weigh into the scoring (many of them Google doesn’t divulge) but in short there are four main areas that Google looks at; Click through rate, the ads keyword relevancy, the keyword relevancy of the landing page and the landing page load time. An entire book that can be written about Google’s QS but explaining the QS process in detail really isn’t the purpose of this blog post.

Is B2B really different than B2C?

The short answer here is a big YES! – Especially in the PPC world… Typically B2B ads compete with B2C ads for space, but the desired traffic is very different. Take for example a wholesaler of widgets and a widget retailer. The keywords used in both campaigns are going to be very similar and overlapping especially if the retailer or wholesaler or both are using “broad match” search terms (a subject for another day). So what is a wholesaler to do so he isn’t buying worthless retail traffic? One effective method is ‘pre-filtering’ or ‘prequalifying’ the clicks they receive by writing ads that drive only qualified traffic; which brings us to QS and B2B campaigns.

Should you chase QS in B2B Ad Campaigns?

On the surface the answer here again is a yes but (you knew it was coming didn’t you) not with abandon. Yes, a QS of 10 out of 10 means you’re going to be paying less per click than someone with a QS of 4….but how many worthless clicks are you paying for to get that high QS? Remember that one of the metrics Google looks at for determining your QS is the CTR (Click-through rate) so to achieve that high QS score, your ad will have to be clicked on a lot, not something a B2B company is necessarily looking for… a B2B must focus on ROI rather than the number of click-throughs or the QS. So using the prequalifying ad writing method will lower your QS score and raise your per-click costs but, if done correctly, will actually lower your overall marketing spend per lead (ROI). You can’t let your QS fall too low so keep an eye on it but keep a closer eye on the “bang per buck” your AdWords Pay-Per-Click campaign is delivering.

Google Adwords, PPC for B2B, PPC Quality Score

Pay Per Click – Getting Started

You did your homework, created your ads, set-up a campaign or two, created some ad groups with a tight set of relevant keywords, crafted your ads, set-up your daily budget, set your max bid per keyword and even threw is some negative keywords then sent the traffic to your home page. Sounds like you’re ready to start your Pay Per Click (PPC) campaign doesn’t it? If you do you’d be wrong! In most cases, sending the traffic to your home page is the worst thing you can possibly do.

When the Home Page Might Work as a Landing Page

Say you’ve just invented a backyard sprinkler like no other, saving time, water, money and this is the only product you have. Okay, you have it in different colors and maybe a few different sizes but basically a single product. If your home page is completely optimized with quality targeted text, nice product images, clear differentiators  (what makes your product better than other offerings) and a clear, concise, compelling call-to-action it might be okay to use the home page as your PPC landing page. Depending on how many different keywords people use to search for a sprinkler the home page may not be the optimal choice even with such a limited product offering. Consider these possible terms, “Garden Sprinkler”, “Lawn Sprinkler”, “Sprinkler Heads”, “Irrigation Sprinkler” and “Spray Nozzle” or “Drip System”. The first three you may be able to include into one landing page (in this case the home page) but it would be nearly impossible to work the last two into mix and still have relevant, compelling, readable content.

PPC Landing Pages (for the rest of us)

The landing page must be closely related to the keywords the searcher used to find and click on your ad. The link or relevancy between the search term, the ad and the landing page should be as tight or as relevant as possible. If the searcher used the term “Lawn Sprinkler” to find your ad, it would be best to have that term in the ad itself, and that same keyword should be prominently visible on the landing page itself.  Use the term in the page title, use it as the first words that appear on the landing page (usually using a H1 tag with it), use it in the landing page’s url and in the “display” url of the ad. Do everything possible to make sure you don’t leave the potential customer wondering if they are in the right place and that your product is exactly what they are looking for… The perfect solution. And, as mentioned in the above paragraph, make sure that all the elements of a proper landing page are there as well.

PPC Ad Done – Landing Page Done – Done? NO!

In short; test, test, test and then test some more. Any on-line advertiser worth their salt will tell you that testing different ad and landing page ideas is essential to finding that “magic” formula that brings the best ROI to your Pay Per Click campaign. Very few page formats, wording, images, or any other web page or ad content combination works across different markets or for that matter for different websites. Sure you can take the pundit’s advice in conversion optimization as a starting point but even if you followed their advice to the letter it isn’t going to guarantee success or be the best fit for your market niche – only testing and measuring that testing will insure a profitable PPC campaign.

Pay Per Click, ppc landing pages, ppc testing