How Google Instant Preview Affects SEO

Google Instant Preview

Google Instant preview is a new addition to Google’s Instant Search. People can now browse a large instant preview of a site’s content by placing the cursor over the small magnifying glass displayed beside each listing.

The instant preview is large and Google sometimes highlights a major paragraph or quote from each displayed site which means we have to re-think our on page SEO.

See a sample of Google Instant Preview Here.

Understanding Google Instant Preview Basics

Now searchers can get a instant preview of the look, layout and design of a sites on page graphics and bold headlines right away before visiting the site. This means that the small print and the general content of the page can’t be read in the instant preview, so searchers will have to click through to your site if they want to read your information which means we have to change a few things to grab their attention. This means we will have to give them what they are looking for in the headlines or in bold print right up front.

Now we also have to take into count that many people may not even use Google Instant especially the older generation, they may not even know what the small Google Instant icon even means.  Still the instant preview could have some ramifications on who gets the “click through” to their site and who doesn’t. Not to mention that now getting the top spots in search engine rankings may not be as important as searchers can quickly preview all of the top 10 listings and then make their decision. Meaning they might not click the top listing, but decide one lower down the rankings is more worth clicking. Google Instant could make all the listings on the first page of search results more valuable and not just the top one.

SEO and Google Instant Preview

This doesn’t really affect any of your on page SEO strategies because you still need to be optimizing for the search engines rankings. After all, getting those top rankings for people to use the new Google instant preview is always going to be your first priority.

With that being said, Google’s Instant Preview does change the whole nature of Search Engine Page Results because website owners will have to grab the attention of the searcher within the instant preview if they want the click through. It’s realistic to think that searchers may just click on the instant preview for the top ranking listing and decide the page is not up to standard or it’s not what they’re looking for, and can quickly try out the other listings instead.

Why Did Google Come Up With Instant Preview Anyway?

From Google’s perspective the Instant preview will improve the overall quality of their search results. Now searchers can quickly see if they found the information they were looking for without wasting their time clicking on a search result hey didn’t really want. Now they can easily find the right results more quickly and efficiently. Let’s face it Google has to start scrabbling because Bing is becoming a strong competitor and Google is hoping that Instant preview is going to make them more user friendly.

Utilizing Instant Preview In Your Favor

To start using Instant preview to help your website all us webmasters and online marketer will have to change a few things to start grabbing targeted traffic from other sites with higher search engine result listings. We will have to start building our web pages with Google instant preview in mind, and here is how,

1. Improve Your Images – Pictures will play a more important role in instant preview because it will be the first thing searchers will focus on at first glance. It’s vital to have eye-popping graphics right next to your important information.

2. Headline Tags Should Stand Out – Your page heading will quickly capture the searcher’s attention and draw them to your site if you make them big and bold enough to be seen in Google’s instant preview.

3. Write An Informative Summary – Place your important information in a short summary which also captures the viewer’s attention. Entice these viewers to visit your site or page.

4. Utilize Other Traffic Methods – You shouldn’t just focus on getting traffic through the free organic search results. Include other sites such as stumbleupon, Twitter, Facebook, Google Maps and YouTube as these can get you onto Google’s first page also.

5. Finally, PPC Advertising – I’m not big on PPC as I always focus on free traffic but if you know how to do it right you can get web traffic cheaply. The thing is more and more major companies are throwing tons of cash into SEO and Keyword Link Buying making organic search not really free anyway. For us small-time webmasters and marketers, paid listings in search engines may be our only option because SEO is becoming too hard.

Keep in mind that Instant Preview is very new and not many people know what the magnifying glass means in the search results. Also will many people even use this added feature in their daily searches anyway?

Google instant preview is an added feature that can help us but we have to learn to roll with the changes online these days.