Google Instant – don’t freak out

I’ve heard way too many people say Google Instant is going to put SEOs out of their jobs. That’s ridiculous. Here’s why.

The rankings haven’t changed.

Google Instant doesn’t change sites’ rankings, Google has come out and said so. And rankings still drive qualified traffic. And SEO still drives rankings. So SEO still matters, even post-Instant.

So many people have taken down this argument better than I have.

The keywords you’re targeting haven’t changed.

So now when you type the letter “w” into the Google bar, you get results for weather, because Google assumes you want weather. If you don’t, you keep typing until Google gives you want you want. If you’re a website owner trying to rank #1 for weather, you still have to target the keyword “weather,” just like you did before. No one is going to optimize for the letter “w.” Google isn’t serving the sites most authoritative and relevant for “w,” but for weather!