A couple of items caught my attention yesterday. Aaron Wall reported that Google is claiming up to 25% of search queries run any given day are queries they have never processed previously. I found that to be quite a shocker. Also, Andy reported that Google has included a “Hot Trends” feature to their Google Trends tool, so we are now better able to see what people are searching for in Google. What does this all mean in SEO, quite a bit on one hand, and not too much on the other.
First off, if 25% of Google searches are new and fresh, many of us are going to need to start focusing more attention on figuring out more creative long-tail keyword phrases, which we don’t have any prior data on as no one has used these search terms all together previously. This is actually a pretty exciting concept, it gives us more reason to really think about how our potential clients are searching for our products or services, and then attempt to be there for them on their resulting SERP page. This fresh search revelation should bring more mainstream marketing and advertising concepts/tatics into our search strategies, making it more enjoyable. I am not afraid to admit that I personally have found researching keywords, and finding little variations of keywords to be quite a mundane task from time to time, so this new focus makes me quite happy. We all know that it is important and necessary to finely hone our keywords to gain search traffic, but sometimes it can become a bit too unimaginative, dare I say boring, as we tend to just rely on fabulous tools, and basically let our minds go numb. So now finding out 25% of queries in Google are new and fresh should readjust our attention to keywords quite a bit, and should get those creative juices in our search marketing campaigns percolating. We now know there are many chances to rank #1 in the SERPS, if we get some of the long tail search terms right in our SEO efforts.
Now to Google’s Hot Trends functionality, I believe this will be less important to most business focused sites concerned with SEO, but still will be a socially popular feature. I personally don’t understand the Digg mentality of what’s hot/what’s not in the social media scene, it doesn’t resonate. Unfortunately Digg has proven time and time again to not deliver really good quality content frequently enough to warrant any consideration from knowledge seeking individuals. Along this vein, I don’t think tracking the Hot Trends in Google search will be overly helpful in most online marketing campaigns either (unless you are looking to attract the non-purchasing Diggers). It will be more of a interesting online distraction for those with a little more time to waste than most small business owners typically enjoy. It might generate a business idea or two for some, but for the most part I see little benefit to eventual betterment of anyone’s SEO efforts.
It is an exciting time in search marketing, the Search Engines are getting better as delivering what we need, filtering (punishing) what we don’t, there are many new search patents being granted, as covered by Bill of SEO by the SEA (best blog to stay up to date on new search technologies coming). And with the recent announcement of Google’s Universal Search (can’t wait to see this in action), there are going to be many more changes to search in the near to distant future. We are going to need to be aware of these changes and account for them in our SEO efforts. I am sure with the constant flow of new functionality, we are going to have to have to continually adjust our focus, tools and technique to best exploit new search opportunities, while we maintain a solid search presence. In search change is always an opportunity, and our SEO techniques needs to keep pace to make the most of it.
