Google Suggest - Long Tail Killer Or New Opportunity?
By now I’m sure you’ve heard ‘Google Suggest‘ is coming out of the lab and into the main Google search page. Some are saying this is going to severely cut into long tail keyword and typo traffic volume. Google is going to make it too easy for Joe Surfer to just pick from one of the suggestions instead of typing in that nice juicy long tail phrase you are so nicely optimized for.
But there’s a hidden opportunity here I think, at least in the beginning before everyone starts capitalizing on it. So check this example and then follow along below the image to see how to use Suggest to your advantage.
Above is a search I did for “Reverse Mortgages” a very lucrative and very competitive key phrase. There are over 2 million competing pages. Now let’s look at an interesting phrase Google ’suggested’ when I searched. If I was a consumer interested in reverse mortgages, I think I’d be pretty likely to click the #2 result and would click “Reverse Mortgages pros and cons“.
If I were a Reverse Mortgage affiliate or Adsense publisher, what do I see? A hidden gem! “Pros and cons” is at the very top of the list, YET has the lowest # of results. Hmmm, interesting - let’s do some more keyword research.
allintitle: “reverse mortgages pros and cons” only has 63 competing pages. Looks like it would be pretty easy to get to the 1st page!
When I checked the term “Reverse Mortgages” with the Adwords keyword tool and Wordtracker the phrase “Reverse Mortgages pros and cons” was so low down the list I may not have optimized for it and evidently not many other people did. Yet if ‘Suggest’ sends some visitors to the phrase and it’s super easy to get ranked for, then it would probably be worth optimizing for.
What about PPC? Let’s see if Google gives us an opportunity there too.
Reverse Mortgages has 49 pages of PPC ads. There are OVER 500 Adwords ads to compete with!
Check out the Reverse Mortgages pros and cons page Google Suggest just sent Joe surfer to! How many competing ads? Only 8! I’m dying to know if those 8 advertisers see a boost in traffic for this term. Maybe I got lucky with this example, but I’ve tried a few others and found some interesting gems too.
Below are some good articles about how Google Suggest could affect SEO.
#1 Mark Olsen wrote on Wednesday, August 27th, 2008:
Nice…thanks for the insight.
Mark
#2 I suggest - Mark « cougarmark wrote on Wednesday, August 27th, 2008:
[…] suggest - Mark Today I ran across some news that Google Suggest is now standard on all Google searches. I was curious as I have used this […]
#3 Jeff wrote on Wednesday, August 27th, 2008:
No, google suggest is not the standard yet. Currently when you type in the google search bar, you will see some of your previous searches as you type. This is not the same as the google suggest which will do the same for all searches as well as tell you how many results there are.
#4 Linda Buquet wrote on Wednesday, August 27th, 2008:
Hi Jeff,
Suggest, like I said is rolling out through all the data centers right now and many already have it. It just updated for me last night. It looks just like the screen shot above - in fact that’s how I got the screen shot.
Google actually went down for me for about 10 minutes last night and I thought what the??? Then when it came back up Google Suggest was working on the G homepage.
#5 Linda Buquet wrote on Wednesday, August 27th, 2008:
Oh to be clear, Suggest is only on the Google homepage. You may be looking at and talking about the Google search bar which I’m not certain if it will even show Suggest results.
#6 Mark Olsen wrote on Wednesday, August 27th, 2008:
Thanks for the additional info. Mine looked just like the shot above. I will say I don’t think its showing enough suggestions yet-not on the words I was searching for anyway
#7 Jeff wrote on Wednesday, August 27th, 2008:
Ahh, ok. What I am seeing is the new page, as seen above, is on the google home page. Once you actually do a search, the search page changes back to the old way. Subsequent searches are not of the new format.
Perhaps they are still working on that.
#8 Linda Buquet wrote on Wednesday, August 27th, 2008:
Ahh, ok back atcha.
I see what you’re saying now. I’d been doing all my research on the homepage. Once you get to the serps page, you’re right Suggest isn’t there.
#9 SEO 2.0 | Top 7 Google Suggest Effects on SEO, Search Usage and Business Predictions wrote on Wednesday, August 27th, 2008:
[…] Google Suggest - Long Tail Killer Or New Opportunity? - 5 Star Affiliate Marketing Blogs […]
#10 Stuart Stirling wrote on Wednesday, August 27th, 2008:
good thinking! this Google suggest is news to me but now I have learned 2 things from one post. thanks a lot!
Stuart Stirling
#11 Aaron Sorkin to Write Facebook Movie, Google Suggest, QuarkBase, Wetpaint, JamLegend - Free Line 8-29-08 wrote on Wednesday, August 27th, 2008:
[…] Google Suggest, the new service that suggests keywords to users. Blogger Linda Buquet has written a fascinating article discussing the effects the new service might have with SEO concept known as the long tail of […]
#12 Frank wrote on Wednesday, August 27th, 2008:
What is nice in all that it that we still have things to learn, whether it is thanks to google changing the rules or people like you that show new ways. Thanks for the idea, Linda.
Frank
#13 the impact of google suggest « the odd one out wrote on Wednesday, August 27th, 2008:
[…] The long tail. I’ve read a lot of panic about Google Suggest killing the long tail, and I disagree. Long Tails will be more accessible, it won’t be (as much of) a […]