For clients that are wondering about the effect of Google Instant (GI) on SEO, here is some information.

In summary, we believe Google Instant will make SEO more relevant. Fewer people will see the same results page and therefore localisation and relevant keyword targeting becomes even more important.

Probably the most interesting change is going to be how people search. They will most likely search more (use search variations to find the most appropriate results) and they are likely to construct their search phrases more carefully. This will then boost the importance of long tail search and perhaps reduce the percentage of users clicking through beyond the first page of the search results.

In terms of PPC, Google Instant will effect how page impressions are calculated for click-through rates. An impression will now be calculated when a click-through takes place or if the user pauses for 3 seconds.

Introducing Google Instant

Additional Information on Google Instant

Marrissa Meyer on Google Instant and SEO among other things.

Link Building

Another cautionary tale about link buying. A flower selling company looses $4 million after Google turns the tables, Interesting comeback using 4 positions to manage SEM (a manager of comparison shopping, a social media manager, an affiliate marketing manager and someone watching their link portfolio).

Search Marketing

An interesting study on how people search. Transactional searchers are only looking at an average of 4.05 organic results but they are more focused on the snippet (meta description) than informational searchers.

Other Webmaster News

Yahoo! Site Explorer to be intergrated with Bing Webmaster Centre.

Brand

Johnny Longdon writing on Brand.

The summary: ‘The digital relationships we have with our customers are changing. The old advertising and sales models
don’t apply in this new world.’

So more people are trusting their online social circle to advise on products…?  Here’s the backlash (let me google that for you…).

Analytics

News: Google Analytics Tracking Code Debugger.

Comments: Useful to check if code is working and to see what info is sent to Google from each page. Needs the asynchronous code. Extension available for Chrome.