If you’ve spent any time on Google this past week, you’ll have noticed that something’s different. This something is the introduction of Google Instant - a search enhancement that shows results as you type.

Needless to say, this is a big change, and there’s been a lot of talk within the SEM community about its potential impact on both paid and organic search.

Traditionally, when optimising a site or paid campaign for search, a lot of effort goes into targeting very specific key phrases, as these are cheaper (paid search), more likely to rank (organic and paid search) and stand a better chance of converting.

For instance, if you were doing SEO or PPC for a Turkish restaurant in Gardens in Cape Town you would optimise your site or keyword bids for the term ‘turkish restaurant’, but realistically you wouldn’t bank on ranking for this in either paid or organic search. Instead, you would expect to derive much of your traffic, and business, from more qualified long-tail search phrases – i.e., ‘turkish restaurant in gardens cape town’, ‘turkish restaurant cape town’, ‘turkish cuisine gardens’, and the like.

This worked really well when searchers had to hit ‘Search’ to get results, but what happens now that results are delivered in near real-time. The thinking is that this change will benefit big sites and big budget advertisers that rank for more general short-tail phrases, and have an adverse affect on smaller sites that derive much of their traffic from long-tail search. This has got a lot of search marketers worried, and dozens of blog posts have cropped over the past few days – many of them sporting sensationalist headlines. Personally, I haven’t bought into any of them.

The way I see it, there are a couple of key factors at play here; the first of which is user behaviour. Search is intention-based, and people are accustomed to entering in more detailed, long-tail queries, as this has delivered (and will continue to deliver) the results that are most relevant to them.

In time this may change, but it’s not going to happen overnight.  And who’s to say that a large percentage of users won’t continue to follow the search habits that have served them well in the past?

Secondly, we need to consider Google Instant in terms of search relevancy. Even if everyone does eventually make the switch to real-time search, they’ll only do so if it’s able to deliver results that are as pertinent to them as those they’d receive from long-tail search. Which means that optimisation – across both paid and organic campaigns – is just as important as ever.

So, while there’s no denying that Google Instant represents a milestone in the evolution of search, its arrival doesn’t spell the death of anything.

Also check out:

• A Beginner's Guide to SEO
• Google Insights for Search
• The Lowdown on Quirk's New Course in Search Engine Optimisation