Google Instant Preview-The Case for the Upgrade

Katherine Bennett - February 23, 2011

What if a searcher could see your website before they even clicked on your organic listing? What if they could see if the term they searched was actually on your website page?  The answer to these questions is that they can. This means a searcher can be attracted to or repelled by your website without ever landing on it. How is this possible? It’s possible through Google Instant Preview.

When a searcher has Google Instant Preview enabled, they are able to get a sneak peak of your website. Here’s how it works. A magnifying glass appears next to your organic listing and when a searcher clicks on the magnifying glass that page of your website appears in the preview.  In the below example, a preview of the Morevisibility page appears, giving the searcher a taste of what’s to come.

Another great feature, of Google Instant Preview is that it will highlight a searcher’s search term within the web page snapshot and show them an actual sentence containing that term. For example, if a searcher is searching for the term “Morevisibility”, the Google Instant Preview highlights and magnifies the sentence on that page using the search term “Morevisibility” as shown to the right.

Google Instant Preview helps searchers reduce wasted search time and find what they want quickly. However, on the flip side, companies should keep their websites updated; otherwise a user could be turned off before they even get to the website. 

Since searchers are becoming more familiar with Google Instant Preview, it would behoove companies to ask themselves if their website design and/or its content need an upgrade. After all, what picture does your company want to leave in a searcher’s mind?