More and more vehicle owners go to the internet in the search for affordable car insurance. Car Insurance companies have in recent times discovered that that they simply cannot do without an online strategy – and millions are now spent on websites, search engine optimization and content management.
Google and faster searches
Most of these searches are performed on the Google search engine – Google is the world’s No.1 search engine, but is facing increased competition from Microsoft Corp’s Bing search engine.
Google has recently revealed that searches are getting faster and faster. I have come across interesting insights shared via the website of FOXnews.com and a story titled “Web searches just got faster, Google claims”
I would like to share some insights from this story:
Google Searches and Predictive Text
How is web search speed measured?
Web search speed used to be gauged by how many mouse clicks they took. Google has not taken the click out of the equation. After several enhancements to its Internet search engine the new Google search engine will predict your query as you type and deliver results simultaneously — no more clicking for results.
Google claims its Google Instant technology will shave two to five seconds off every web search.
“Our key technical insight was that people type slowly, but read quickly, typically taking 300 milliseconds between keystrokes, but only 30 milliseconds (a tenth of the time!) to glance at another part of the page,” the company explained. By presenting results as you enter your search, “you can scan a results page while you type.”
Search Rankings and Search Results for the Keywords “Car Insurance”
What is the affect of these changes on Car Insurance Companies and their SEO strategy?
With so many car insurance providers and advertising strategies – it is of extreme importance for car insurance companies that their offerings can be found with ease and that they feature prominently in search results.
These changes and enhanced speed could have a significant impact on the bottom-line of some direct insurers. According to Adam Bunn, head of search at independent search and social marketing agency Greenlight, some websites may suffer a drop in traffic thanks to the changes.
Many sites buy advertising space based on long multi-word keywords, he explained, and as people see results that may be appropriate before they finish typing such keywords, those ad dollars may be wasted — and traffic may suffer.
Website optimization and the keywords “Cheap Car Insurance”
The experts believe that online marketers from car insurance companies will have to review the keywords used in their search engine optimization strategies.
“If a website has optimized for and holds good rankings for ‘cheap car insurance UK,’ that term may lose search traffic as UK users find that the shorter ‘cheap car insurance’ returns several relevant looking results, negating the need to finish their sentence,” Bunn said.
On the other hand, should less common topics should see even fewer page visits, the cost of buying ads that target those pages may drop, he pointed out.
Conclusion and advice
Google said the technology will also be available in many more countries in several weeks. This will be noted by local car insurance companies and we can conclude that South African car insurers will work closely with the experts in the online industry to ensure that their products can be found fast and with ease.
The car insurance industry can only benefit from faster search results. It is important that more vehicle owners on our roads are insured – and if they can use the internet to find the correct affordable car insurance -so much the better for road safety!!