What Every Site Owner Needs to Know about Google’s New Instant Preview

Recently Google rolled out Instant Preview , a new feature that shows users a full-page preview of a web page without leaving the search results page.  Its intent is to make the search process more efficient by providing quick access to an overview of each search result, which should in turn reduce visits to irrelevant pages.   Google claims that searchers using Instant Preview are 5% more likely to be satisfied with their search results.

To see Instant Preview in action, click on the magnifying glass to the right of a search result.  When Instant Preview is activated, mousing over a link shows a preview of the underlying page to the right of the search results.

Why should you care?

Instant Previews impacts PPC results. Perhaps the most surprising aspect of Instant Preview is that when activated it covers the AdWords results on the right side of the page.  Google’s justification is that once users are browsing organic search results, they have already decided to ignore the paid ads.  This is a clear signal that Google is recognizing the importance of organic search results and how they balance with site advertising.

Your traffic could drop, but that’s good news . It’s possible that a site’s overall traffic will decline as users screen out irrelevant results without having to visit the sites first.  The good news is that visitors who see a page preview implicitly liked what they saw before they clicked over.  Thus, the visitors you get are better qualified.

Cybersquatters and spammy sites that ‘repurpose’ content from elsewhere to capture AdSense dollars will be less inclined to see Instant Preview as good news , though.  Their loss should be a gain for searchers and relevant content publishers.

Simple design will win out over clutter. Plain and simple, Instant Preview will place more emphasis on the visual design of a page .  Eye-catching pages with large images, open space and clearly laid-out content will likely attract the most clicks  (Hmmm, sort of like Google’s front page…).  In most cases, the text in Instant Previews is too small to be legible, meaning the overall visual effect of the page will be the hook for potential visitors.  Designers can combat over-simplification of their pages with text callouts, orange boxes around relevant snippets and clever use of headlines.

Next, we’ll talk about Instant Preview’s implications for SEO and what you can do to take advantage.