Google’s Autosuggest, also known as Autocomplete, gives searchers a quick way to reach what they want.
That’s because instead of typing something out entirely, the blanks of their potential thoughts are filled automatically.
And if you continue to type, if you feel the initial suggestions aren’t good enough, you’ll get tons more practically with every letter you type in.
Then once you see something close to (or often precisely) what you’re looking for, you can click that option.
The result is tons of saved time and effort and increased productivity and efficiency.
But that’s just one side of what the feature does.
It also enriches the lives of anyone trying to rank a website, and SEO experts have long advocated site owners to use it to their advantage.
In this article, I’ll explain how you can level up the quality of your website with the power of Autosuggest.
But first, let’s look at how exactly it works.
How Is Google So Smart That It’ Senses’ What We’re Thinking?
Google figures out what you might be searching based on several factors.
The predictions are based on real searches being done by people.
Algorithms that come up with the suggestions take into account:
- Trending searches: If a particular question is being asked or a statement is popular in recent times, chances are you, the searcher, are also looking for the same.
- Searcher’s language: A natural and obvious feature.
- Searcher’s location: If people nearby you are searching for something, the suggestions must incorporate them.
- Freshness: This element may receive precedence if something significant has occurred just recently.
Google’s smartness doesn’t end here.
If autosuggested queries are likely to generate results that aren’t reliable, Google won’t include them.
And Google also steers clear of suggestions that may violate its policies.
Also, Google picks up patterns from the searcher’s history, so you may want to go incognito if you don’t want that aspect to interfere too much.
So How Can Google’s Autocomplete Help Your Website Rank?
The Autocomplete feature helps you rank better by allowing you to:
- Do better keyword research: When you type something and look at the suggestions, you get many ideas for what people might be interested in relating to what you’re typing.
This can prove especially handy when you’re trying to come up with long-tail keywords).
A best practice here is to type in your primary keywords and then keep typing one letter
at a time to see what pops up (pretty much can go A through Z).
- Learn deeply about your audience: When you get suggestions, you often find specific pain points and motives behind your keyword: in short, you learn a lot about search intent.
When producing content that directly addresses the audience’s primary area of interest
(they’ll thank you for it).
By enhancing these two elements of your ranking efforts, you can automatically get a head start over your competition!
