What Google’s Enhanced Autocomplete Box Means For SEO

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SEO experts noticed Google subtly trying out a new search box format at some point in December. We’ve termed it Enhanced Autocomplete Search Box, an expanded version of the existing one.

The right column of the box shows the top 3People also ask” queries, and below it, there are the People also search for” segment displaying some of the related search terms and entities. 

Much information is available, but nearly all news publishers and blogs prefer rehashing about the box and their method to access it. But the publishers are not at fault in this case.

google's inhanced autocomplete box
google’s enhanced autocomplete box

See Also: How To Help Google Rank Products With Duplicate Descriptions

Since it is only a beta test, there isn’t much data, and Google doesn’t want to comment yet. The latest autocomplete box provides certain information which is apparently clear to experts in the industry. 

The majority of SEO experts have likely spotted the updates, and they seem to realize what Google is trying to do. Although we don’t know the entire story yet, we have a notion of where Google is taking this.

SEO specialists might have a way to take advantage of the upgraded autocomplete to research keywords and topics.

What Is This Enhanced Autocomplete Function?

The new search format doesn’t show up for every query but only for a few common topics. To try this, all we did was type a query, hit ‘Enter,’ and left-click on the search bar.

google search
google search

We aren’t still sure what it tells us. At first sight, it seems that Google’s search engine organizes the essential search factors related to your query based on its thinking. 

On the left side, there are the autocomplete suggestions. The upper right column contains 3 People who also ask queries, and just below it is its People also search for a segment.

Note that the organic search results don’t show up in the box, and it is unexpected that Google will work on that. That’s because Google shows them in the sequence it prefers, and it has got no reasons to modify that.

Basically, the enhanced autocomplete appears to ease your search process, like if you’re searching any of the 3 PAA questions or if you want to check other search engines like DuckDuckGo or Yahoo (which is not a very good choice).

If you’re still thinking about why Google would make such changes, which were already present in the SERP, this is all to optimize the user experience. The enhanced autocomplete does nothing but merely relocate the already existing PAA and Knowledge panels, to fit more relevant contents into the search box and reduce your scrolling time.

If you’re searching for Organic SERPs, simply scroll down the SERP like usual.

Keyword And Topic Research Using The Enhanced Autocomplete

The new feature can help SEO experts and digital marketers optimize their websites by performing keyword and topic research using Google’s selections. 

Keyword Research

How? Imagine you are the digital marketer for a pizza company. To compete with the top pizza brands like Domino’s, Papa John’s, etc., you’ll need to have information about the meta info of their websites, like what their H1s are, how they optimize their pages for SEO and user experience.

keyword research
keyword research

Or, you can search for keywords in SERPs which would land you on their websites and check the opportunities of your website based on that. That’s a good reason Google put the three best pizza companies in the box rather than putting any random three. 

Thus, Google’s choices can be reverse-engineered in the classic SEO way to reveal the kind of results that the search engine wants to see.

Topic Research

What about the topic research? As we can see, Google has relocated the top 3 PAAs in the search box. We can reverse-engineer those and check what content works for these websites.

Maybe it also shows Google’s confidence in the PAA results. This makes it important for those who weren’t paying attention to the PAAs earlier.

enhanced autocomplete
enhanced autocomplete

This is Google’s way of saying to content marketers that many people also ask these questions, and they might be interested in them even if they’re just typing the word ‘pizza.’ Now, you can take these topics if you find them relevant. 

Like if you own a pizza blog or something similar.

Conclusion

Recently, Google has been beta testing many new SERP features that utilize the width of the page. You might already be aware of the ‘featured snippets’ and ‘map packs’ features, among many others.

Google is constantly trying to improve the user experience by testing out different formats. So, we users have to get used to these changes, and the SEO experts should be alert of the recent beta changes, including the enhanced autocomplete.

Many new SERP priorities might come in the future, and we should be ready for them.

See Also: How Google Reviews Impact Map Pack And Organic Search Rankings

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