The new Firefox 2 now incorporates ‘Google Suggest‘ which you can find in the search block at the top right of the browser. This new feature can have quite an important effect on the way you should optimize your website for search engines.

The Google Suggest tool was launched way back in December 2004; however it was popular mostly with the Search Engine Optimization and Marketing communities.  Google Suggest guesses what you’re typing and offers suggestions in real time as you type into the search box. Thus, for a normal Internet user, Google Suggest can make his searches more convenient and efficient by keeping him from having to reformulate his queries.

From an SEO or SEM perspective, the Google Suggest tool allows you to see instantly how often specific keyword phrases are searched.  The Google Suggest tool not only completes words in a drop down list that shows ten possible and or likely ways to complete any word you begin to type in the search box, but it also shows beside each of those possible word combinations – how many times that word phrase is searched at Google.  So you can check out the competition for keywords and optimize your website accordingly for your target key words.

Though IE is the most used browser so far, Firefox is becoming more popular across all communities. Reasons for this include Internet Explorer’s extremely tight integration with the Windows operating system – it is notorious for being near-impossible to uninstall without going through a laborious procedure and using third party software. Google Suggest was available as a standalone tool and was also integrated in Google Toolbar before, but now it will be accessible to a wider sprectrum of internet users. 

These new users will get used to the convenience of Google Suggest to type their queries. So if you want your website to get noticed, you must check Google suggest for your most important keywords, and make sure you rank for most, if not all, the keyword phrases suggested by the tool. Of course, if you find that for more than 25% of the terms Google suggests, you’re not ranking or targetting, and they are related to your website theme, you should really reconsider your keyword research methods.

Technorati Tags: Firefox, Google Suggest, Search Engine, Optimization, Marketing, SEO, SEM