Real-Time Search: What Every Business Needs to Know
A decision framework for whether a business needs an active, real-time presence, on Twitter especially, now that search results surface live content.
Real-time search results, live posts surfacing in search pages alongside traditional listings, are still new enough in 2009 that most businesses haven’t decided whether it’s worth their attention. Here’s a way to think through that decision rather than reacting purely on hype.
Does your business produce anything time-sensitive?
Real-time search rewards content that’s tied to a specific moment: an announcement, a response to industry news, commentary on something happening right now. If your business’s content is mostly evergreen, how-to guides, product descriptions, service pages, real-time search isn’t where your effort belongs yet. If you regularly have something worth saying about what’s happening right now in your industry, it’s a different story.
Do you already have an active presence on Twitter?
Twitter is the clearest current source feeding real-time search results, given how fast and how publicly its posts flow. If your business already has an active account with genuine followers, you have a head start. The incremental cost of showing up in real-time search is mostly about posting consistently and relevantly rather than building something from scratch. If you don’t have a Twitter presence yet, weigh the cost of building one specifically for this against your other marketing priorities.
Can you respond quickly?
Real-time search rewards speed in a way traditional SEO never has. A relevant post published within minutes of a relevant event has a real chance of surfacing; the same content published two days later has largely missed the window. If your business can’t realistically staff quick responses to timely moments, real-time search will underperform for you regardless of how good your content is, simply because you’ll consistently be too late.
What’s the actual downside of ignoring it for now?
For most small businesses, skipping real-time search entirely costs little right now. It’s a young, still-forming feature, not yet a primary source of traffic the way organic search is. The businesses that should be paying closer attention are the ones in fast-moving industries, media, entertainment, anything tied to current events, where being visibly part of a live conversation carries real brand value beyond direct traffic.
A reasonable starting point
If you decide it’s worth testing, start small: maintain a genuine, active Twitter presence, post about things relevant to your business and industry as they happen and don’t force real-time content where it doesn’t fit naturally. Treat it as a supplement to your existing search and content strategy, not a replacement for the slower, more durable work of organic search and keyword-driven content, which still drives far more traffic for most businesses than anything real-time will in the near term.
Real-time search is a new capability, but it’s not a mandatory one for every business yet. Decide based on whether your business has something timely to say, not because the feature exists.
More from 2009: browse the SEO archive or see everything published this year.
