SEO is one of those areas of online activity which evolves at a speed faster than the relatively easy-going dog years in which time on the web is measured. The cat-and-mouse game which is the norm between search engine optimizers and website owners has accelerated to the point where time is measured in stoat years (which means the ratio has gone from being 1:7 to being 1:32) and this makes it all the more important to be able to look and plan ahead.
But there are still trends you need to keep your eye on and adapt what you are doing to their ever changing importance.
1) Personalized search is only going to grow: On the web immediacy and customization spell out addiction which means that personalized search is a trend which will only get bigger and, inevitably, it will have an impact on SEO. Personalization (a Google and BING staple now) basically throws up a virtual ‘fence’ around the end-user which makes it harder to sites which do not have a solid pedigree to break through. This means that search now favors established websites, branded websites and websites which rely on social network recommendations in order to break through.
2)It’s a two search engine world: The convergence of the Yahoo/BING search has created a two-tiered world in search engines. Google continues to deliver the lion’s share of search results with a nearly 68% share in the US over June 2010 (according to Comscore) which means that worldwide Google continues to be well over the 80% mark. If you are optimizing your site Google is the one to aim for and since they are the market leader anything which works on them will work equally well (if not better) for the Yahoo/BING combination.
3) SEO spend will increase: This is a natural result of both personalized search (see trend #1) and the explosion of social media marketing (see search #4)each of which are taking search away from the automatic semantic web indexing which was the indication at the beginning of 2010 and are now making it an integral part of online marketing and online promotion. This means that unless you are lucky enough to have read and taken heed of SEO Help you really need an expert SEO who will do all the work for you and get your website performing the way it should.
4)Social marketing: Unless your website is on Facebook and Twitter and you are getting mentioned and your URL is passed around in the blogosphere, your company brand is (in the eyes of the search engines) going into a decline. This means that in terms of online presence you really need to have a clearly worked out, sustained and sustainable online marketing strategy which is designed to give you the kind of social marketing presence that will help your brand and search engine positioning.
5) The impact of the real time web is on the increase: Whether you Twitter or use the Facebook news stream or go in for live messaging the fact remains that real time marketing and even real time ecommerce are beginning to create an impact. From a web development point of view this is the next natural step. The web enamored us light years ago with flashing backgrounds and twinkling stars and has enamored us, every fast-paced year of growth since, with its ability to provide more and more interaction and connectivity. We are no longer content to spend money online, make a purchase and have to wait for a week before the goods arrive, nor do we want to send an email and have to wait three days to get a reply. Unless you have worked the real time web into your marketing you will only be repeating what everyone else is doing right now.
6) Twitter is more than just a microblogging site: The instant messaging and retweeting capability offered by Twitter make it perfect as a research and prediction tool. Used properly it can allow you to find out what your competitors are doing and which topics are trending, both vital for the development of a coherent online strategy designed to allow you to actually get somewhere with your website.
7) More online queries will result in less traffic for websites: This sounds a little oxymoronic but it’s not. Time continues to be at a premium and online we are driven to do things faster and faster. This is one of the reasons Google and Yahoo/BING try to answer queries straight from the search engine query box, making their sites faster and stickier. The result is that when you create content which answers specific questions succinctly the chances are that that content will answer a query straight out of the search engine query box rather than get visitors to your site. This then puts the pressure on you to create content which is more complicated, delivers real value as opposed to a two-sentence fluff you can get anywhere on the web and which truly engages the online visitor.
8) Focus on conversion targets as well as numbers: SEO has always been about building traffic to a website. The new breed of search engine optimizers however aims on building traffic which is far more targeted than before and the conversion rate as well as ROI ought to be higher. This is a trend which will only become more and more important as virtual fences begin to go up and the pool of potential customers you fish in will only get better.
Provided you factor in all this in your online marketing strategy there is no real reason 2011 does not turn out to be a great year for you and your online business.
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