Real Time Search
Real time search is here and could have an impact on your search engine results page (SERPs). Reaction to Google real time search has been mixed in the SEO world. Some analysts are concerned that existing great content, excellent SEO strategy and development to date will be negatively impacted by real time search that could bring the latest Twitter announcement to prime position over and above other results.
Yes, real time search will bring a Tweet or breaking news to the top but we must remember that these real time search results are momentary*. Once the moment has passed they will organically drop from results and your content and SEO work to date will still be there. I believe there will be a flurry of excitement around real time search but that users will return to using the more established query results.
What real time search results offers for SEO is the ability to monitor and track online reputation more effectively. As a large (and possibly smaller) brand owner you will be able to track breaking comments around your brand efficiently.
* Post writing this article, Flyglobespan, Scotland's largest airline collapsed. Real time search brought back endless Twitter conversations regarding the collapse and breaking news articles. However, these results are momentary and soon disappear and in this case study as an internet user I would still defer to less real time information and look for corporate releases from the company. This goes to confirm that real time, while brilliant to have is only truly momentary... long term SEO is still key.
Goodbye Yahoo!
Not so much of a prediction but a plan, as we all know of the Bing/Yahoo deal. Bing will continue to steal search engine market share as Yahoo goes into a slow but planned terminal decline.
The search engine market will evolve into a 80/20 split with Google dominating and Bing taking the smaller share. Bing’s share will continue to grow and we’ll be keeping an eye of the search engine’s development and the potential impact on SEO. For now we are confident that dedicated SEO to conquer Bing is not necessary.
With Yahoo’s departure, valuable SEO tools such as Site Explorer will disappear but as with all things SEO and internet, no doubt variants or new developments will appear.
SEO Spending to Increase
More and more companies, brands and their websites are tuning in to the fact that as fish in an ever bigger, more immediate and global pond, they will need to spend accordingly on SEO to ensure SERPs, good visibility and strong internet presence.
Budgeting for online marketing will grow and be better planned but I also predict that with increased spending a greater number of sharks in that pond will naturally grow.
SEO as an industry does receive bad press, black hat SEO still abounds and with real time search results I think the nefarious side to SEO will prosper at the cost of the client. Sustained white hat is the only approach that has long-term results and here at The WebMarketing Group, while we welcome the prospects that 2010 will bring we stick exclusively to ethical white hat SEO.
In addition to increased SEO spending, companies will look to increase spending on online PR, email marketing, social media.
Multivariate analysis M-VAP
Having spent or planning to spend more on SEO, website owners will start looking in more depth at conversion rates. SEO is only successful where strong metrics and analytics are in place and investors naturally want to see a high ROI.
For many websites that have high traffic but poor conversion rates,
M-VAP will be an invaluable tool to turn all that valuable SEO into a more defined result.
We forecast an increased demand for M-VAP and are now aligning our internal resources to be well positioned to offer this service.
Speed & Caffeine: A Heady Mix
We’ve already commented on how
Google wants to speed up the internet. Add to this the full implementation of the Caffeine algorithm and early January promises to mix up search engine positioning for many. To use our often used phrase we’re tracking this and planning pre-emptive action for many of our clients.
I’ve briefly touched on some of the most pressing developments anticipated for 2010. Please
contact us for any questions you may have.
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