The Internet is a dynamic beast that is constantly growing and changing – not just in the huge volumes of new information added each day, but also in the way that people find and use that information. Search Engine Optimisation, considered “black magic” by some, and an “art” by others is concerned primarily with strategies and techniques to raise the profile of your website online – and make your website easier to find than your competitors.
Because SEO is so closely associated with the internet, it is also a dynamic and evolving discipline. For a Search Engine Optimiser, this is one of the most exciting aspects of their job (and also – sometimes – one of the most frustrating). To be an effective SEO, you need to keep a pretty close eye on what is happening on the internet – particularly in relation to Search Engines. Although many of the fundamental optimisation techniques don’t necessarily change that much, there are always opportunities at the leading edge of SEO to develop and evolve optimisation strategies to take advantage of changes in Internet Search.
2009 SEO highlights
2009 has been a particularly interesting year for SEOs. There seems to have been more changes to search during 2009 than ever before – including:
- heightened awareness of Local Search
- growth of mobile search
- introduction of Canonical Tags
- announcement of plans for a Yahoo/Bing search “merger”
- the expansion of personalised search
- Real Time search.
2010 SEO Predictions
Rand Fishkin from SEOmoz (one of the industry’s leading authorities on SEO and web marketing) has recently published his 8 Predictions for SEO in 2010. Below are some of my own interpretations of Rand’s Predictions:
Real Time Search
Bing (initially) and Google (recently) have both incorporated Twitter data into their search results – providing a “taste” of what is going on “right now”. There are concerns that these implementations have been a bit rushed, are subject to “gaming” and can very likely be significantly improved. However, the prediction is that real time search – while maybe not going away entirely is likely to fade significantly from the radar in 2010.
Tweet Power
Twitter (and other social media sites) are likely to have greater importance when it comes to Link Building. Already, the links used in tweets (and retweets) appear to be having an impact on rankings. The relevance and reputation of individuals (as opposed to websites) is likely to have an increasing impact during 2010.
Getting Personal
Although personalisation for logged in users has been around for a couple of years, Google released this functionality to everyone early in December and was closely followed by Bing. Now, more than ever, individual user behaviour (such as search history and clicks) will have an influence on the search results displayed. Whilst this is unlikely to change SEO fundamentally, there are likely to be a number of significant impacts:
- Establishing Rankings – Sites that already have high rankings are likely to be much harder to shift. This potentially makes it much harder for new sites to get to the top.
- Branding Matters – having a known and established “brand” is likely to help raise your profile (and rankings) because people are more likely to click on a brand that they recognise – which in turn can improve your rankings. This could very well mean that raising your brand awareness (perhaps by traditional means) is likely to have a positive impact on your search results.
- No “Normal” rankings – Traditional Rank Reporting may show non-personalised search results, but is likely to have little correlation with search results as viewed by potential customers. I predict that for a while some site owners will get very excited about how their rankings have dramatically improved – before realising that it is a direct result of their own click behaviour.
Google and Bing – a two engine World?
Google continues to grow market share in the USA (and still well and truly dominates in Australia). With the Bing/Yahoo search merger likely to go ahead it seems that 2010 could see the organic search arena essentially turned into a 2 horse race with Google still with the lion’s share of 80% of searches and Bing with 20%. There will still be many other specialist search engines, however, the search volumes will be negligible and from an SEO perspective all but the top 2 will essentially be ignored for optimisation.
Site Explorer Demise
Yahoo’s Site Explorer tool is currently one of the most accurate ways to help determine which external websites link to yours. It appears that Site Explorer may become a victim of the Yahoo/Bing search merger.
SEO Spending to Soar
Recent Forrester research data for the USA has indicated that spending on Search Engine Optimisation is likely to grow significantly during 2010. I predict that this will be even more pronounced in Australia – where business is starting to realise (with a shock in many cases) that simply “having” a website is just not good enough. Though this has taken place over the last 5 or so years in the US, the realisation seems to have happened all of a sudden in Australia.
The year of Conversion Rate Optimisation
Conversion Rate Optimisation (or CRO) is probably one of the most under-utilised and highest opportunity activities that you can undertake for your website. Once you have a reasonable volume of site traffic, doubling your sales through CRO is likely to require much less effort (and cost) than doubling your traffic. As Australian businesses get smarter about optimising their websites – and with one hand still on the purse strings as an outcome of the global financial crisis – Conversion Rate Optimisation is going to get a lot more attention in 2010 because quite simply in most cases it provides the best value for money.
More Queries but Less Traffic
Google and Bing have both been introducing extra functionality in their search results that rather than just providing links to the solution for your query – provide the answers themselves – embedded within the search results.
For example if you search for the weather in your region, the search results will display the temperature and short term forecast – without the need for you clicking through to a third party website. In fact a recent Google feature will display the weather forecast as you are typing your query – so you don’t even have to submit the search. Try typing “weather brisbane” into Google.com.
So as Search Engines get better at providing “answers” rather than just links, even as search volumes increase, the traffic that flows through to third party sites, may not necessary increase at the same rate.
A Search Engine’s primary role is to provide users with the information they need – as quickly and easily as possible. So the search engine that does this most consistently, is likely to be (or become) the market leader.
As the Internet continues to grow exponentially, and the features and functionality of Search Engines expand, 2010 has great potential to be the ‘best year ever” for Website owners. 2010 promises to be another fascinating (and busy) year for Search Engine Optimisers as well.
About Darryl
