THE IMMEDIATE FUTURE FOR SEO
One of Bob Dylan’s most famously quoted lyrics is, “For the times they are a-changin’” Never has that been more prevalent than in the world of internet marketing. Just a few years ago getting number one rankings on Google was relatively easy. We as internet marketing specialists can only look back at those times and think of the good old days of “low hanging fruit”. In 1998 when Google was just opening it’s doors the company indexed 26 million pages of content, by 2000 that number had reached 1 billion pages of content. In the year 2008 there were over a trillion webpages of indexed content on Google! That’s a lot of information to keep track of; more importantly a lot more competition for those marketing online.
Concerning all of these new webapges, Google as well as other search engines, are constantly updating their algorithms to make searches more relevant and targeted to the user. Social search outlets as well as semantic web software (improvements in the working relationship between computer and man) are some of the new trends with search engines and search marketing companies alike.
THE EVOLVING SEARCH ENGINE
Microsoft recently unveiled the new search engine Bing which works as a “decision search engine”. New additions to Bing over the old MSN include video and image preview within the search results, local information that is personalized in the organic rankings (traffic, business listings, maps, reviews etc…) and instant answers. For example, current information will be displayed first in the organic listings for sports scores, finance, airline flight status’, celebrity news, new products/services and many other search terms. Bing, in essence, is making search results based more upon geotracking, recent search history, account/profile settings and currently published articles. Google, believe it or not, keeps tabs on what you are searching for. Other search engines like Yahoo, as well as industry specific vertical search engines are quickly adopting these new methods of indexing. internet marketing just got more complicated!
What specifically, if anything, does this new technology in search engine indexing mean for businesses looking to get number one rankings? It means that a website can no longer solely focus on proper keyword text optimization. The term ‘Digital Asset Optimization’ has been thrown around some in the past years as a term to describe the practice of taking all of a company’s digital assets and promoting them through relevant marketing channels in addition to developing appropriate keyword and linking strategies. Digital Assets refers to various types of interactive media (video, image, audio, blog, podcast, ebook, webinar, RSS feed, news/pr, product/service, social media and networking sites). It was only a couple years ago that hardly and search engine marketing firms had adopted the use of Digital Asset Optimization, but in today’s economy more and more search marketing firms are jumping on board to stay ahead of the curve.
BUILDING YOUR SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMZATION PLAYBOOK
A recent Marketing Experiments Inc. poll indicated that in the future 90% of B2B buying communication will be through video. Tools are already on the market for general public to create professional looking videos with ease. Today’s consumer wants to be entertained while quickly absorbing information to make smarter purchase decisions. It is up to us as SEO and SEM marketers to incorporate search engine optimization strategy into interactive media. The same rules do not apply to interactive media as they do with traditional SEO or SEM. A common rule of thumb in search marketing is to create and publish a lot of content. Creating a lot of quality rich content will not only gain a prospects trust but also look first-rate in the eyes of search engine spiders. Online Marketing isn’t all about content creation but more so about creating an online charisma that extends to hundreds or thousands places on the web. Your content should be considered a brand extension of your company.
No matter what trends may come and go one thing will always remain constant: Content is King. The internet is no longer a digital storefront for an organization but rather a venue for a company to engage and interact with its customers. SEO Marketers need to be aware of the challenges of creating, branding, promoting and optimizing new forms of rich interactive content for their clients. For those search engine marketing agencies willing to take SEO and SEM to the next level the long-term rewards will be numerous.
