I thought the first place to begin when writing a post for the coming year would be to start by following up on my 2009 predictions.
reading my thoughts from a year ago, i see how both i underestimated how much certain changes like social migration and integration would affect our work and how other predictions fell short of changing how search engine marketing and optimization would look today.
One of the aspects of search that is only beginning to take shape is the social web or uniquely real-time search.
At the end of 2008 the big question was how will search engines integrate social profile information from the likes of Facebook and twitter into the SERPS. The real power of these collective networks showed just what search engines lacked, the power of the real time web.
Two cases that really helped surface the need for Google to provide a solution for this was both the political uprisings in Iran that took place in June and even more recent events like the Tiger Woods scandal.
Last month both Bing and Google implemented into Googles universal search real time results that integrated both recent blog entries, news and twitter updates. The way Google determines which relevant real time data to be showed is still a mystery and from many commentaries there is still much work on this before we can say that real time results have been successfully implemented but the step just enforces one of the direction the search landscape is taking.
What this also means for Search Engine Optimizers is that scope of work for which we make ourself proficient at in order to rank now includes possibly a mix of social elements that may trigger our sites to rank on the social search. Other consequences of these changes are that the some organic results may be pushed down or given less real estate.
Another inherent and important change in the structure of ranks also come from the expansion of AdWorlds ads, as many may have noticed some AdWords advertisers have been given the opportunity to include sitelinks (similar to the organic ones) on certain high CTR searches, for organically ranking sites this means lower click-throughs as searchers are given more opportunities to click on AdWords Ads.
In the coming months we will see AdWords ads that contain more services such as the once used in organic universal search such as shopping comparison, video and local map information.
So what can we perhaps look forward to in 2010?
1. Brands will continue to get better coverage both organically and on AdWords QS (there is already an evident reason for the latter). or as quoted by SEOmoz “The rich get richer”
2. Personalized search will most likely take even bigger role in the results you see, Google has gathered a lot of information here, it could be a matter of time when the results that you see are completely different then the one your neighbors see.
3. In regards to the local Israeli market, i don’t think that 2010 will bring many changes, but more advertisers will integrate their media campaigns with search and social, the evident catalyst here from the advertising agency perspective is the consolidation of interactive & offline.
4. Analytics and traffic analysis as well as conversion optimization will become a more mainstream service (thats where we are placing our efforts on). Google and others will be offering some really exciting tools (some of which i have had the privilege to beta test) that will give more insights into improving performance of websites and search campaigns.
5. Content & Mobile – many people are saying this and i believe it to be true, 2010 will be the year the content network and mobile network will play an even bigger role in running paid performance campaigns.
6. Twitter offer some sort of advertising model, which wont be similar to what facebook offers, most likely premium accounts with stats and other features. Facebook will offer an improved Advertising platform that makes use of more information from user accounts.
I hope we all have a healthy and prosperous 2010.
Ron
I thought the first place to begin when writing a post for the coming year would be to start by following up on my 2009 predictions.
reading my thoughts from a year ago, i see how both i underestimated how much certain changes like social migration and integration would affect our work and how other predictions fell short of changing how search engine marketing and optimization would look today.
One of the aspects of search that is only beginning to take shape is the social web or uniquely real-time search.
At the end of 2008 the big question was how will search engines integrate social profile information from the likes of Facebook and twitter into the SERPS. The real power of these collective networks showed just what search engines lacked, the power of the real time web.
Two cases that really helped surface the need for Google to provide a solution for this was both the political uprisings in Iran that took place in June and even more recent events like the Tiger Woods scandal.
Last month both Bing and Google implemented into Googles universal search real time results that integrated both recent blog entries, news and twitter updates. The way Google determines which relevant real time data to be showed is still a mystery and from many commentaries there is still much work on this before we can say that real time results have been successfully implemented but the step just enforces one of the direction the search landscape is taking.
What this also means for Search Engine Optimizers is that scope of work for which we make ourself proficient at in order to rank now includes possibly a mix of social elements that may trigger our sites to rank on the social search. Other consequences of these changes are that the some organic results may be pushed down or given less real estate.
Another inherent and important change in the structure of ranks also come from the expansion of AdWorlds ads, as many may have noticed some AdWords advertisers have been given the opportunity to include sitelinks (similar to the organic ones) on certain high CTR searches, for organically ranking sites this means lower click-throughs as searchers are given more opportunities to click on AdWords Ads.
In the coming months we will see AdWords ads that contain more services such as the once used in organic universal search such as shopping comparison, video and local map information.
So what can we perhaps look forward to in 2010?
1. Brands will continue to get better coverage both organically and on AdWords QS (there is already an evident reason for the latter). or as quoted by SEOmoz “The rich get richer”
2. Personalized search will most likely take even bigger role in the results you see, Google has gathered a lot of information here, it could be a matter of time when the results that you see are completely different then the one your neighbors see.
3. In regards to the local Israeli market, i don’t think that 2010 will bring many changes, but more advertisers will integrate their media campaigns with search and social, the evident catalyst here from the advertising agency perspective is the consolidation of interactive & offline.
4. Analytics and traffic analysis as well as conversion optimization will become a more mainstream service (thats where we are placing our efforts on). Google and others will be offering some really exciting tools (some of which i have had the privilege to beta test) that will give more insights into improving performance of websites and search campaigns.
5. Content & Mobile – many people are saying this and i believe it to be true, 2010 will be the year the content network and mobile network will play an even bigger role in running paid performance campaigns.
6. Twitter offer some sort of advertising model, which wont be similar to what facebook offers, most likely premium accounts with stats and other features. Facebook will offer an improved Advertising platform that makes use of more information from user accounts.
I hope we all have a healthy and prosperous 2010.
Ron
ClickWise
