It is almost the end of 2010 so now is the time to look into the future of SEO (Search Engine Optimisation). Much has happened this year in SEO and I’m certain a lot more will happen next year too, here is one of the major highlights from this year…
Yahoo and Bing Join Forces –
This is on of the biggest merges to happen this year, and for once, it isn’t about Google! Bing and Yahoo joined together to create search results. Yahoo’s organic search was dropped for Bings search platform and both the desktop and mobile versions are now powered by Bing. Obviously, Bings market share shot up, going from 10% to over 25% and Google is still around the 70% mark.
These made SEOs’ sit up and start to take Bing a little more seriously. Ranking in Bing became more significant, you would be losing out on a quarter of the internet traffic by disregarding it and dropping down in its rankings.
SEO in 2011
I know I’m stating the obvious, but changes will be made, Google admits they are always changing, so we need to as well. So, with this in mind, what should we expect?
• Social media sites will make a huge advance in SEO, Google is searching through Twitter and Bing takes into account different Facebook likes.
• When change does occur (which it will), ranking signals will almost without doubt be behind it.
• Performance is Google’s biggest fascination, so there will be more changes in this region.
• Bing wants more and more of the ‘search pie’ and Google will not want to lose the large slice that it already has, so expect large advances in search from both parties (I know this is a very vague point, but it will definitely happen!)
Unique Content will be King… Still
If you write anything on the internet, you will have more and more pressure piled on you to produce as much unique content as possible, but obviously, still including high value and keywords. Interaction on your page will be paramount; the search engines will make a decision on how important and relevant your page is, they will decide this by how much conversation is going on. They may even start to observe what is being said in these conversations, if a page is getting some bad reviews, its ranking may go down, and the other way round if it gets good reviews. Links pointing to your site will still be important, but also social media links and how your page ranks alongside similar pages with matching subjects will be vitally important.
No matter what you are doing or what you are writing, you need to engage with as many people as possible. If anybody makes a comment on any of your social platforms or on your own site, you should respond, even if it’s a simple ‘thank you’. Offer people help, guidance, good content, anything that will get people involved, because in the long run, it will help you too.
The good thing about this regular engagement with people as this has a great long term effect. As long as you have great content and are nice to people when they comment, your standing as a great leader of information in your field will grow and grow. Search engines will take note of this and so will be familiar with your site as one of the top resources to visit.
These long term tactics will benefit you so much more than the black hat techniques used, these techniques only work for a few months and then your site will drop off the face of the earth. Great SEO’s are in the game for the long haul.
