Important Trends in SEO

Convergence

Technology is changing. Every device you buy today has a screen and the ability to do the function of three gadgets you bought last year. This characteristic is known as convergence.   We are seeing convergence in many areas of technology and it is important to consider the effect that it will have on our search and surfing habits.

Video – a more accessible medium for some topics. Becoming more important because of YouTube and availability of cheap technology, digital camcorders, mobile phones, broadband speeds, fibre optic networks to the home.

Mobile Surfing – proper internet is now a reality for many people and surfing the web on your phone is a now commonplace. Analytics firm Net Applications report that 66.44 per cent of mobile traffic browsing the web last month was accounted for by iPhones. However, the surfing enjoyment is still limited by the speed of data even with  3G and HSDPA phones.

There is also huge growth in the popularity of other web enabled mobile devices such as PMPs (Personal media players) , MIDs (Mobile Internet Devices) and UMPCs (Ultra Mobile PCs) we can expect to see growth in importance of search optimisation for mobile devices. Although this will largely centre on usability as many devices are still limited by speed and the small screens of mobile devices. We can expect the growth of search and video through mobile devices to increase as technology continues to improve.

Loss of Generality

Universal search bring results from many Google sources of information. Video,  images, books, magazines. Local search give more importance to site near to the location where the query came from. Making geo-targeting keywords more important.

Search results for a query can vary with location, time dependence?, search history. If you are signed into a Google service you will receive personalised results. We have also seen Search Wiki allowing you to order results or remove results. At present, these user chosen results are not used to influence rankings for anyone else, however, the data collected could conceivably be used to re-rank results or remove sites from the rankings. A good overview of personal search and how it may affect the industry is given at Site Reference.com

Success Metrics

Personalised search and local search are making rankings a less important measure of SEO success. Other measures of success which will be more useful include traffic and return on investment, that is too say by utilising SEO we have sold x number of units of our product. This can also be problematic because the website may have usability problems.

Increasingly, usability is now an important part of optimising a site it can be useful . The visitor should be able to find their way around the site in a way that is not confusing or goes against conventions they are familiar with. If they arrive at a page within the site they should be able to see exactly where they are in relation to the rest of the site. Visitors should be able to search for products using a search box and also be able to find the information they are looking for without thinking about how to do it.

Traffic through Communities rather than Search

Search still makes up the bulk of finding information on the web however new ways are emerging in the form of social networks. These essentially work on the basis of recommendation from trust worthy sources and so provide an online word of mouth.

Twitter has seen exponential growth since Oct 2008 and has the potential to create communities of people to drive repeat traffic to website or blogs.

Social Networks -Facebook, Stumbleupon, My Space, Digg and hundreds more sites are building communities of users with a shared interest or friendship or business contacts. There is still much debate on how to make this traffic convert to sales. Different strategies work for different types of social media.  Concentrating on networks that share your niche interest are likely to be successful in creating links and driving in traffic. If you can use social media to create a receptive community then you can create targeted traffic with repeat visitors. Social media offers another tool in the SEO toolbox which can be used to promote websites and gain exposure.It may also prove to be useful in generating good personalised search rankings.