Link Builders Go Bye Bye – As a major algorithm cleanup, Google and other engines will drop or purge sites that artificially bought their way to top organic SEO rankings via buying links. Link building companies will start to become obsolete as link building for SEO becomes ineffective. The financial impact is felt as far away as India and the Philippines, where many of these link building companies were stationed.

Shady SEO Companies Go Bye Bye – The search engines will move away from “seo tactics” and instead rank sites based on their “quality.”  Sites that best hit their target markets, judged by low bounce rate and audience engagement will be the sites that rank well across all platforms.  Shady SEO companies that built their success based on “fooling the search engines” will be exposed and will eventually vanish from site. Good SEO companies that focus on all facets of a web site (web design, web development, web marketing) will become the new “go to” companies. The financial impact is also felt as far away as India and the Philippines, where many of the shady optimization companies were stationed.

Google Increases Market Share to 80% – In 2010, I predict Google will increase it’s market share from currently about 72% to 80% of the market. Their continued growth comes at the expense of both Yahoo! and Bing, where audience share will decline because Google (as a result of algorithm changes) will be providing it’s audience better search results.

Mobile Search – I know I’ve been saying it for years but this is finally the year when Mobile Search hits the big time. Already with staggering growth, it is shocking that mobile search is still not a major part of most people’s marketing mix. In 2010, I predict that mobile gets into the mainstream of all marketers alike, both global and locally-based.

Conversion Optimization Gets Its Due- Finally, conversion optimization will not be just for serious marketers but instead will be a tactic and a topic of discussion amongst everyone who markets online. Brought on by last year’s recession, the business of “improving your bottom line” just by tweaking your landing pages, your messages, etc. will get a serious look. Budgets for conversion optimization in 2010 will be allocated accordingly.

Change is Coming – Something, somewhere, someone is lurking around the corner waiting to capture the hearts and minds of Internet users much like Twitter and Facebook did in 2009. Whether it be a new social media site, a change in technology, or the way that we market ourselves online, one prediction we can count on each and every year is that there likely will be a major change to look forward to in the coming year.

Will any or all of these bold prediction turn out? Only time with tell. One thing for sure is that everyone, from peers to customers, are looking forward to a better year and more prosperous 2010.

Every day, it seems, we in the Online Marketing Industry ponder the same question…where is this thing going? What is the future of search? If you’ve been around as many years as I have, this age-old-question never gets tired. In fact, the constant change and the unknowing is likely why many of us got into search in the first place. Those who guessed right over the years (link bulders, content writers, bloggers, reputation managers) have built tremendous businesses for themselves. Others have maintained and grown their SEO companies, one client at a time. Either way, our Industry continues to thrive on the education and understanding of how search works and how can it improve over time.

So, where is this going? Well, if you believe Google CEO, Eric Schmidt, the search engines (if they had their way) would “connect straight to your brain” so they would know exactly what you intended when you searched.  Of course, this is a joke, but the point being that the holy grail of search is to give the user one exactly right answer to a query. That is a lofty goal but a goal nonetheless set by the top search engine – so if there is any indication on where this thing may be going – consider this as the proper direction.

When looking at some of the recent advances in search results being made by Bing and Yahoo!, you can see positive strides being made towards making this goal a reality (and really giving the user the exact right result to their query).  Yahoo! Search now offers Search History, Related Search, and Search Monkey results in their left hand channel, as well as Yahoo! Travel (a top portal site) information such a hotels, flights, maps, and restaurant guides.

Bing, of course, is the first so-called “decision” engine and had already incorporated these types of feature sets into their SERPS. All these enhancements are meant to provide users with better, more relevant results and a more personalized experienced- the same goal of the future that Eric Schmidt from Google shared above. Interestingly enough, this approach seems to be working. Bing’s share of market increased from 8% to 9.2% last month.

So, what is the future of search?  It likely will include more personalization and a better understanding of what you mean when you type (search contextual web). Will it take the form of what we currently see today? Chances are likely that the way we see results will change, as it’s been changing rapidly these past few years. Keep in mind, moble search is coming and coming fast…

Maybe the name signifies a true wake up call but on August 10th, 2009 Google announced it will be launching changes to it’s search engine algorithm with it’s soon-to-launch “Caffeine” update. This update will be geared to compete more effectively with Social Media sites that provide “real-time search”, an important feature already employed at effectively Twitter and currently in-the-works at Facebook. Real-time search will allow searchers to obtain information as it happens, something the major search engines have always been very ineffective at providing. The true goal of the “Caffeine” update is to indexing content faster, something Google already does fairly quickly. According to the Google Webmaster Central Team, this update is “the first step in a process that will let us push the envelope on size, indexing speed, accuracy, comprehensiveness and other dimensions”.  Google is still testing the “Caffeine” update but look for it to roll out soon.
On another note, Google is now randomly experimenting with “bread crumbs” in their search engine results pages (SERPS). Bread crumbs, just like on e-commerce sites, provide links that help users know exactly what page they are on and gives them an ability to find their way back home. These are showing up randomly in the SERPS but look for a more aggressive roll out in the near future. This is an exciting feature set that will provide extra value to searchers. Way to go Google on this one!

So, what does this possible future mean to the website owner/search engine marketer? Especially those of us that have been so dependent on keywords since the dawn of the Internet? Below are some tips for preparing for this possible new world:

1. Design your website for your customer – make it easy to navigate and user-friendly and try to keep your users on the site as long as possible. In the future, Google will likely place more value on on-site user experiences.
2. Build your brand – branding and positioning will also grow in importance for Google.
3. Hire Experience – Hire a search engine optimizer that is looking at all your data and is thinking about the future of SEO (i.e. predictive technology).
4. Hire Experience II – Old School SEO tactics are now a commodity and too many people claim to have expertise in this field now. BUT Google is always looking for new ways to determine relevancy, and most SEO’s do not take the time to keep up – so make sure you choose an expert who can advise you on the latest SEO trends.
5. Mine Your Data – Begin by looking at your own website data from Google Analytics, Google Trends, Google Insight to get a sense of existing user patterns. Learn a little about how your users are using your site right now.
6. Think profit optimization over search engine optimization – If you build a site and a brand that delivers a good product or service, you will not be left out of the mix. If you instead focus on tactics and strategies that are too narrow -minded (give me a top ranking), you may completely miss the boat.

It’s hard for all of us to imagine a world without keywords. For those using search engines for some time now, we’ve grown accustomed to getting to what we want via keyword searching. The change would inevitably shake up the Industry but if the end game is really a better experience for searchers and for  advertisers, this change will ultimately be a positive one.

A few weeks ago, I predicted that “conversion optimization” would become a significant factor in 2009 for most online businesses. Now, only a day into the New Year, I am even more convinced that 2009 will be the year conversion optimization gets its due.

Conversion optimization, simply stated, is the process of improving your site’s conversion rate (visitors to sales, visitor to leads, etc.). There are a number of ways to do this from the basic (a/b testing) to the complex (technologically-based landing page optimization programs) but your efforts put here can significantly impact your bottom line.

Below are reasons why I think you need a conversion optimization program and why I believe this will be the web’s next big thing:

1) The numbers make a lot of sense – For most organizations, small increases in conversion rates can mean giant increases in revenues. A customer selling $1000 widgets, for example, with 10,000 visitors and a 2% conversion rate makes $200,000 per month. If the site’s conversion rate goes from 2% to 2.5%, for example, this same customer makes $250,000 without any additional increases in expenditures (all things being equal). With dramatic increases like this example portrays, these numbers are too hard too ignore.

2) The cost of traffic is increasing – Almost everywhere across the board, customer acquisition costs are rising. Pay per click costs are rising…SEO costs are rising… comparison shopping engines costs are rising…blog advertising costs are rising…online PR campaigns are rising – the list goes on and on.  Blame the economy if you will but these increases are due to more competitors entering the market competing for your same clicks. AND these costs are only going to continue to rise. Conversion optimization, however, will help you “off-set” those rising costs. As soon as businesses figure this out, I am convinced more attention will be placed in conversion optimization programs.

3) Marketing budgets are shrinking. – Unfortunately, one of the first things to go in a down economy for most businesses is their marketing budgets. What marketing directors will be tasked with this coming year is to get more out of the same (or smaller) budgets…aka do more with less. With this is mind, those marketing directors that pay attention to conversion optimization will become the heroes of their organizations.  

4) Why lose 99% of your audience? – The old “one size fits all” method of web design and development may have worked in 2005 but it no longer is sufficient in 2009. YOU have many types of customers that come to your website and each has a different personality, profile, and need. Studies show that conversion rates are shrinking (to 1%, on average). With all of the knowledge we have and all of the advanced analytical tools, this is mind blowing to me. We, as an Industry, can not accept losing 99% of our audience. With a conversion optimization program, you can serve up different experiences to different profiles of people and reverse this trend!

5) It is cost effective – Many conversion optimization programs take the guess work out giving your audience what they want. Some tools are free but will demand a lot of your time and resource, while other programs offer performance guarantees. Either way, your efforts will be rewarded for spending time on improving your sites conversion rate.

In a way I feel like I did ten years ago when I was talking about ”search engine optimization.” Most people looked at me funny and had no idea what I was talking about. That is the look I now get when I mention Conversion Optimization. Yet, this time, because money is issue #1 for most Americans, I believe 2009 will be the year of conversion optimization!

If you are interested in learning more about a conversion optimization program, please contact Christine McKibban @  760-481-4626

1) SEO gets Uber Competitive- In a down economy, the best bet online is still a FREE click.  Next year, I predict an onslaught of companies trying to competitively position themselves for these free clicks.  Expect a frenzy of activity, lots of new entrants, and the utilization of underhanded, cut-throat, and even black-hat tactics. Everyone will be vying for top rankings in a very limited marketing space (where only the top ten results matter) and I anticipate they will be doing anything they can to make it happen.  Expect a lot of both the good and bad here from companies next year but know for sure that people are coming after your coveted rankings and will be spending considerable time, effort, and resource to get there.

2) “Super-Sized” Websites:  As people truly begin to start ”optimizing”, you will see sites grow in terms of their size, by leaps and bounds. Twenty page websites, once the norm, will now be insufficient and generally unable to rank well in Google. In 2009, I predict that we will start to witness the birth of the “super-sized” website.  Anyone trying to compete effectively online will absolutely need to have a GIANT website with thousands of pages ready, willing and able to be indexed on the web. In SEO, size does matter and next year large sites will become the standard that all participants in the game will need to have, if they are to survive.

3) A Boon for Content Developers: If you are a copywriter (or any maker of content for that matter), you will be rewarded handsomely in 2009. You know the cliche’ but content really will be Queen, King, and everything else Regal next year.  Who do you suppose is going to help these websites grow from 20 to 1000 pages?    

4) The Continued Growth of Social Media- There are currently no standard measurement tools and I truly think nobody knows yet how to best do it but we do know for sure that your prospective customers are spending an enormous amount of time social networking on sites such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Tagged, Digg, StumbleUpon, Squiddo, de.licio.us, and MySpace.  As these sites continue to grow in popularity, the Industry will find a better way to market and standardize the practice in 2009, allowing for ALL online marketers to participate in Social Media Marketing with the same ease that they are currently able to do with search.

5) On-Going Growth of Industry- The online marketing Industry is in great shape. Next year, we will see the proliferation of advertising dollars funnel from traditional media like TV, Radio, and Print to Online. We will start to see more client experiment with Ad Networks, Banner Ads, Social Media Marketing, Online PR, and Link Building (in additional to on-going efforts in search engine marketing as noted above).    

6) Conversion Optimization Rules  - If ”conversion optimization” seems like a foreign term, you’ll no doubt be hearing a ton about it in 2009. Conversion Optimization in it’s simplest form is the practice of improving your conversion rate by providing more ”relevant” experiences to your visitors through behavioral testing and landing page optimization. Some companies like www.Magnify360.com, however, have technologies that can supercharge the typical A/B, Multivariate testing process that can take most firms years to show result. Conversion Optimization will come into the vernacular in 2009 as conversion rates continue to slide for most companies.  

7) Goodbye Brittney??? If you hadn’t heard it yet, Brittney Spears was the #1 searched term in 2008, winning the title for a second year in a row.  Sadly, in an election year, (his election year) Barrack Obama could only pull #3. This year…Someone will finally supplant Brittney Spears as the topped searched term in 2009.  Maybe its wishful thinking but I have got to believe that something more worthwhile will take the crown in 2009. Somebody. Anybody. Please.