Future of SEO - the Future of Search

The Future of SEO, SEM, & Internet Marketing

Created by Andrew Hallinan, SEO Consultantwww.AndrewHallinan.com

http://www.andrewhallinan.com/

SES West 2011 – The Future of Search Marketing

Agenda The Purpose of Search Engines & Why Search Spam

Has Become a Huge Problem for SEO Integration of Social Media Into Organic SEO Challenges to Social Media Marketing Key Takeaways

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Goals of Search Engines “The perfect search engine would understand exactly what you

mean and give back exactly what you want.”

Search Engine Marketing A way to promote websites by increasing their visibility in

search engine result pages (SERPs) through the use of search engine optimization, paid placement, contextual advertising, and paid inclusion

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Introduction


Search results are becoming less and less reliable among Google and Bing Websites with irrelevant content and spammy content are

becoming a huge problem on the Internet Originated from AdSense and other advertising networks

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The Web Spam Problem


http://www.best-us-romantic-getaways.com/

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http://www.best-us-romantic-getaways.com/


Fierce battle raging between Google and Yah-Bing Continuously fighting for market share of consumers As of January:

Google holds 65.6% market share Yahoo/Bing has 29.3% market share

2011 will be the biggest year for SEO changes in the history of the internet

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The Web Spam Problem


Higher quality results Cracking down on content farms Cracking down on duplicate content Cracking down on web scraping (copying and pasting

content or data from other websites for use on your own site)

Cracking down on black hat techniques

Adding more weight to social search metrics, standards, and indicators

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The Web Spam Solution


December 2nd 2010 Google & Bing announced that links sent through Twitter and Facebook have a direct impact in rankings

Author Authority is now measured and taken into consideration

This may be used as much of a ranking factor as Google’s PageRank in the future

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Social Search Metrics in Organic SEO


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Page Rank Visually


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Twitter Network Example


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Author Authority Visually


Quantity of Friends/Followers

Importance of Friends/Followers Do your friends and followers already have high

Author Authority?

Analysis of Friends/Followers Ratios Is the social user is engaging in following/follower

behavior purely out of reciprocity vs. true interest and engagement?

Topic Focus / Relevance of your network

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Future Factors of Author Authority


January 21st 2011 Google announced changes which make it harder for

spammy on-page content to rank highly Radically improved their ability to detect hacked

sites Announced that they were “evaluating multiple

changes that should help drive spam levels even lower” Including changes that affect sites which copy content

and sites with low levels of original content

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Recent Organic SEO Changes


February 14th 2011 Google announces new Chrome extension which

allows you to block sites from Google’s web search results

February 17th 2011 Google introduces changes to social search Acknowledges that “relevance isn’t just about pages

– it’s also about relationships”

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February 24th, 2011 Google announced their largest algorithm change ever Affecting 11.8% of all searches

Designed to “reduce rankings for low-quality sites—sites which are low-value add for users, copy content from other websites or sites that are just not very useful.”

Provide better rankings for high-quality sites—sites with original content and information such as research, in-depth reports, thoughtful analysis and so on

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The changes on February 24th did not take data from their new Chrome extension into consideration

Its important to note that 83% of the spammy sites taken down by the algorithm change had been blocked by users using the Chrome extension

This gives us reason to believe that the Chrome extension will be a ranking factor in the future

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Connect with your target audience and consumers on a more relational level

Reduce marketing costs by dialoging with customers and building communities

Ability to be on page 1 of Google almost instantly after generating a buzz

Being used for customer service, technical support, reputation management, lead nurturing, etc

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Why Social Media?


Allows you to instantly micro-target your customers Use TweetDeck to “listen” for someone who is ready

to purchase or use your product and deliver a targeted offer at the right time

Building a community and positioning your brand as the leading expert will ultimately lead to higher ROI on all marketing spend

Your audience becomes the content producer for your brand – instant SEO value

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Why Social Media?


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Social media marketing cannot scale. Very difficult to scale the marketing efforts Cannot scale without human interaction Can use systems to help in the process with follow

up messages, direct messages, etc

Security, control, and legal issues. Who develops content? Does it pass legal requirements? Does it pass the brand manager’s approval?

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Challenges to Overcome in 2011


Reporting is ad-hoc and a real problem. There are not many systems on the market to track

spend, revenue, conversion rates, etc

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Challenges to Overcome in 2011


Search in 2011 Will become based more on social ranking factors

which are harder to cheat and more reliable than traditional ranking factors

Will be constantly changing and focusing more and more on community development and higher quality content for maximum SEO

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Key Takeaways


Brands will need strong social media presences to be competitive in their industries

Brands will need to focus on high quality, low quantity content “Give them something super informative or show

them a good time.”

Scraping, duplicate content, and black hat techniques should all be avoided

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Key Takeaways


Q&A

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Future of SEO - the Future of Search

Technology

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