What does the future hold for SEO?
What does the future hold for SEO?
What does the future hold for SEO?
It's the end of the year and it's that time again where people start to look into their magic crystal balls and try to predict what will happen in SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) in 2011. There have been a lot of things going on in 2010 and I know that much more will change in 2011, but what will those changes be? First, lets just have a quick recap on one of the biggest things to happen in 2010
Not Google May Day, but Google Caffeine
Don't confuse Google Caffeine with any of the changes around May Day, I know it happened close to it, but it was a completely separate event and didn't have any direct impact on rankings.
Google Caffeine was a major infrastructure change and was built so that it could quicken the indexing system at Google. The way Google used to do it was much slower as everything was updated in batches, this obviously meant that new content wasn't being constantly found and indexed. But now, with Caffeine working, updates are made continuously, allowing for content to be constantly updated.
Looking into my SEO Crystal Ball
With search engines always moving the goal posts, SEO's need to be keeping their eye on the ball if they want to score! Enough with the football talk. Search engines like to change, they like to keep things fresh and they want search to become faster and faster. So what does my SEO crystal ball say?
Social media will play an even bigger role in SEO and should be at the forefront of everyone's minds. It has become prominent this year, with Google searching Twitter and Bing liking Facebook Likes' I believe social networking sites will be key.
Any major change to search will be because of ranking signals.
With Googles obsession on performance, I can safely say that changes will occur in that area.
And my final broad statement Google and Bing will do something big in 2011. It's a fact, they do it every year and I don't see 2011 being any different. They need to keep everything fresh and interesting so they will keep coming up with new ideas, some will work, some won't, we'll just have to wait and see. Bing will attempt to make major strides next year in search, they want to take a big chunk out of Googles search percentage and of course Google will try to make sure that doesn't happen.
Unique Content is Top Dog
We all know that search engines love unique content and that's never going to really change. But it's still important that whatever and wherever you write on the internet, it has to be completely your own and unique. With my prediction of social media being even more key to SEO next year, you have to be aware of everything you write on the internet. That includes comments, Facebook posts, Twitter posts, everything! When you are writing articles, think about the reader and ask them questions or ask for their advice or knowledge. You want to create as many conversations on your site as possible because if the search engines see a lot of activity on your site then they're going to assume that its good content and push it higher up in the rankings. Of course links will still be very important but links from social networking sites will be like gold dust.
Make sure you get involved with conversations on your website, don't be afraid to jump in and add your own opinion, or just a simple Thank you for commenting' goes a long way. If people see you responding to others then it will encourage them to get involved too. Another key thing is to write for other people, and if you are already doing that, then don't hold back on writing good content for others. If it's good, people will read it and share it, not matter where it is posted. It will still have your name and links to you in it, so you don't want to give yourself a bad reputation.
There is a fantastic long term benefit to having these conversations building up on your site. It would be very difficult for new sites to create as many comments as you would have built up over a short space of time, so creating these discussions can push you higher up the ranking and keep you there.
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