Search Engine Forecast 2008
2007 has been a very interesting year in the SEO/SEM industry. We’ve seen Google gain even more of the search engine market share and the rise and fall of some of the major SEO players. SEO itself has become more of an institution and it seems every company wants in on it whether or not they are qualified. SEO/SEM has become increasingly more visible as hosting and design companies are pushing ’search engine exposure’ as an add-on. There have been feature articles in many popular marketing and business magazines as well. The question has shifted from ‘what is SEO?’ to ‘how much benefit can I get from SEO?’.
With the transition of the industry into the mainstream marketing arena,
...are points of reference in your readers minds - they help them triangulate where you re coming from, and where you re going. It ll make your content more readable, understandable, and satisfying. Brian B. Carter, MS is a San ...
1.) Death of DMOZ
DMOZ may not be so well-known outside Web and tech savvy circles, but DMOZ still has a lot of influence on Google, Netscape, and AOL search. DMOZ is a non-profit open directory that is maintained by editors. Web masters submit their site to the directory and editors approve or deny the listing. This is of
...deal of relevance and good content with reference to 'EDC Diamond' will be listed above one with a poor content on 'EDC Diamond program', even if it happens to be the title of the web page. A site with all ...
The incredible difficulty of getting listed in the directory mixed with rampant corruption charges has pushed most Webmasters and SEOs to give up on DMOZ all together. I believe that sometime this coming year, Google will distance itself from DMOZ and signal the death of the directory.
...it an even more powerful tool for SEO purposes. Our experience has been that blogs that take advantage of Google's Blogger or Wordpress are quickly indexed. Another way blogging can help your site's search engine ranking is by the quality ...
2.) Purchase/consolidation of major SEO companies
It would be very suprising if the major SEO companies didn’t start receiving more offers for purchase from larger traditional marketing companies. Because SEO/SEM is so alien to most marketing companies, the risks and costs are far higher to start an SEO division than to buy an
...the page generation speed. To simplify things, Blogger has fewer settings for configurations than Wordpress, but Wordpress makes it easier to up team blogs by assigning different roles to different members enhancing user participation. Ultimately, the Wordpress blog is considered ...
My list of most likely to sell all or part of the company to a larger marketing/Web company:
ICrossing - Big lay offs when they hired new CFO Michael Jackson. They still claim to be trying to set up an IPO, but it seems likely that they could be purchased by another publicly traded company if the IPO bid does not pan
...They would also discuss how to appraise and fit in important metrics into your campaign management. With these companies you just need explain your requirements and why you feel you might need assistance. And they would show you how to ...
SEO, Inc. - One of the older SEO companies and still privately owned. It seems likely they may take the IProspect route and sell to a much larger marketing firm. SEO, Inc. has reached the level where it has to grow to a larger corporate entity, sell to a larger corporate marketing company, or stagnate as a small business.
Submit Express - They are one of the few original SEO companies to maintain rankings for ’search engine optimization’ after the Google flush of last year. They should take notes from SEO, Inc. and ensure they can market and sell outside of #1 rankings. They are growing rapidly and are in a prime position to sell. Marketing companies would buy
...usability guidelines: be as brief as you can; use bulleted lists and highlighted keywords; chunk the material; and use descriptive headings, subheads, and hyperlinks." These guidelines all fall nicely into the standard Search Engine Optimization requirements. It seem that it ...
3.) Record growth in the SEO/SEM industry
SEO is here to stay. The industry has grown year after year and the core methodologies are far more refined. The major search engines are no longer doing massive changes to their ranking algorithms and ethical SEOs have learned to work together with the engines against of against them. Google has gotten very good at weeding out spam and unethical tactics forcing many of the ‘less-than-ethical’ SEOs out of business by simply making them ineffective. More and more companies are realizing how powerful organic search really is. I predict the best year so far for SEO.
The main thing to keep an
...they load so slowly that most dial-up users can t navigate in the site. We are talking 30 to 40 second page load times. If you have this problem, you are immediately losing the 45 percent of people using dial-up. ...
4.) Google will continue to dominate the SE market
Despite what many market analysts and bloggers like to fantasize about, Google will not fall from grace this year. It’s predicted every year now, but the stock is stronger than ever and continuing to climb. Google is expanding into radio and television now and bringing a whole new model for advertising to the forefront. I don’t see
...Plenty of people, though, have nice search rankings but don't make any money. The difference is I've got a squeeze page and I don't have the greatest search rankings, although I've got some good 20 pages I'm sure in the ...
5.) Google will start being very apparent in the television advertising market
Google has a history of expanding before waiting to see results. They expanded into radio and allowed PPC clients to run ads on the radio with the same ease as running them on the Web. I do not think Google will sit around crunching numbers to see if the PPC model applied to radio is the next evolution or not. I think they will expand into television as soon as possible. Most likely, this will happen this year and initially be announced quietly. It’ll be a new feature in Google Adwords accounts sometime in 2008.
6.) Yahoo! will unveil
...readers to find their way round your site. Breadcrumbs 'Breadcrumbs' is the name given to a list of pages that shows the visitor how this page is reached from the Home page. Each page in the list links to the ...
Yahoo! has always had trouble in the PPC market and sought to attack Google directly with a new search advertising model called Panama that was launched in February of 2007. It was a dismal launch that only saw Google take even more market share. Later in 2007, the CEO was let go. Considering that 80%+ of Yahoo!’s revenue comes from advertising, they will need to do something huge this year. Whether it be a totally reworked PPC program or intense advertising of their system, they have to do something to increase the number of PPC customers. Of course, advertisers go where the users are. If Yahoo! manages to pick up a better share of the
...weight and regain a normal healthy life. The Hoodia Gordonii Plus product was first tried on rats and you know how they eat. There is virtually nothing those little things will not eat up. By administering Hoodia Gordonii Plus to ...
7.) YouTube will cause Google more headaches
The RIAA, MPAA, and television networks have grown more and more militant about their content ending up on the Web. The RIAA, especially, has escalated this into a full blown war that has them in court on a daily basis suing pirates and content providers. YouTube has been in hot water for hosting copyrighted content for over two years. It’s purchase by Google has seemingly provided it with more slack and negotiation powers, but the facts are that a huge portion of the content on YouTube is copyrighted (and not by YouTube). I seriously doubt the major media companies will allow it to continue as it
...services for a fee. The best of these is WordTracker.com. This is quite expensive but quite rewarding. GoogleFight.com let you compare two keywords and tells you which is more popular. As you make up your list of keywords, you should ...
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About the Author: Steve comes from a rich Web background where he has worked on the design, development, and marketing aspects of hundreds of Web sites. Formerly from Mississippi where he attended Ole Miss, Steve moved to San Diego to pursue further challenges in the Web
...an example. In the meanwhile you can work on search engine optimization, there are number of solutions available 1- link exchanges 2- SEO Expertise Link exchange is a process by which you exchange reciprocal links with other sites to improve ...
To compete in the rapidly growing marketplace of SEM, Treehouse immediately set itself apart by placing Chief Technology Officer DeVries at the helm, who is one of the most coveted experts in the industry today. DeVries was previously a lead technical consultant at a competing local firm, achieving top rankings for major clients such as Entrepreneur, Vegas.com, Viacom, Workopolis, and Ziff Davis Media. DeVries’ experience has brought him much industry attention and placed him in high demand as a speaker at industry events by those looking to pick his brain.