2010 SEO Checklist

2009 has seen so many changes in the Search Engine Industry and you would probably be surprised to realise how these changes have an impact on your business.

The Vince update is already so far away and so 2009 anyway, but 2010 looks very promising and full of exciting innovations that will keep on influencing the way people search, and find.

So here’s our 2010 SEO checklist for Marketing Managers:

1. Personalised Search

The Search Engines have come up with so many new ways to personalise your search results, logged-in or not, based on your search history, on your social media profiles, your location, etc. 2010 will see more of these customised results and the challenge will be to maintain relevancy for all users while businesses will have to maintain their search engine rankings in the new top 8+2. For the online marketers, it will become a greater challenge as they will have to manage the balance between more online profiles to maximise their search engine visibility while ensuring that their primary property ranks ahead of the others.

2. Speed matters

Since Matt Cutts revealed during an interview with Web Pro News that Speed will become part of the Search Engines ranking algorithm in 2010. To rank higher, the webmaster will have to optimise code, technology as well as content delivery strategies to win the race.

3. Real-Time Search

Bing opened the ball this year by starting to index tweets, and Google followed and started displaying real-time search results with its “Latest Search Results” option. The online marketers and the public relations people probably had a chill down their spine realising how much more crucial reputation management then became.

4. Videos

Now that online videos are making their ways up in the marketing budgets and that viral marketing as emerged, video organic rankings have become extremely valuable. The search engines as well have jumped on board, and ever since Google acquired YouTube in 2006, the online video spending has only gone up. Google recently introduced sponsored videos via their AdSense network. Ranking for videos has become critical, and the two big questions for webmasters and online marketers is to decide whether:

a) they are willing to pay the big bucks for sponsored videos as opposed to optimising videos for organic results
b) they want to host their own videos to attract more traffic to their site as opposed to having better chances in ranking for their keywords via video sharing sites.

5. Local Search

The release of Google Maps in 2005 has changed the way people search locally. Little by little, Google Maps has delivered more local results, establishing partnership with local directories and mapping companies to improve the quality of their results. It can now be used in so many aspects, from getting directions to a place to getting a closer look with Street View. The introduction of the new dashboard in the Google Local Business Centre earlier this year has once more proven that it has now become essential to be listed on Google Maps. Bing has recently launched their own Maps engine “Bing Maps”, which has an emphasis on user experience.

These new Maps engine now provide a new arena where the SMEs in particular can easily be found and rank for their search term + location. These businesses can now also be found by users searching for keywords only, using the geo-targeting features of the new smartphone generation with built-in GPS, and therefore potentially converting a sale in minutes if the business is found by a mobile searcher.

These new local business listings also provide an opportunity for businesses to rank for highly competitive terms, even without a website.

If you want to learn more about SEO, Bruce Clay Australia is organising a 1 Day SEO Training presented by Jeremy Bolt in Sydney on February 17th, Brisbane on April 7th, Melbourne on May 12th, and Sydney on June 9th as well as a 3 Days presented by Bruce Clay in Sydney on March 10th, 11th and 12th.