Search Engine Optimization

SEO Marketing Future

Where will SEO be in five, ten, fifteen years?

Tricky question.

To predict the future of SEO we need to understand the following points.

 

 

 

 

• SEO is powerful
• It is way more powerful then Yellow Pages, Paper/Magazine ads, Radio Commercials and in some niche fields. SEO outranks TV.
• SEO is expensive. Marketing campaigns come at stiff prices ranging at five digits, something that keeps the industry spinning very effectively for many years.
• SEO is new. Though SEO, which was considered spam back in the day is still in its earliest years in comparison to dinosaur newspapers and long presence of radio and TV.

There is no definitive formula. There are major guidelines, however, there is no textbook that teaches SEO and predicts its future developments. Search engines adjusts the algorithms every so often, there is simply no way of documenting it long term and for the future. Even SEO rock stars disagree on many points:

Google Search Engine Raking Factors
Link Value Factors

Though they agree on major point and factors, there is a lot of uncertainty on many smaller things. Nevertheless all of them work. This can be explained by stating that there a few ways to SEO. Different businesses require different approach.

• Some might go for content development, community driven SEO, that is getting free links and referrals by building communities. For niche industries and bigger ones.

• Hard link building and on page SEO.

• Niche SEO, long tail keywords, lower demand, but many landing pages, that combined, give plenty of traffic.

SEO is still not valued for what it is. Many people have old mind frames. Kind of like my grandma saying: “How do you listen to that music?” Beautiful tunes they are, but she won’t get it.

So knowing all that, what is the future of search engine optimization and where is going?

The Corporate future of corporate SEO.

Lets look at the what big names are doing.

Many corporations have got themselves in-house SEO, or planning to get search engine optimization teams in the future. We cant say that all of them do it wrong, but a post from SEO book highlights some of the mistakes.

"…I quickly found out that corporate bureaucracy and office politics prevented me from implementing many of the most cutting edge techniques that would have given sportsline.com the competitive advantage it needed to set itself apart in the organic space…"

"…Both from a site-side and link-building perspective, the workload is extremely heavy, often forcing SEO employees to choose between quality and timely delivery of recommendations…."

"…Add a high level of competitiveness among agencies and the result is a high level of turnover and relatively low number of truly qualified applicants. And did I mention the endless stream of meetings, calls, presentations, and contractual legwork?…"

Due to the bureaucracies of corporate world, we cant say everywhere, but I suspect in many places, search engine optimization does not get the treatment it should, both and now and in the future.

What does this mean for the future of SEO? Truly qualified professionals will prefer to run their own operations, with no strings attached, charging their own decisions, working on their projects and clients.

The “know how” crowds will stay independent now and in the future, simply because they have:

• More freedom, not tied to demands of corporate madness.
• Have high chances of making a good and more then comfortable living working themselves.

So best SEOs will probably stay independent in the upcoming years. There is too much dough to be made for a true expert to work for salary(unless of course companies beat it).

SEO awareness

Like all good things, it takes some time for someone to recognize them. A good example was given by one of the bloggers(cant recall who):

Me Rephrasing:
"SEO is like electricity, they ignored it for some time, but then it bit them. Those who jumped on the train established their grounds, old coal lovers ether disappeared or took heavy hits."

And it did take some time. A lot of time. So will SEO. In this case however, search engine optimization wont break TV hypnosis, but it is already hurting newspapers, magazines and other printed media. (combined with PPC and other internet advertising).

It will take a lot of viral referrals for search engine optimization to gain more future ground, but it is something that is surely and steadily going on right now. A lawyer will recommend optimization to his dentist and so on. It is a slow, but sure process.

As more people recognize it, SEO will become harder and harder to avoid. As more companies outperform their rivals, their secrets will eventually become self evident/

There is also the young crowds factor. Many generations are growing up digitized, so search eninge optimization can be easily accepted.

Google is taking steps to educate young graduates about search engine marketing.

"The Google Online Marketing challenge seeks to turn college and business school students into search marketers (in most cases local). We wrote about it when the program was announced. Google says that there are now 724 teams in the US (two weeks before the competition begins) and there appear to be many around the globe as well."

SEO future as a university course?

Will optimization be ever taught in colleges and universities?

That was a question that Search Marketing Sage asked:

"Today I was fortunate enough to speak to an Internet marketing class at my alma mater, James Madison University (JMU — Go Dukes!). While search engine marketing is only a component of this class, it’s nice to see that some colleges and universities are beginning to understand the importance of Internet marketing in general as its popularity continues to rise at the cost (often) of traditional marketing media, such as print, radio and TV.

However, JMU is more the exception rather than the rule. Many candidates I interview for positions at Search Mojo have little or no exposure to Internet marketing through their college studies. This begs the question: Why are so many universities failing to cover such a popular, growing and effective area of marketing?

I think the answer is simply this — search engine marketing, as well as Internet marketing in general, change at such a rapid pace, it’s difficult for the professors to even keep up. As a search marketer reading this blog now, you’re likely doing your daily download of search marketing news and tips. And perhaps you only focus on search marketing. For professors however, they may teach many subjects in a particular field, such as market research, buyer behavior, etc. as well as Internet marketing. Internet marketing may only be one area they have to keep abreast on."

So the biggest issue for teaching search engine optimization is its pace. There is simply no way to document it. No way to predict the future of SEO industry. Who will be next after Google? Will there ever be? What will be the next big algorithm? What will be the algo tweak in a month? How do non search portals affect SEO?

SEO may be taught in colleges on larger scale in the future, but only the basics, most likely mixed with the rest of internet marketing.

There is another solution that a bright minds might do – developing online, updated courses for anyone who wishes.

As the search enigne optimization industry moves forward onto the future, so does exposure to knowledge. As of now, the only way to learn SEO is by reading a number of websites and forums. The only people who took time to write SEO manuals are Aaron Wall of SEObook.com and Rand Friskin of SEO.org. They both capitalize on the knowledge, so with time we will most likely see more people coming up with their own books and sharing the knowledge, hence spreading the word around more.

I think optimization will never be taught in universities, apart from basics. There is simply no program that envisions algos and many other factors, however we will see more and more material available online.

Community is what keeps optimization rolling. The sharing of knowledge via blogs and forums, between the pros and beginners is what gets search engine optimization out there. It will most likely stay that way as it is the only way for optimizers to keep up the skills. I share what I find – you do same. We both benefit. It will stay that way.

Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and their roles in SEO.

Of course SEO wouldn’t have any future if it wasn’t for the search engines, but one thing is true – no matter the search engine, as long as they exist there will be sleepless souls testing and honing their sites in efforts to crack the algos.

Google drives SEO for today, but it wouldn’t matter if Google will there tomorrow, as long as there are search enginea, SEOs will have a future.