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The Future of Web Design and SEO in 2008
by David Williams - December 2007
As a former manager with the world's
largest retailer I very much enjoyed
watching those current trends and
patterns in consumer purchases that, if
correctly understood, might influence
future sales. While I wasn't always
correct in differentiating between one
time anomalies and predictable
patterns ~ I had a knack for planning
future sales opportunities based on
previous patterns that served my stores
and my customers very well. At times
resulting in triple digit comp sales
increases.
I watch the professional forums related
to web design and Organic SEO industries
with that same intrinsic interest in an
attempt to forecast, what I believe,
will shape the future of design and SEO
in the coming year. Here are some
predictions that may be of help to small
business owners and website owners in
2008.
The Face of Inbound Links & Link
Popularity will Change
Link Popularity, which is the measure of
the number of inbound links to website
(URL), is a factor used by many search
engines in determining the value and
credibility of a website. This being
true it has been long been important for
website owners to create content and
pages that are valued by visitors and
deemed worthy of linking to. Some in the
field call this trait, the 'stickiness'
of a website. By creating a 'sticky'
website you have established yourself as
an authority or even an expert on a
topic or product that motivates others
to create a link to your site from their
own websites, blogs, etc. and Google
(for example) deems that link as a vote
for your website
from the other website as long
as it is relevant and reputable.
This is viral marketing (word of mouth
marketing) at its best and historically
the search engines have given credit
where credit is due by honoring this
type of natural in-bound link growth by
increasing a page's PageRank and
increasing it's rank and/or placement in
the natural search engine results pages
(SERPs).
Enter "paid
links"
Website owners learned the value of
inbound links and speculated that if 1
inbound link is good it must stand to
reason that 100 is even better. While
there is nothing wrong with that logic ~
as it all too often happens ~ greed for
huge numbers of inbound links led site
owners with big bucks to buy paid links
to inflate their link popularity
artificially. By 'artificially', I mean
these sites were not earning
their inbound links based on good old
fashioned merit (as the web metric was
originally intended to be measured) but
by buying their inbound
links based on a budget. This creates a
playing field that is anything but
level.
Note: Reciprocal links could see a
significant drop in value as well if
Google deems they are link swapping for
link swapping sake or paid reciprocal
links.
Google Reacts
In the days preceding PubCon 2007 in Las
Vegas (December 4-7th) many site owners
(both link buyers and link sellers) saw
a drop in their PageRank. Matt Cutts
from Google stated, "this is not an
indictment of these websites but an
improvement in the Google toolbar
PageRank tool to give a more accurate
measurement" of this web metric.
Not surprisingly, many site owners and
developers are expressing vehement
objections to this update and labeling
Google as; "too powerful for their own
good", "too big for their britches", and
"using strong arm tactics" to penalize
site owners.
In my humble
opinion Google is right
on track with this latest update and
providing searchers in the internet
community a great service by improving
the measurement of this web metric. Let
me go one step further by adding that I
support Google's efforts to reward
relevant and reputable sites with
increased natural SERP ranking and
crediting natural inbound links vs. paid
links or shady reciprocal linking. This levels the playing field by
allowing websites to stand on their own
merit in front of their peers vs.
whoever has the most money wins the
game.
My prediction
is that this, more accurate and more
equitable, PageRank update will force
Website Owners, SEOs and Developers
alike to roll up their sleeves and
deliver better pages with better
'sticky' content
if they hope to earn good standing with
their peers and the almighty one-way
inbound links. And while many may
continue to moan and groan about
Google's PageRank update - I for one
support their efforts to deliver the
most relevant and reputable results to
us as searchers.
Unified / Universal Search will forever
change the landscape of search results
While not wanting to seem redundant - I
must stress again the importance and
potental of this relatively young
technology. For those who can read the
writing on the wall and put it into
proactive practice the ROI in 2008 will
be mind blowing. In my October article,
Google's Universal Search Opens New
Doors to Success and Higher Rankings,
I described and defined Unified Search
and Universal Search for my readers. Let
me encourage you to revisit that article
and consider the potential impact on
search engine marketing and expanded
market reach. Any questions? :)
Mobile Devices and Online Search
While I am not an iPhone owner - I can
certainly recognize a winner at the
gates and these folks have pushed mobile
technology to a new level with this
innovative device.
Two years ago I told readers the
importance & value of keeping mobile
devices in mind when designing their web
pages. Some may have heeded the advice
and others may have disregarded the
message altogether. No matter which side
of the fence you landed on then Hear me
now...
Mobile Technology continues to grow at
an unthinkable pace - but,
if you're not designing your pages to be
properly served to mobile devices - it
is highly likely that your competitors
will - and you stand to lose a growing
segment of your intended market.
My advice? Lighten Up (your web pages
that is)... Know your target market...
Deliver the content they desire in the
manner they desire and you'll fair well
in the mobile realm.
Be sure to check out
previous issues of
SmallBizNews for other Internet
Marketing ideas as well. We invite your
ideas, comments and suggestions. |
