Want to know what to expect from the next year in terms of SEO and how these changes will affect your business? Our Head of Search Adrian Durow offers his predictions for Search in 2012.
The more the years roll on, the less SEO is about just SEO. Over the past year, SEO has really evolved into SEO x Social x Content x UX, and unless sites take a holistic approach, then they’ll be left behind. Here are a few brief predictions for Search in 2012.
- More formats on search results / Less need to click through for specific queries? Google will utilise advanced tagging and channel info (such as Schema.org) to make the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) even more, Specific flight times, restaurant reviews, definitions, weather forecasts… can all be obtained from the SERPs without clicking through.
- Even more personal results Google will utilise even more data from browser history / click-through-rates / Google+ activity / location / Gmail activity in order to further personalise your results to provide a better search experience.
- Analytics data used as a ranking factor I do believe that the time (quite soon) will come when Google looks at site retention data and bounce from it’s own analytics accounts where permission has been granted, in order to determine relevance and positions in the SERPs. So if you’re not paying attention to optimising site performance and conversion rates, then your positions could be affected.
- Google providing less data We’re really gutted about the non-passing of keyword data into Analytics from logged in visitors. We’re anticipating that this could evolve with less organic-keyword-specific data being passed to Google Analytics to help us SEOs. On the flip-side of the coin… Google Analytics range of functionality has really developed in leaps and bound over the past 12 months.
What are your predictions for Search in the coming year? Leave a comment and let us know.
