Web 2.0 Expo: David Berkowitz on SEO and SEM trends

Okay...looking at the many tabs of notes I have in OneNote (handy program if you've never tried it), I've decided to try something new. Live blogging!

David Berkowitz of 360i is about to start his talk on SEO and SEM trends, and instead of adding to my notes, I'm going to try writing my summary as it happens.

Please note, this entailed very fast typing while listening and watching, and the recap includes my own interjections.  So don't take anything as a direct quote.

Let's see how this goes, shall we?

Great! It's a list....12 emerging trends!

Opening joke: If K-Fed can do it, this must mean that anyone can!!!  Ex Mr. Spears apparently has his own search engine with a sweepstakes...wow...

Where does search marketing fit in with everything else?

David listed three brief pieces, with a nice Venn diagram to illustrate a little overlap:

• Paid search can capture the long tail. This would be your AdWords and similar programs.
• On-site SEO drives your reach for generic terms and brand definition. This is your keyword optimization, architecture, and semantic html like title and header tags.
• Off-site SEO works the online buzz and increased links with special niches.  Optimizing via incoming links and your other properties (like you blog) can fall into this category.

Why is everyone so into search?

ROI!!! A graph of a BusinessWeek survey shows that executives had greater confidence in the ROI of search investments than any of the other popular marketing activities.  Cool.

Woohoo....a list!! Top 12 search engine optimization and search engine marketing trends

1. Online data storage.  EVERYTHING is online.  The rate of growth in storage is not keeping pace with the rate of content creation.  A very powerful graph suggests that we are nearing the apex of non-digital content growth, to be followed by a SHARP dropoff; at the same time, digital content growth will continue to accelerate, ostensibly accounting for almost all new content by 2050.  I'm not sure about that last bit (hadn't people predicted we would be there today 15 years ago?), but the principle is definitely food for thought.  Maybe we shouldn't get too comfortable with today's super-cheap storage?
2. Blogs.  Blogs are the "human voice of marketers."  Check out Dwight Schute's blog (by NBC).  It gives NBC huge traction in dominating search results.  Another show, "Living with Ed," found itself dominated by erectile dysfunction splogs and pharma knockoff sites.  A blogger outreach strategy was implemented, and a few weeks after the show and campaign started, the first page of SERP for "living with ed" was almost entirely sites talking about the show.  WOW.  Also interesting...a study showing a 73% correlation between blog activity and show ratings. (Caveat: Correlation is not causation...which comes first?  The blogger chatter, or the ratings?)
3. Tagging.  Yahoo has TagMaps...the sample app, WorldExplorer, matches up tags on photos to tags on maps; eg - a label on a map of NYC for the Empire State Building pulls up Flickr photos tagged with "Empire State Building." You can search for specific locations, and help filter matches by clicking away irrelevant images. Neat!  Another tool...Coudalicio.us charts the trending for del.icio.us tags over time. (Here's the chart for the Web 2.0 Expo.) And, of course, there's twittermap!  (We can't talk about new tagging stuff without talking about Twitter, can we?)  Other toys...numerous drink locators and the Gawker Subway Smells Map (wish I had THAT over the summer!!!!).  More serious options include Yahoo Pipes feed aggregation tools and Google Maps for creating mashups.
4. Wikis.  Creative uses of wikis are many (and surprising!). The TV show Lost has got one with a user community, spoilers, polls, and more..I've never quite seen a wiki used this way. Creative!  Wow...eBay, Dallas Mavericks, and T-Mobile have all created consumer wikis as part of their marketing mixes.  Not sure how well the T-Mobile wiki caught on, as it did not turn up on the first Google SERP. Take a look...Definitely got me thinking! 
5. Wiki Search.  This wasn't crystal clear to me...not sure how it works. What was clear was that David hadn't settled whether it was a good idea or bad.  (Nice Animaniacs reference included.)
6. Video optimization. Many, many, many players on this field, and bandwidth use for video viewing is skyrocketing.  Players are more on the professional side in terms of numbers, but there are majors in UGC, too (YouTube, StumpleUpon).  Interestingly, only Magnify, a company that lets users create branded video channels or put video on their own websites, is listed on the UGC technology quadrant.  Was this a question of relevance to the presentation, or is there some serious untapped opportunity here?

   Other video notes...

   Five components of video optimization:

   • Web page optimization
   • Video file formatting and encoding
   • Syndication
   • Submissions
   • Tracking

   mRSS...a critical technology in syndicating video.  David shows Blinkx.com with its video wall of streaming video collected this way.  Cool idea, though the visual reminds me of that creepy scene with the monkey watching all the violent TVs in 28 Days Later (great movie if you haven't seen it).

7. Mobile.  Mobile search is growing, but nowhere near the rate for video. Google, Yahoo! are both working on this. Relevant results are especially important on mobile.  Uptake has been slow so far, but the potential is HUGE.
8. Personalization. If you have 25 potential links for the first page, with 10 results on that page, there are about 11.9 trillion permutations, which becomes over 1,000 permutations for each person alive (cited from a source I didn't catch).  David doesn't feel that it is currently practical for publishers to try to optimize for real personalization because there are so many potential variations.
9. Long tail optimization.  David shows us HitTail.  I've come across this too, and want to implement it as soon as I can. It monitors your search terms, and mines the fragments...the search phrases with one or two hits...and identifies the trends in these aggregated, unique phrases.  Looks very useful, and last time I looked it had a free basic version. I expect it is much easier to use and more effective than the Excel app I built last semester to aggregate and categorize keyphrases from my AWStats.
10. Social media integration.   Possible linkups could be search, to the official site, to the blogs, which goes back to the site.  The site may lnk out to social networks, which link back; likewise with the video sites...and they ALL go back to the search engine.  Did you get that?  The point--there is no single path to you, and no single source for your information. Tie it all together and increase the chances that people will find the things you want them to see.
11. The semantic web.  Web 3.0!  He sees David Seigel's view as not entirely realistic (or even desirable). I'm afraid I can't find the quote he used in his presentation. The gist, however, is that all information will be accessibly from anywhere (though that doesn't really explain it....)  However, the semantic web can make search increasingly effective and relevant, and allows different sites and applications to capture, blend, and use information from disparate sources. The New York Times had an article about what people are doing with Web 3.0 back in November.
    
12. Search's impact on other media.  He's talking about what Google is working on.  Apparently it has some technology that can capture and analyze the sounds in the room and use that to target information (cited MIT Technology Review).  The running joke through this segment is Google's fingers in EVERYTHING, and that since they now own DoubleClick, their next acquisition will be our collective first born.

So, how did I do?  This was a great talk that introduced a lot of ideas and pointed out how things are changing.  Search is more than having good keywords and site structure.  The "inter" in internet is becoming a powerful force, and behaving in ways that we didn't see just a few years ago.  It's an evolving, rich area of challenge and opportunity that warrants a little extra homework creative experimentation on the part of marketers and business owners.

Think outside the search box!

Comments

[Los Angeles seo firm]

I have to lean toward agency SEO when it comes to results. In-house SEOs are pulled in too many directions at times. Agency SEOs benefit from having many other skilled peers to share experience. I have a feeling that many directories will begin to lose their value over the next year or so. Since social media is becoming more important in online marketing, firms will need to pair an SEO strategy with Social Media strategy in order to stay competitive.

-faith-