Anvil Media’s 2012 Search Engine Marketing Predictions (Part 2)

In the second installment of 2012 predictions the Anvil team covers new categories that weren’t covered in previous years.

Website Design
In the past, a company’s website has been a single, monolithic entity in which all content lived. With the rampant adoption of social media, video content and smartphones, an effective online presence is multi-dimensional as well as media and platform agnostic.

Where We Predict Things Are Headed in 2012:

• With Facebook becoming such an integral part of people’s online lives, users will increasingly be able to access a company’s content and products without ever leaving Facebook. This includes developing custom page and tab content, Facebook Apps and social commerce.  A company’s external presence on social media and elsewhere will need to be as well-developed as its internal properties.
• The increasing integration of social signals and content within Websites will mean that, even if a user does make the jump over to a company’s Website, that experience will no longer a fully curated experience. Content will be augmented, and even generated, by social media in the form of Like/Tweet/+1 buttons and Facebook news feeds.
• Mobile-optimized websites have, to date, been positioned as separate incarnations of a corporate website, stripped down and simplified for mobile devices. The latest SEO wisdom (and W3C recommendation) state that a website should have only a single incarnation – one top-level domain and one set of content, with CSS doing the job of making the website readable and usable on any given device or screen size. We predict that development will shift towards a company’s website having different looks, and different content, based on the access device As HTML5 and CSS3 muscle their way into the mainstream, Web designers have 2 powerful new toolboxes to re-imagine the website. Animation will experience a resurgence in popularity, with these Flash alternatives.

Business to Consumer
Where would we be without the consumer? They are the powerhouse that drives the economy and it’s time businesses cater to their needs. Ease is the deciding factor when it comes to a purchase – can the consumer find the info they need? Can they make a purchase in a few clicks? These are just a couple of the questions companies need to answer for consumers in order to win their business.

Where We Predict Things Are Headed in 2012:

• Retailers will see unprecedented growth in the mobile space through native apps. Look to top retailers like Nordstrom, Target and QVC to lead the way and further market their existing apps to encourage impulse purchases. Smart brick-and-mortar retailers will also rely on apps and push notifications to send deals and coupons to customers when they’re in the vicinity of a retail store. Word to the wise: use caution when downloading the Nordstrom and Target apps – they make it WAY too easy to shop.

Mobile
“Mobile” was the marketing buzzword of 2011. We saw a shift towards more businesses taking note of this (relatively) new form of traffic and realizing that they need to reach its audience on these devices. Whether it is an app or a mobile website companies can no longer ignore the power of the phone and tablet.

Where We Predict Things Are Headed in 2012:

• 2012 will be the year to find out if there’s room for a third mobile operating system (see the Microsoft/Nokia partnership) or if Google and Apple are going to continue to dominate the market as smartphone adoption in the US surges past 50% of all mobile users. If we had to put money on one horse, it would be Google’s Android platform, as it is available on a variety of manufacturer devices, vs. iPhone’s proprietary OS.
• As mobile search continues to evolve it’s also going to be increasingly more important to make sure brick-and-mortar businesses are optimized for local search by claiming place pages, including leveraging click-to-call phone numbers, etc.
• Location check-in services will continue to consolidate (see Facebook and Gowalla) as this oversaturated market clearly needs thinning out.
• Hyper-local offers (within a supermarket aisle or when walking by a business on the street) will trickle into the marketplace, but these early incarnations will be rough and will only be available on a small scale. This will be a big area to watch in coming years, however.
• Smartphone “wallets” will try to take off in 2012 but there’s going to be too many companies with competing technology that the field is going to be completely saturated and consumers overwhelmed and confused. 2012 will see the development of the technology, 2013 the thinning of the heard, and 2014 when smartphone wallets will start to gain traction.

Link Development
Links are important – we know this for a fact. Inbound links send signals to search engines to whether or not your site is legit. Having quality links is key – and as new algorithms rolled out this year it became clear that search engines are taking notice of link farms and are looking to weed out the weak and reward the strong.

Where We Predict Things Are Headed in 2012:

• Google will continue to update its algorithm through changes both large and small, which will impact the effectiveness of external links. Paid linking methods will be targeted by Google and penalized.
• Creative content production through infographics, video and audio will begin to play a larger role in link development. Businesses will also be rewarded for ethical online behavior, as it pertains to link development and content creation.
• Social Signals will carry equal weighting to external links, as Google Plus gains steam and integration in to search results. Fresh, updated, interactive content will start to have the same effect as a major link building campaigns. While freshness has increased in influence, it will be refined, once Google realizes they are giving too much visibility to low quality content.

And that’s how the Anvil team sees it – check the Anvil Media blog in December 2012 to see how we did and read about where we see the world heading in 2013.

Author: Anvil Media     Anvil Media RSS Feed

View full profile