Top 10 Key Search Factors in 2007?

[DeadTomorrow]

Hi there,

What are everyone's top 10 factors in search marketing to watch out for in 2007? And not just marketing, but helping users find the correct content. This could range from continuing existing good practice, to something entirely new like video search. I've been thinking of my top 10 and have come up with the following so far, please feel free to rip this apart / add / remove / reorder!

• 1. Content - quality content produced by people with an expert knowledge in the field.
• 2. Keywording - identifying keywords for content and links.
• 3. Site Architecture - from menus, to the way sections on a site interlink with each other.
• 4. Rich Media - concentrating on utilising video, image and audio search.
• 5. Web 2.0 - trying to utilise blogs and forums more to improve search
• 6. Accessibiltiy - this is sort of covered by some of the above, but ensuring a site is accessible not only is morally correct and good from a user point of view, but will help improve search.
• 7. Inbound links to your site
• 8. Relevancy - ensuring everything is neat and relevant across a site. Irrelevant links and content could be detremental?
• 9. Popularity - the more visitors the better.
• 10. Constant re-evaluation and improvement based on user stats and new industry knowledge.

[Kostis Panayotakis]

I would add,
Evaluating and exploiting user intent,

both at the search engine algo level and the PPC campaign design level.

K

[DeadTomorrow]

Hi K,

How would you go about doing that? Could you elaborate?

J

[Kostis Panayotakis]

Hi DT
Your user name is a bit shocking, I must say.

Well MSN Adcenter and Yahoo claim to do research on this, as we talk.

e.g. Certain keywords seem to reveal more of a commercial intent than others.

K

[DeadTomorrow]

Thanks for replying, that's helpful.

My screen name is supposed to have good intentions. I'm planning a personal "inspiration" website (DeadTomorrow.com) to help people plan worthwhile activities. It's from the phrase "well, you could be dead tomorrow".

[beu]

Great ideas "DT" but, if I may remove, reorder and add a few to your list.

* 1. Accessibility - Websites that are not accessible to search engines cease to exist in search results. Use ALT tags, a unique TITLE for each page, meta descriptions, absolute URLs and include a sitemap with text anchors. Don't use Flash in frames or all javascript navigation at a single URL.
* 2. Site Architecture - Without good site architecture your website is simply a collection of random pages.
* 3. Information Architecture - Important for users and search engines. Users should know where they are within your site from any page.
* 4. Keyword Terminology - In your content, use 2 or 3 word keyword terms that are likely to be searched for by users.
* 5. Content - Create unique trustworthy content that is also of interest to users and provide quality links to similar relevant content.
* 6. Rich Media - In some cases, video is the most relevant result.
* 7. Web 2.0 - www.flickr.com , www.myspace.com , www.technorati.com, del.icio.us, www.feedburner.com, www.youtube.com and others.
* 8. Local - Google Maps, Google Earth.
* 9. Mobile - Google, Yahoo and MSN mobile.
* 10. Sitemaps protocol - Providing an XML sitemap is one of the easiest things you can do to help search engines traverse your site.

[shilly]

1. Analytics
2. Analytics
3 -10. Analytics

Companies will start understanding the importance of analytics and learn that without it, you can not fully optimize your online marketing efforts.

[DeadTomorrow]

Originally Posted by beu

* 1. Accessibility - Websites that are not accessible to search engines cease to exist in search results. Use ALT tags, a unique TITLE for each page, meta descriptions, absolute URLs and include a sitemap with text anchors. Don't use Flash in frames or all javascript navigation at a single URL.
* 2. Site Architecture - Without good site architecture your website is simply a collection of random pages.
* 3. Information Architecture - Important for users and search engines. Users should know where they are within your site from any page.
* 4. Keyword Terminology - In your content, use 2 or 3 word keyword terms that are likely to be searched for by users.
* 5. Content - Create unique trustworthy content that is also of interest to users and provide quality links to similar relevant content.
* 6. Rich Media - In some cases, video is the most relevant result.
* 7. Web 2.0 - www.flickr.com , www.myspace.com , www.technorati.com, del.icio.us, www.feedburner.com, www.youtube.com and others.
* 8. Local - Google Maps, Google Earth.
* 9. Mobile - Google, Yahoo and MSN mobile.
* 10. Sitemaps protocol - Providing an XML sitemap is one of the easiest things you can do to help search engines traverse your site.

Really interesting - thanks. I can see why you've changed items around. I found it surprising to see content at number 5, but your reasoning makes sense. I suppose it is a chicken-egg point that could be debated round in circles.

Shilly - I like your answer too, and can totally understand your reasoning.

I think my list would always start with content and I'd find it hard to be persuaded otherwise.

[beu]

Originally Posted by shilly

1. Analytics
2. Analytics
3 -10. Analytics

Companies will start understanding the importance of analytics and learn that without it, you can not fully optimize your online marketing efforts.

Totally true, great point and I couldn’t agree more! Analytics should be number 11 on the list but, I didn’t include it because high-end sites require analytics expertise that most consider out of the scope of traditional SEO.

When it comes to analytics for enterprise level sites containing tens of thousands of fully dynamic content pages, high-end analytics expertise is critical. I often find client sites where multiple URLs contain the same tracking code and therefore report identical results. (traffic to page A . is equal to B. but actually the total traffic to page A + B) So, being able to identify these kinds of issues is a top priority for me and my clients. A great site for more information about high-end analytics is www.webanalyticsassociation.org

[beu]

Originally Posted by DeadTomorrow

Really interesting - thanks. I can see why you've changed items around. I found it surprising to see content at number 5, but your reasoning makes sense. I suppose it is a chicken-egg point that could be debated round in circles.

Shilly - I like your answer too, and can totally understand your reasoning.

I think my list would always start with content and I'd find it hard to be persuaded otherwise.

Don't get me wrong content is the most important element. That said, content should contain information users request via the engines and must be available for the engines to not only find but, also understand. For example, flash is content from which search engines have a difficult time discerning user requested content.

[business]

Thanks that was just what i was looking for Corey.

[Kostis Panayotakis]

Originally Posted by beu

Totally true, great point and I couldn’t agree more! Analytics should be number 11 on the list but, I didn’t include it because high-end sites require analytics expertise that most consider out of the scope of traditional SEO.

When it comes to analytics for enterprise level sites containing tens of thousands of fully dynamic content pages, high-end analytics expertise is critical. I often find client sites where multiple URLs contain the same tracking code and therefore report identical results. (traffic to page A . is equal to B. but actually the total traffic to page A + B) So, being able to identify these kinds of issues is a top priority for me and my clients. A great site for more information about high-end analytics is www.webanalyticsassociation.org

Hi
When it comes to web analytics, my vote goes to Occam's razor blog.
K

[engihab]

2. Site Architecture - Without good site architecture your website is simply a collection of random pages.


its the art of Site Architecture makes Content easy viewable

with addition of the other 8 tips

thanks

[Nacho]

The idea of trying to identify the TOP 10 things is... I get the point. However, we all know that that a lot more than 10 things we will all need to focus on. I do like very much the list and the revised list (thanks beu!), as well as contemplating website analytics as a key element to track results.

Here is another way to look at it:

Mashups – Consumers mark existing content their own (such as YouTube videos).

Micro-formats – Consumers tap into new publishing standards.

Mobile Search – Consumers search on the GO. Today, “80% users have search on mobile, but 4.2 searches per month as opposed to a similar figure but searches per day on the web.”

Q&A – Consumers become each other’s search engines (Did you know there are over 2 million Yahoo! active users heavily participating on http://mx.answers.yahoo.com/ ?)

Social Search & Personalization – Consumers get their own search engines.

RSS – Consumers control how they access content.

Tagging – Consumers classify the content.

User Generated Content – Consumers create the content.

Social Media – Consumers become the content.

Syndication – Consumers get paid for their content as it gets distributed across the web.

[natureday]

I think you should add
that customers shoudl trust your company and the testimonials are really important too

[Discovery]

Many great points made here, here's my take.

#1 Enterprise Level Analytics win the day. They are not just for high end websites and the price point, like free, should make it available to any "mom and pop" shop.

# 2 Advertiser controlled Ad Networks - Peer reviewed ad networks become a reality through site/ip/domain name exclusion in conjunction with analytics. Aggregated data shared amongst advertisers keep publishers in check. The reverse is true for the ad publishers.

#3 Nacho's point that basically everything is customizable by the consumer via web 2.0 - Just about every vertical could be transformed in this manner.

#4 Interactive Video - The convergence of the Internet and your T.V will happen late in 2007 making text ads look like the banner ad of the 90's. Still there but less significant as they once were.

#5 All unsold advertising inventory will be sold via an online interface such as adwords/adcenter/MSN. Radio, T.V, Print and Internet based ad inventory can be sold, managed, analyzed and otherwise utilized by online marketers.
(The few remaining DM's start taking SEM 101 classes in force)

#6 Mobile ads transform to E-ads. Mobile <> Cell phone. Purchasing and placing ads on remote or moving digital ads spaces such as taxi cab tops/e-billboards/phone booth displays and other electronic ad spaces. On moving ad placements such as Taxi's the Ads rotate according the geo location.

Discovery

[engihab]

i like your 10 ,Nacho

and your 6 ,Discovery

do need to make our site viewable for mobiles? really!


what content should be used ?????????

thanks

[emart]

Hi All,

Are we now saying that we have a top 21, as they are all important for successful websites, both for the customer and search engines alike. Simply missing one of these aspects would affect your ranking and the customer's experience.

The website needs to be well balanced with all of these things and I wouldn't be surprised if we have missed a few others!

This is all very useful information and clearly shows the massive benefits of forums.

Richard

[eshop600]

Does accessability improve search results?

alt tags, a unique TITLE for each page, meta descriptions, absolute URLs and include a sitemap with text anchors this is not really true accessable design and ¨Websites that are not accessible to search engines cease to exist in search results.

You can get good results without doing any of the above, i`m not saying dont do them. If you want a trully accessable website then I suggest you read http://www.w3.org/TR/WAI-WEBCONTENT/ and make sure youre code validates.

Just my 2 pence worth

[engihab]

eshop600, thanks

its useful like