Real time search results. Recently we've seen both Google and Bing attempt to include Tweets in their SERPs however it was apparent from the out-set that they weren't quite ready. From a ranking perspective it simply didn't seem fair that people could get a number one result just because they were the last person to tweet a certain search term. So this year hopefully Google (and the other search engines) can develop a fair and effective way of integrating real time search.
Conversion rate optimisation. One of the most important reasons for a business to improve its online presence through SEO is because it wants more people to find its website and to make more money. However often the conversion rate isn't as high as it should be. We're now into the realms of conversion rate optimisation and this year I think it's going to be important for more agencies to introduce CRO as part of their standard SEO process. It's very measurable, normally with a good ROI when done well and therefore should be an added string to any SEO bow.
We may be losing Yahoo Site Explorer. Apparently Yahoo's not willing to spend money on maintaining a web index that they don't need. This will be an issue for many search marketers when carrying out back link analysis or simply recording the inbound link data on a month by month basis. It's going to be a massive loss indeed, but fear not as there are some worthy replacements out there.
Social media link equity. Last year seemed to be the year when social media took off, with the rise of Twitter and the increase in social media conferences, training courses and videos advising companies how to best utilise social media for reputation management and online PR. Previously it's been believed that there was little or no equity through links from many of the social media sites. However with the popularity of these sites now soaring it's reasonable to assume that the search engines will start to recognise these links more.
Bing and the two engine world of search. Microsoft have seen some considerable success with their search (or as they call it ‘decision’) engine Bing, which enjoyed nearly 10% market share in the end of 2009. When Bing merges with Yahoo, this figure could increase up to a possible 25% which would be a far greater challenge in the search arena than the mighty Google is used to. So search engine optimisers will have to consider Bing's algorithm more and factoring its SERPs into their processes as much as Google's.
