SEO Evolution

The SEO Team was privileged enough to attend PubCon 2008 this past month in sunny Las Vegas! Minus the long flight from Albany International, the conference was a huge success...perhaps the Best.Year.Ever!

Here are some Major Take-Aways from this highly anticipated, never duplicated
(just like content should never be duplicated), SEO event:

Evolution of Search
Due to the onset of Universal Search, Behavior-Based Search and Intent-Based Search, ‘traditional’ SEO (yet still essential) should not be the only way of thinking. While keyword research is still the cornerstone of SEO, about 30% of search resides in the ‘other’ category, 15% of that being video! Other forms of search include images, video, audio, and PDF files. If you are not optimizing for that 30% of search, you could be missing out on a broader customer base.

Twitter, Twitter and…Twitter
Viral and Word of Mouth (WOM) marketing techniques were huge topics of discussion. Ping.fm is a tool to keep track of all social media sites for easy and fast updating. Follow us here!

Traffic to Site is #1
As mentioned above, Universal and Behavior Based Search has made the goal of ranking a little more abstract and the metric of traffic that much more important. Rather than obsessing over being #1, instead focus on increasing traffic, decreasing bounce rates and maintaining visitors on-site.

Optimization for PDF files and iPhones
It’s the ‘other’ 30% category that was mentioned in almost every session attended! PDF files can be optimized for search and need to be. Also, checking a website’s compatibility for iPhones is very important. With billions of iPhones sold nationwide, people are searching with mobile now more than ever! Mobile search is only going to get more advanced with the onset of the Blackberry Storm, the Google phone and of course, updates to the existing mega hit, iPhone.

I wonder how next year is going to play out…Search is always Evolving

Tags: behavioral search, intent based search, personalized search, seo, universal search

This entry was posted on Monday, December 1st, 2008 at 3:30 pm and is filed under Google & Search, SEO & Internet Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.