The Future of SEO

What is the Future of SEO? Any question about the future is always a difficult question to answer. And it is true here with the question "What is the Future of SEO?"

As part of a larger survey, SEOMoz attempted to ask that to a group of 132 SEO experts.

SEOMoz did this 2011 survey to determine what factor most contributes to search engine ranking, as well as how those factors will change in the future. In addition, they analyzed 10,000 search engine results to determine what SEO features predicted higher search engine ranking and which predicted lower rankings.

What they found was that;

  • Page level link metrics (21%)
  • Domain level link authority features (21%)
  • Page level keyword usage (15%)

contributed the most in ranking factor.

Page-level link metrics are essentially the quality and quantity of incoming links to the page in question. Domain level link authority features are the quality and quantity of incoming links to the domain that contains the page in question. Page level keyword usage refers to use of keywords in body text, h1, h2, title tags, etc.

What is interesting about this survey is that it also asks the question of how the search factors will change in the future. And it also has comparison data between year 2010 and 2011. On average, this was what the experts said;

  • Search engines are taking more social media factors into account (such as the sentiment of social links, number of Google Buzz and the authority of Buzzers, and similarly for Twitter and Facebook).
  • Increased importance of click-through-rate and bounce rate metrics.
  • Decreased in the importance of exact match of domain name with search term.
  • Decreased effectiveness of paid links

For reference, see Rand Fishkin slidedeck. Another good source of information about the future of search engine optimization is from a June 2011 article on StateOfSearch.com. Some of the points that the article make are;

  • The use of schema. org along with microdata format will play a greater role in SEO. This usage provides search engine with additional data that it may not be able to figure out. For example, a page with the title "Avatar" can refer to the movie "Avatar", or it can refer to the icon that is used to represent a user in a web community. Use of microdata format to include extra information in the HTML markup will help search engine understand which of the two your page is referring to.
  • On page SEO factors will continue to matter. More sites will be based on a content management system where such things will be more easily controlled.

Of course, these are all just opinions. And no one really knows how SEO will evolve five years from now - not even Google itself. But one thing is for sure, we must learn to adapt, as all things change with time.