What Comes Next in the Search Industry?

Although it will continue to evolve, the search industry is not going away. According to Rebecca Lieb of Econsultancy, we can expect to see many changes over time, but we should also be aware of the trends in the near future of search.

A Cup of SEO Alphabet Soup

Often times, the topics at conferences are almost too narrow and the C-level attendees struggle to see the big picture. SES New York tried to solve that problem by dedicating an entire track of sessions to C-level executives and their understanding of the industry. Amanda Watlington presided over one of those sessions and as she explains in this video, told the attendees how to manage their search efforts strategically.

Universal Search: Changing the Game

Universal and blended search has had a tremendous impact not only on searchers but also on SEOs. In this video, Amanda Watlington explains how universal/blended search has pushed SEO into a new position. With all the different forms of content that universal/blended search returns, SEOs have to look beyond the site.

Search Marketing Evolution

As search has developed, the end user has also undergone behavioral changes. Universal and blended search have played a lead role in the user’s changes. Many times, searchers don’t know what they want when they search and the blended results offer a number of different options for them to choose from. Mike Grehan of Acronym Media told WebProNews in this video that we must look at these developments when we think about search in the present as well as in the future.

comScore Reports on Search Growth

According to comScore year over year data, the U.S. has a strong search market. (It’s great to read a sentence that has the words “market” and “strong” in it, huh?) In this video, Jenni Tafoya of comScore gives us a positive report based upon their data. To be exact, comScore found that total U.S. searches to be at 18.7 billion, which is up 38 percent year-over-year.

SES Chicago: Getting Top-Rated Content With Blogs and Feeds

As search has evolved, so have searchers. They are no longer looking at corporate websites as the authority, but they are instead looking at their peers and other searchers who have had similar situations to theirs. Searchers want reviews, blogs, and social interaction. So why not take advantage of these free digital assets? In this video, Sally Falkow of Expansion Plus Inc. explains how the use of blogs and feeds is a very smart strategy for businesses to adopt in this economy because it is inexpensive and gets search results.

SES Chicago: 2009 to Bring More Personalization and Blended Search

One of the running themes of SES Chicago 2008 was an intense focus on personalization. In this video Kevin Ryan, the SES Advisory Board Chair, points out the interesting contradiction between privacy concerns and personalization. While people are still very concerned about their privacy, they actually set those concerns aside when it comes to personalization. The possibilities and results of customization are so impressive that people do not mind putting their privacy aside to see it develop.

PubCon 2008 Exceeds Expectations

Brett Tabke, the CEO of Webmasterworld, is the man behind the PubConference series. He is responsible for how good or how bad the show turns out. This year’s event has done nothing but receive raving reviews and was the #1 search term on Twitter for several days.

PubCon has something for everyone. It doesn’t just feature SEO, marketing, IT, or social media - it’s a combination of all those and more. In the above video, Brett says how they tried to focus on quality sessions at this year’s show.

Matt Cutts on Changes at Google

We previously brought you a video report in which Bruce Clay made a claim that “ranking is dead.” In the above WPN video, Matt Cutts of Google responds to that assertion. Matt does not completely agree with Bruce that “ranking is dead” but does announce that it is not as important as it once was.

Bruce Clay: Ranking Is Dead!

In the Top Shelf Organic SEO session at PubCon 2008, Bruce Clay made some very significant predictions regarding SEO. As we all know, SEO has advanced in many areas over the past several years. Compare your current searches to that of just 2 years ago. Quite a bit of difference in the results, huh?

In the above WPN video, Bruce Clay predicts even greater changes in the coming year. Personalized search, behavior-based search, intent-based search, and universal search allow for direct and specific searches. With so many ways to search now, it’s quite obvious that search results are getting better, which is exactly what Google wants.