I came across the following post on a blog called ProvenSEO.com. It brings up some interesting SEO trends taking place right now that include:
Social Media Optimization
Social media optimization is the new trend because of the growing popularity of social media sites. This is a very good opportunity for website promotion, increasing rankings with search engines and increasing traffic. This is also a great way to boost a website’s SEO prospects. This is why experts are now focusing on social media optimization and its different benefits to particular websites. Although this is still in its infancy stage, it has already been proven to have a considerable effect on SEO.
Mobile Internet
Smartphones, tablets and other devices are now one of the most popular means of connecting to the internet. This is because of the convenience of using these devices. Connecting to the internet is very easy and can be done almost anywhere. Therefore, the need for mobile SEO is now more essential than ever. This also brings a significant amount of change regarding SEO. Mobile websites require some minor changes regarding SEO like shorter keywords. Applications such as Mobile Search Services from Google and mobile keyword tools like AdWords are now available because of the popularity of mobile internet connection.
Importance of On-page SEO and Website Speed
Webmasters used to rely mostly on off-page optimization instead of on-page optimization. However, both are now almost equally important in order to have optimal results. The load time of a website is now also very important because the top search engines like Google are now penalizing sites that have a long load time. In addition, search engines are also giving low rankings to sites that use Meta tags improperly.
Personalize Searching
This is one of the most important trends in searching for 2011. Google, the largest search engine in the world have even made personalized search the default option. This means that users will only have personalized search features unless they specifically choose not to during a search. This means that popular sites which are frequently visited will have better search rankings for 2011. Hence, it is very important to build up a website’s branding and entice more visitors.
Some of these points listed in this article seem common sense, but they do raise some questions as well:
-How slow is too slow for a website? How long will you wait for a page to load before you just close out and move on?
-Are you more likely to click on the paid ads or organic listings on Google?
-Have you personalized your search features on Google? If so do you feel that their is significant value-added for others to do this?