2011 was a busy year for changes in SEO and from what we have seen, 2012 promises to be just as interesting. Here at Net66, as one of the leading companies for SEO in Manchester, we like to predict what might lie ahead, especially with regards to SEO trends 2012.
There are signs of much more variety in search engines, with Yahoo losing momentum and Google already losing approximately 5% of it’s market share to the new look search engine by MSN; Bing. Bing provides many of the same functions as Google but with some new features. One of the major draws is Bing’s cashback program. In this economy, any opportunity to save money is bound to be a winner and Bing have recognised that and made it work for them. If you search for a product, it gives you a list of the usual results, but also shows which shops they have cashback deals with. With some going up to 35% with major retailers, this could be a huge attraction for bargain savvy web users. Some of their features are more whimsical to appeal to a fickle population. They have new visual searches where you can simply click on a photo to search it as well as a brand new map format. The Bing maps service used to be much the same as Google’s, but they have now introduced maps with photos, not just with street view, but collections of photos stitched together to make an impressive panoramic.
Google are striking back though, by developing their mobile applications for smart phones. 85% of people own a mobile phone and Google are taking into account the rising number of Androids being purchased. They are also straying into Social SEO with their new project, Google+.
Google+, having established itself within months of its introduction, will continue to play an increasing part in Social SEO. Having combined some of Facebook’s and Twitter’s best features, and incorporating some new ones of its own, the more technologically minded are veering towards Google+ and away from the others. With its newly introduced ‘brand’ pages, many Manchester SEO professionals, ourselves included, believe it will continue to grow as long as users can justify the effort in order to gain traffic value from their pages.
Each search engine is different, even if only slightly, making SEO unique to each one. With each search engine striving to do better than the others, they will change and develop in order to compete. With the veering away from keywords and towards traffic and conversation becoming apparent, new Search Engine formats will shape the future of SEO in 2012. SEO will have to adapt in order to achieve the same results and optimise the amount of traffic ‘passing through’ sites. Here at Net66, we are looking forward to new developments and the challenge of keeping up.
