The Future of SEO – Predictions and Premonitions

[rcjordan]

http://www.dumblittleman.com/the-future-of-seo/

[littleman]

That domain threw me off.

>AMPs

The speed of AMPs is really impressive to me, I think this is goingto be big.  As a user I like them

>Infographs

Nah

[ergophobe]

His next item is PWAs and I think that will be bigger than AMP in the long run, but not in 2017. PWA for one site is on my 2017 To Do.

I agree with his comments on intuitive search and voice search. I think of this as a natural language processing takeoff that will make more conversation queries, whether written or spoken more common. I think this is a spiral that will encourage more and more voice search

>>infographics

that, on the other hand, I don't buy. I think the infographic thing has mostly run its course. Not that they won't be effective, but that a good infographic will be effective like a good web page - they will always have value, but they won't have *extra* value by virtue of being an infographic as they did a few years ago. I think it has peaked. Let's revisit this in a year
https://www.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=infographic

Brian Dean has been pumping the "guestographic" backlink technique for a long time too.
https://www.google.com/trends/explore?q=guestographic

[martinibuster]

GuestoGraphic, heh.
It's not the kind of strategy you'd want to pursue for a long haul site. It's still a guest post strategy and that's had a fork in its eye for several years now. A little here and there might not be harmful. :p

Future of search is non-screen search.

Did you read that news report about investors asking Google's CEO how Google planned to monetize non-screen search? He didn't have an answer.  He said Google will figure it out as they go along.

The future of SEO is thinking outside of the search paradigm altogether. Well, that's always been a strategy, particularly in B2B. In niche B2B there are only so many keywords searched per month. Not a lot. So building traffic incorporates thinking outside of the "how do I game Google" box. More like, how do I game the entire web?

[ergophobe]

Thanks MB... I think that's the general consensus. Pretty weird that the author mentioned infographics as an up and coming thing. I had to check the date on the article.

[ukgimp]

http://www.bronco.co.uk/our-ideas/broncos-seo-predictions-for-2017/

Dave's bunch plus Dave are worth a look

[CaboWabo]

For me, the issue that continues to be harder and harder with SEO is not ranking (that's easy)...it's getting the click. With Google making it less and less obvious what is an ad and what is organic search and the knowledge graph, I am almost ashamed to say that I've resorted to click bait type titles to get the clicks. There have been #1 rankings we've nailed that produced less than a 1% CTR, which was verified with PPC too. While the search levels given from Google are always off, we knew we were off when PPC clicks were through the roof with the same Title.

So...here are some things we did.

- Put the registered trademark symbol in the Title next to the site name. (even if you don't have a register trademark)
- Using "CONSUMER WARNING" at the beginning of the Description
- Warn about competitor advertising in PPC area. Make sure information is legit for the warning. Searches can easily find not just customer complaints, but past bankruptcy filings, government fines, etc.

Doing these clickbait options and constantly doing A/B split testing and tweaking the messaging, we increased the CTR by 6x.

[littleman]

CW, those are some great tips.  I am having a hard time picturing how you would work a 'consumer warning' into the description.  Can you post an example?

[CaboWabo]

Seriously, it is this simple ... here is an example:

Title: The Two Real Estate Companies You Should Avoid - Los Gatos, California
Description: CONSUMER WARNING: Selling your home using these companies will NOT give you the cash offer you deserve. (use VERIFIED bad info here for click bait). Keywords in the description should be enough to get pulled over Google's crappy snippet.

Cabo

[CaboWabo]

Another fun option to use in the description (at the beginning) STOP SCROLLING NOW!!!! Which I've tested and people do stop scrolling and the CTR goes up.

[Rupert]

Cabo... bookmarked for rereading.  Great Tip.  Funny I have just started putting "click bait" titles into ads, and was considering putting them in Metas.

Rather than the warning, I am working up the classic click bait... discussed elsewhere.

[Black Knight]

For certain, the search assistants and related 'helper apps' are where a lot of the research money and attention is going right now.  Partly because they take search away from being a destination you go to, and instead deliver the power of search to whatever app or activity you are doing.  The research will be able to transfer directly over to increased mobile and wearable use, making search and information omnipresent in our lives, without having to specifically 'go' to search. 

Whoever can first make the helper that is so good everyone else embeds it in their apps can upset the entire established pecking order for Search, or for Social networking, instantly being bigger than Google or Facebook in the next gen.

[Rupert]

Whoever can first make the helper that is so good everyone else embeds it in their apps

Makes me think of Alexa. I have not got one, but from what RC says, its not there yet.

[grnidone]

STarting new thread for clickbait...fascinating.

[grnidone]

BAM:  http://th3core.com/talk/traffic/clickbait-what-converts-what-doesn't/