Another Search Engine Strategies Conference, another conversation about the future of search. It’s a regular topic, but one that never loses relevance, as the search landscape continues to change dramatically, even between conferences. Look at all Google has done this year, for example. Not only did we get the left panel navigation, but Instant search. Those are probably the biggest changes to the interface, but there are plenty of other things going on. This week, they just started adding location information to the left panel, for example.

Google makes changes constantly all year round, and that’s just Google. Yahoo and Bing obviously have a lot going on as well. Bing has a new partnership with Facebook for putting Facebook data in search results. Then there’s the whole Yahoo/Bing search and advertising deal, with Yahoo returning Bing results underneath its own user interface.

Search simply does not stop changing. With mobile and social media heavily in the equation, and TV and tablets about to enter the fray at an increasingly rapid pace, there will continue to be plenty to speculate upon when it comes to where search is headed.

So this year’s SES Chicago “Search: Where to Next?” session featured discussion from iProspect CEO Robert Murray, Bruce Clay President Bruce Clay, and Rosetta Director of SEO Chris Boggs.

Here are a few takeaways from that discussion:

1. Keyword research may be narrowed down by all three search engines.
2. Autocomplete needs to branch out.
3. There will be deeper analytics.
4. Building content will continue to be very important
5. There will be increased filtering of search results by users.
6. SEO is going the way of a targeted market.
7. Complexity of keywords is changing because of the algorithms
8. SEO is going to be “a piece of optimization pie.”
9. There will be increased focus on local.
10. Even as mobile continues to grow, there will always be search.
11. Social will continue to play an important role. Likes will become as important as links.

Visibility

If you ask me, it’s going to be (and really already is) about being visible in as many places as possible – on as many screens as possible. It’s about being visible in search engines, but it’s also about being visible in communities (social networks, blogs, forums, etc.), sub search engines (like Google Images, Blog Search, Videos, YouTube, etc.), mobile apps, web apps, TV apps, and anywhere else that consumers turn their attention – particularly the kind of attention that comes with problems for which your content has the answer – for which your business has the answer.

The future is going to require a lot of testing.

Testing on different browsers, different phones, different tablets, different connected TV experiences, different apps, and different combinations of each of these. It’s also going to be about speed. Not only is Google placing more and more emphasis on this, but people will just simply leave if they can’t get your site to load in a timely fashion. It may be fine on the desktop, but have you checked it from different mobile devices/browsers? How’s it look from there?

Improving Tech

Then you have voice search, which is quickly becoming a much more common method. Google will continue to perfect visual search (Google Goggles as well). Things are going to get really interesting.

The future of search is much like search’s present – just on steroids. Faster, more powerful, on a lot more interfaces, and a lot more people using them.

You can look at the tourism industry and get a feel for the problems companies of all kinds are facing in terms of social media engagement every day. I just sat in on a session at BlogWorld aimed at such companies, but the themes were much broader – how to filter though all the noise of the web to find discussions about your brand, ways to harness the social media tools that are available to us to actually get some use out of them, how to use different kinds of search engines to engage with people, etc.

When businesses think of search marketing, they tend to think about things like SEO and paid search, but there is another critical element of search – monitoring. You want to monitor your brand using search engines, and while reputation management certainly plays into this, it’s not just about reputation management, it’s about finding where people are talking about your brand and finding ways to engage with them. This not only humanizes your brand (a theme we’ve discussed a lot recently, based on various talks from the Inbound Marketing Summit), but can also help you be there for people when they need you. The conversations that are happening really dictate the solution that it is your duty to provide.

Search Marketing Isn't Just SEO and PPC

“Good listening is really no more than good search engine skills,” as Sheila Scarborough of Tourism Currents put it.

Let’s start with Twitter. This is essentially where the conversation in the session started anyway. Twitter isn’t just a place for you to tell people what you’re up to. There are plenty of practical uses for that aspect of the service too, but it’s also a search engine. A powerful search engine (even more powerful as of the last several weeks) that lets you tap into what people are saying about your brand in real time, which means you can assist them (or yourself) in real time as well.

The easiest way to do this in an effective manner is to set up a dashboard like TweetDeck, HootSuite, Seesmic, etc. – something that will give you different panels or columns to monitor searches for different keywords/phrases that pertain to your brand.

Now, you have the root of the conversation(s) in front of you. The next step is engagement, and like Ann Peavey of Seattle CVB said, personality is a tool to grab people’s attention. Have meaningful and helpful conversations with people that are already talking about your brand, whether they begin on a positive or negative note.

Next, you have traditional search engines – Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc. Google was the focal point, and should probably be a focal point for most businesses, considering the enormous share of the search market it retains. On an interesting side note, when they asked for a show of hands for people who use Bing, nobody raised their hands. I’m not suggesting you ignore Bing. In fact, highly recommend the opposite, especially with Windows Phone 7 making its debut, but Google is probably the best place to start. However, we’re not just talking about Google web search, it’s about using all of Google’s different search engines to find discussions (Google Video, YouTube, Blog Search, News, etc.). Don’t ignore Images either. As Scarborough and Peavey pointed out, a lot of people communicate through images. People post pictures all over the web. You might consider monitoring Google Images, Flickr, etc.

Facebook Search should also be considered part of the monitoring package, especially as the company looks to get more integrated with search in general. Searching on Facebook itself will return people, places, groups, etc. – all potential sources of conversation about your brand. Now that’s not all going to be public, and there’s not much you can do about that, but it won’t hurt to see what’s out there. Much of this is likely to become a great deal more visible thanks to things like the new deal between Facebook and Bing. I wonder how many of those people who didn’t raise their hands as Bing users will be reconsidering as a result of that.

Becky McCray (also of Tourism Currents) was talking with one of the audience members about deploying a social strategy. The fact of the matter is that there’s no silver bullet solution to this problem. A lot of it comes down to scale. How much discussion is out there about your brand on a daily basis? How much time needs to be spent to effectively engage with that all? It’s going to vary by business size, products, and other variables. One thing that is clear is that it’s worth the time, so if you need someone dedicated to this full-time, than that’s what it takes. If you need a team of people, than that’s what it takes. It’s probably a good idea to start with one person and let them build a team as needed.

As you know full well, the search industry is constantly changing, and that means SEOs and businesses must adapt. This is always made abundantly clear at the change of each year as the previous year is reflected upon, and predictions about trends in the upcoming year are discussed. SEOs know that adaptation and ongoing education are crucial. The problem is that businesses don’t always understand just how much the search landscape actually does change. This can present a whole different set of challenges for both the small business and the professional SEO.

What are some SEO tactics you’ve had a hard time convincing clients to employ?

Searching for Profit founder Amanda Watlington recently discussed some arising trends in the search industry and how understanding the changing search landscape is of vital importance. One example of change is the possible inclusion of site speed as a ranking factor in Google. Matt Cutts dropped that bomb a couple months ago, and while many welcome it, a lot are dreading it.

For one, businesses and clients of SEOs simply may not be so eager to put forth the time and money required to make the necessary adjustments to their sites to optimize for speed, although it is clearly in the best interest of the customer’s experience anyway.

Another challenge, as Watlington mentions, is personalized search. Companies don’t always get that not everybody is necessarily going to see the same search results for any given query, and it can sometimes be difficult for SEOs to convince them that this is the case.

Although things appear to be looking up, budgets have been tight, and businesses are demanding better results for their bucks, but they are not always aware of the big picture, which is why it is up to the hired SEO professional to educate them as best they can, and for other businesses to educate themselves.

Luckily, there are plenty of industry resources freely available on the web. After all, you’ve probably read about the very tactics you have in mind there yourself. SEOs should find instances to back up their case to convince stubborn clients. Some of them are just hung up on outdated trends. Obviously this can make it hard to produce the results they are after.

“The evolution has been slow, and I don’t think we’ve helped it as much as we could,” Watlington says of companies’ understanding of SEO trends.

If you are the client of an SEO or a business trying to get things done yourself, don’t stay hung up on old tactics that might be outdated. At this point, these are some of the things you should keep in mind:

- Site Speed (it’s going to matter, so don’t ignore it…here are some things to consider)
- Personalized Search (Not everyone is going to see the same Google results)
- Universal Search (Showing up here requires attention to different indexes)
- Real-Tme Search (look for more evolution in this area)
- Changes in Local (there are frequently tweaks made by Google here)
- Some things do stay the same (things like reputable links will always be in style)
- Most importantly, stay informed (just keep up with the latest in industry developments)

As Watlington notes in the interview, metrics are very important, and there has been a great deal of focus on them in the industry in recent years. New metrics come about, just as new tools do. Metrics can help illustrate the bigger picture, custom-fit to a particular organizations goals.