Back in the Game
I have been on a long blogging hiatus, for a wide range of reasons. But I am back with a renewed interest in educating and keeping you all up on the latest in search engine optimization. If you would like to recommend a topic for me to write about please do not hesitate to leave me a comment or email me rankings at organicseoconsultant.com.
With that I give you some predictions for the SEO world in 2009.
The economy WILL hit the SEO industry despite predicitions of growth. If businesses are cutting costs, then marketing is almost always the first to go! And if client’s cannot or will not pay their past due bills there is not much people can do about it.
This means that if you are an SEO you need to try and collect as much up front as possible when doing work. Make client’s share in the risk with you. Trust me, during these times EVERYTHING is negotiable.
Consolidation is already happening and will continue. So if you have the cash get into acquisition mode. There are so many small to medium sized companies trying to sell of right now it is ridculous. And there are so many good domains for sale at the various domain marketplaces! I am salivating. Too bad I don’t have the cash to take advantage of this.
Local search will continue to be important. It is cost effective and still pretty wide open, although its much more difficult than it was even a year ago to optimize for say, Google Local. SMBs will look to spend small amounts and local search is where that can be an effective strategy. Typically local search produces quicker resulsts which also helps its cause.
Trade show attendance will plummet. If you have ever been to a search marketing trade show then you know how crazy expensive they are. You will start to see cheaper trade shows popup and I think that this is great news!
SEO will get more and more difficult as Google rolls out more and more updates targeting different metrics. Linking will still be uber important. But so will bounce rate, time on site, etc.
Paid Search, or PPC for short, will continue to get more and more difficult for SMBs as more big players come to the table from traditional media spends.
photo credit: MichaelMarlatt
The organic SEO consultant will become alot more active with blogging and will put up at least a post per week! Ambitous, I know. 
