To many people out there get all antsy to have their internet marketing look like a recipe. If it looks like a recipe it is a recipe for disaster. Bing’s official webmaster blog states that it is very important and vital to treat your website like a brand. How would a brand build its image? If you take that step you will build your business the right way rather than just go after rankings. Rankings are important but they are not the only and final goal you should be worried about for your internet marketing campaign. Building business is the most important aspect to your SEO campaign. Bing also recommends taking an approach that really utilizes a robust social marketing element into your daily routine. Link building is very vital to the success of a website and it is important to do it in a way that allows your business to grow and not just your rankings. Bing also refers to going “unnatural” in the search engines which states that an unnatural approach is one that blatantly attempts to manipulate the system in order to achieve higher rankings.

Bing’s exact words go as follows:
” So what does it mean to go unnatural? It means you’re trying to fake out the search engines, to try to earn a higher ranking that the quality of your site’s content dictates as natural through manipulation of search engine ranking algorithms.”

Bing hasn’t been the first search engine to come out with this type of best practice’s guide. Google has been doing it for years now just not many people want to follow it. When the top two search engines in the world layout a best practices guide on how you should conduct your search engine optimization efforts it is time to listen.

Please take a look at the Bing Webmaster Post that talks about link building and SEM, it is a great read:
http://www.bing.com/community/blogs/webmaster/archive/2009/11/20/link-building-for-smart-webmasters-no-dummies-here-sem-101.aspx

Here is the Google Search Predictions Video by Matt Cutts:

Predictions for Google stem mostly around speed and relevancy. Google is always on the prowl to really keep their search results clean and relevant so users are completely satisfied with the end results. Google will also be making the distinction between black hat and white techniques much clearer and really focusing on eliminating anybody who attempts to take a black hat technique when marketing a website. Google is always strengthening and improving their search tool. It seems like each year Google makes a very strong effort to eliminate all the bad apples in the SEO industry. If you teeter on black and white hat SEO techniques I would make it a 2010 new year’s resolution to persuade yourself to land in the white hat territory. Yes, it takes longer, but when it works it is well worth the wait!

A search for “SEO Boston” is not likely to return any local search results. Add the word “in” – “SEO in Boston”, and the local search results appear. While it is tough on web designers and SEO businesses, is there more to this than meets the eye?

SEO consultants (and web designers) are easy targets when it comes to tweaking anything to do with search. Who is going to notice and discuss a change in search, why SEO writers off course. You have to wonder then if Google have made this change as a test for a more general change in local search. If this one little change improves search results and also trains searchers to be more specific in their queries, will we soon see this change spread to other areas of local search?

I think we may. Google is all about improving search results and producing results that more specific to a query. If the search engines can train users to be more specific with their search queries, results should become more specific. It is a fair enough approach. The search “SEO Boston” is not specific. Is the searcher looking for an SEO consultant in Boston, or one that will provide a service to someone in Boston? The same can then be said for spare tires, books, and a million and one other products.

It’s just a thought, but is Google tweaking local search and using SEO as the guinea pigs? Or is Google just attacking SEO people because of the black hats out there that are abusing Google local maps search results for themselves and their clients? I am not sure…why can’t Google just change 1 thing at a time, with Google Caffeine happening soon, why do they have to change local search right now.

But what exactly is Google Caffeine and how could it possible impact search engine optimziation?

In August, when Google first introduced its beta-tested new search infrastructure, they announced that Google Caffeine would “let us push the envelope on size, indexing speed, accuracy, comprehensiveness and other dimensions.” Then Google began accepting test drives and feedback, but the site for that process has been taken down and replaced with a thank you message. So are you ready?

I suspect that by the end of January (this month) – maybe even by the end of the first or second week in January – we’ll start seeing some of new results of Google Caffeine. Any idea what that will entail?

I believe the Google Caffeine update will primarily focus on three things:

• A ranking system that heightens the importance of page load speeds
• A more focused relevance on real-time search data
• Stricter spam controls

Why do I say this? Google’s own words – speed, accuracy, comprehensiveness.

Matt Cutts has already discussed the importance of page load times and I think we all see it coming. Page load speed will be taken into greater consideration on future search results. That will probably happen with Google Caffeine. And who can argue that the major search engines have already discovered real-time search? What you see in Google’s SERPs now is just a small taste. I expect that will be improved upon a thousand-fold.

The tricky one will be Google’s attempt to control spam. How the search engine will achieve greater comprehensiveness while de-listing or diminishing the rankings of spam sites is a mystery beyond my imagination, but I can see Google going there. Can’t you?

An obvious benefit is that it is owned by Google. That means the service likely won’t go away. There is some stability there. But this can also be seen as a drawback. Will Google at some point decide to force all webmasters to use the URL shortening service? Good question from Andy Beal.

And another drawback, how many non-core services does Google offer that actually go somewhere? Over the years Google has had some great services offered to customers (all in beta of course!) and many of them quietly lasted and even more of them shut down and are no longer available.

Another potential issue that comes to mind is that there are already a ton of URL shorteners on the market right now. What does Goo.gl offer that the others don’t? Besides direct shortening from its toolbar and Feedburner? And besides it displays and uses the Google brand? Gee, I’m counting more drawbacks than benefits. Have you done the math on Goo.gl? Time will really tell on this one if Goo.gl will have long term staying power and user acceptance.

Two things happen when Google makes an acquisition in a vertical. A competitor comes along and outdoes them or Google develops the vertical into a profitable enterprise for itself. Notice I didn’t say Google improves the vertical.

Well, Yelp pretty much owns the local business review vertical. There are very few companies even competing over that space. So if Google does acquire Yelp it will be one more vertical the search giant owns by virtue of its bigness. That’s not saying that local business reviews and local search will necessarily improve. But it will change.

All the major search engines already have local business centers, but at present they are nothing more than directories with bells and whistles. Sites like Yelp actually are better at attracting the local business audience. So Google will naturally want to advertise to that market and capture that audience. How will local search change?

For one thing, I think it will become pay per click advertising centered. I’d look to see how Google marries AdWords and Yelp to better help local businesses reach their target market. Another marriage that could ensue is Yelp and YouTube – local video search anyone? I see many great possibilities for improvement of Yelp with Google muscle behind it.

Yes, I think local search would change forever. How drastically is really anyone’s guess.