SEO in 2009 – What’s New

The changes that the new year is about to bring in the search engine optimization techniques for online marketing are one of the hot topic of discussion all over the Web. The economic recession has been the central topic among the events of the previous year. A major change in the SEO strategies has been brought upon what with major banks collapsing which has impacted Wall Street as well as all over Europe. As a result the advertising and marketing budgets have gone down drastically. The financial crisis have kept online marketing thinking about the changes that year 2009 will bring on paid search marketing.

Here’s what the online marketers need to consider while changing their focus for SEO in the year 2009.

Ranking or Conversion – what is more important?

Conversion has more importance than ranking according to the latest SEO approach. It is true that a high ranking ensures better exposure and publicity to the website, but ultimately it is conversion that is the main objective behind this publicity. Conversion refers to the behaviour of the user that meets the campaign goals, which can be a registration, lead, purchase, or a sale. Search Engine Optimization focuses on the strategy of keyword density whereas conversion focuses on larger aspects such as content creation, generating traffic, and most importantly, increasing the return on investment, ROI. Experienced SEO firms, thus, realize that conversions are the true metrics for measuring the success of any SEO campaign.

Optimising and Marketing – what to look for?

More and more firms doing Search Engine Optimization Services are establishing themselves as marketing companies as against web designers. This shift indicates the journey of search engines to a great extent. SEO firms are now doing things such as creating the content, submitting web pages to web directories, and managing networks. This has happened due to an increased emphasis on the website content. Social Media Optimization and viral marketing programmes are replacing strategies focused on web designing. SEO techniques such as sitemap creation, HTML tag manipulation, and others are now getting less effective because the web is already exhausted with all these. Online marketing is emerging as a new idea driven creative process which is focussing on establishing online presence, building lasting relationships with the consumers, of course maximizing the revenues.

It is hard to predict what is in store in 2009. Therefore, we must prepare ourselves to fight the financial crisis, and set clear objectives to get back the lost market positions. SEO firms, at this stage, needs to decide on the direction they want to opt for, and move ahead as online marketers, leaving behind their age old identity as site optimization firms.