SEO For 2007

When Google is buying into radio and television advertising that should tell you something about SEO generally, and in particular for organizations who are not web-only entities. Mass marketing advertisers would have used various strategies for spending on ads - including telephone directory, radio or television, newspaper, magazine, billboards, etc. Each of these media provides some form of statistics showing their effectiveness.

In a multi-format approach to advertising and marketing each company will have to analyze the effectiveness of dollars spent in each medium, OR combinations of those media. The idea that groups of these media will band together to offer competitve prices versus Google is a given. Whether any of these multimedia ad groups, some combining with Google or other search engines, can offer more bang for the buck than a first year marketing student can put together is a major question. Major Ad and Marketing firms know how to squeeze a buck, if necessary, but their advice is not usually free. Google was able to grab resources allocated for print this past year when they dabbled in print ads campaigns. Effective or just making their presence known?

News organizations have been losing ads on and off for years as each new medium was invented, then perfected, then improved. National and International organizations can expect more multimedia prepackaging offers. Congressional investigations of PPC schemes and various lawsuits make it mandatory for ads buyers to keep it cheap and keep it flexible when they plan spending. They will have to read their own stats sheets, not Google's, newspapers, or anybody else's.

Google will the most prominent example for 2007 of a techie overselling their services and their stock prices. The message should be clear by now - only the truly legit tech corps survive. In my opinion, any corp that isn't user-friendly is dead meat before the wave is over, no matter how many investors they have hypnotized.

As Google focuses on quick profits an maintaining dominance - they make themselves a big and stupid target for corps like Yahoo and the newer breed of search engines that focus on getting it RIGHT. While Google is trying to push you into all it's favorite traps they lose friends, create enemies, and have to lean heavier on their imagined mystique with their investors.

Video, voip, internet voicemail will all become a standard component of online communication. Video particularly will revolutionize news and movies online. Yahoo Publisher Network, YouTube, Flickr and distributed podcasts will only partially replace professionally developed network broadcasts, except in the niche and nonprofessional areas.

SEO will be forced to adopt billing that is based on the success of a campaign as opposed to flat fees charged up front or on a monthly basis. Microsoft Vista users will hopefully get a Patch in 2007 but they may need a new computer before then, and maybe a bigger one to hold the big Patch. 2007 is the year of the Pig, friend to the Dragon. Let's hope the pigs don't do themselves in.