Next Generation SEO?
Posted Nov 18, 2008 @ 4:41 pm, Viewed by 554 Visitors, Read 605 Times.SEO is dead as we know it? Well, if you listen to Bruce Clay, he’d tell you “yes”.
A recent WebProNews post, “SEO About to Get Turned On Its Ear?” summarizes a session at PubCon where Bruce Clay outlines the imminent changes in search engine behavior and its effects on SEO as we know it. I encourage you to watch the interview (included in the article) where the principles of “SEO 2.0” are examined in greater depth. But I couldn’t help touching on a couple of key "principles" as I understood them.
100 people in a room who search the same key phrase will all receive different SE results?
This is kinda the next step in “Behavior Based Search” -- a principle that says SEs track your search behavior and render results based on your search history. Bruce uses the example of the query “java” and how depending on previous searches, one person’s results will be related to programming language, while another’s will be weighted more towards the beverage. That makes some sense...
Behavior Based Search in the context of Real Estate SEO?
So if Bruce is correct about next generation SEO, (which by the way, he predicts will start taking effect within the first half of 2009), I can’t conjure up many scenarios where this specific “standard” would heavily impact most real estate queries (?). Yes, I put the question mark there because I’m confused.
My first impression was that most real estate search terms would be targeted enough to bear little impact? (yes, another question mark!). How/why would previous queries change search results for “city/county + real estate terms”? The only place where I see the potential for truly diverse results would be with homonyms – one “pseudo homonym” that comes to mind is “MLS”, “Multiple Listing System” vs. “Major League Soccer”. Yes, I know that’s another can of worms...
"Engagement Object Level"?
This one raised my eyebrow a bit. The way I understood the article and interview, Bruce postulates that those who don’t have a potpourri of multi-media on their website (videos, music...), may suffer in the serps. If I'm remotely on the right track (probably not!), this SEO 2.0 "standard" seems flawed and ripe for abuse. Taking it back to real estate SEO, a content rich real estate website packed full of relevant information, a robust IDX solution, area information, area guides, onsite blog (grin) could possibly be overtaken by a far less customer friendly site with very little content if said site used more videos and a few podcasts? Am I stretching?
Enough of my ramblings and questions...I’d love to hear from everyone...thoughts?
Contributing (confused!) blogger - Kevin Koitz
Bethesda Real Estate Washington DC real estate
The Gretchen Koitz Group | serving the Washington DC Metropolitan area including Washington DC, Montgomery County Maryland, & Northern Virginia
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The Redskin Fan siad it Best " I am Confused"?
Mike - I'm a "casual" Redskins fan (this week!) but if we meet in the playoffs, it's wager time!
And yes, definitely confused. But I think we're supposed to be confused. it's all inherently speculative.
Carolyn - well said. Way to bring it all "down to earth" so to speak. I was trying to articulate the point about location (probably no well!). The " video metric"...so more an example of engaging content (thank you, Core IDX!)...I bet you're right.
I think Yahoo is way ahead of this behavioral based search game... because the more drunk you are the more their search results make sense.
**Update -- Matt Cutt's take on SEO 2009. Talks about video - http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2008/11/18/what-googles-matt-cutts-sees-in-2009
My little Brother makes videos and they rank real weel. Search David pannell Realtor on the Net
@Mike, that's cool - yep, a little video syndication for 2009 certainly wouldn't hurt 
Yeah i want to do it, but i will hire a professional and do it right. Being the company owner i need it to look right and not just thrown together.
I'm with you there, Mike. But maybe every once and a while throwing in a "less professional" piece could personalize the business. I know it's dependent on market, topic, your brand etc...just thinking out loud....maybe I should stop doing that!
My take away - the more I read about the Bruce Clay "revelation" - is that the more engaging a site is - the higher it will rank. I think most of this group is on the way to doing what is necessary to have a site that will rank well now and in the future. I think Google is simply trying to find the highest quality and most engaging websites which is exactly what we want.
We just need to keep getting better!
Wayne - I think that's the place I've arrived too after hearing some other great opinions. IMHO, Bruce "finessed" the way he crafted some of his talking points for a little bit of "bait". It caught my attention obviously...but that's not saying much
@"Getting better" - don't think you have to worry about that one, Wayne....great looking site!
Thanks for the comment and will certainly "see" you around...
...Kevin
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The Koitz Group at Long and Foster is a multi-generational group of highly experienced agents. Its principal, Gretchen Koitz has over 20 years of full-time residential real estate experience and shares her expertise as director of new agent training at the Bethesda Gateway Office, where for each of the past five years the productive level of the office has exceeded $1 Billion! Read More
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I think these changes could have a positive impact on our real estate websites. If the benchmarking tools in analytics is accurate my site does well. It seems like personalized, location based searches will improve user experience which seems to be google's main goal.
After watching the interview from the article I'm thinking more that Bruce used multi-media as a way to contribute to user experience. Real Estate sites are full of images, etc. they are rich information (or at least that's the goal).
Seems like the standard rules are still in place. It is all about the user's experience. Build a site that is easy to use, get people to visit it and come back and the search engines will notice it as well.