Take Me to Vegas: 2007 Search Predictions
By Matt McGee on Dec 31, 2006 in Miscellaneous
Happy New Year!
With nary an hour to spare, predictions….
1. Google will continue to work harder than Yahoo and MSN combined when it comes to marketing its own products and services to small businesses. There will be more deals like the Intuit partnership aimed specifically at SMEs. Google will continue to tie its products and services to AdWords in its ongoing effort to stroke its only real source of revenue. (Wow, that’s like 3 predictions in one. Slow down, McGee….)
2. Local search will continue to grow, but will not reach “liftoff” status. There are simply too many sites in this space, too much for business owners to track — and too many sources for users to tap. Which leads me to….
3. There will be consolidation in local search. A major search engine or a major yellow pages provider will acquire one (or more) of the second tier local/social search properties. Google, for example, would do well to tap into the power of user reviews by having its own source of that content, rather than pulling all its reviews from other sites, including Yahoo. (I would think Yelp and Insider Pages would be possible targets, among others….)
4. I will continue to add too many new feeds to my Bloglines account and will eventually die of RSS constipation. 
5. Mobile search will continue to be the most overhyped topic in search. I’m not drinking the mobile search kool-aid. Mobile search is always coming, but it never arrives. And I don’t think it will, not for many more years. If ever.
6. Digg.com will be the 2nd most overhyped topic in search, and the #1 most annoying.
7. Video will be the preferred and most successful method of linkbaiting. But I won’t be doing it, because I still own the same crummy videocamera I bought when my son was born in 1997. (Hook it up to my computer? I don’t think it would hook up to a rotary telephone.)
8. Blogging will become an even more effective marketing tool for small businesses. Big business will continue to avoid it altogether, or do it poorly when they try.
9. In the run up to Election 2008, Al Gore will announce that he invented YouTube. Politicians, in general, will embarrass themselves while trying to court the geeks and nerds who make up the blogosphere.
10. Google will continue to dominate search. Yahoo and Ask will gain a little bit of ground in 2007. MSN will lose ground.
Technorati Tags: 2007 predictions, seo, sem
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2 Comment(s)
By Andy Benkert on Jan 1, 2007 | Reply
What, no podcasting?!? Matt, I think podcasting presents good opportunities for small businesses to set themselves apart in certain markets. It hasn’t yet taken off, but it is ready for it and the numbers are growing. I think the Pew Internet and American Life Project has a study on it - http://www.pewinternet.org/index.asp.
By Matt McGee on Jan 2, 2007 | Reply
The problem with podcasting, Andy, is that too many people think you have to own an iPod to listen. I’m speaking from experience with my U2 site which gets a TON of web traffic, but only a small percentage of people download our podcast (which is now 18 months old). They tell us “I don’t have an iPod” and stuff like that.
However, I do think podcasting can be an opportunity for some businesses and I did write a little “How to Market on Podcasts” guide last year.
http://www.smallbusinesssem.com/alternative-sem-opportunities/how-to-market-on-podcasts/
I also think video is a great and growing opportunity in 2007 for businesses, for what it’s worth.