By: Scott Buresh

The search engine marketing industry is consistently evolving, sometimes at a pace that makes it hard to believe that search engine marketing services can stay on top of all the latest developments. The one constant for search engine marketing firms, and for the industry in general, is change–usually for the better, sometimes for the worse, but almost always significant. The industry is not for the faint-hearted or those who abhor change. However, savvy search engine marketing firms try to look ahead to anticipate trends. Here are my predictions of issues that search engine marketing services will face in the short term.

More Accountability Demanded from Search Engine Marketing Firms

Search engine marketing firms that use tactics designed to trick the engines into showing results that aren’t directly addressing the search query will struggle, as more companies begin to look at the larger goals that lead them to investigate search engine marketing services in the first place. The "traffic-centric" mindset will evolve as companies begin to demand accountability from search engine marketing firms in terms of bottom line increases. Ranking increases delivered by search engine marketing services will be questioned if they do not lead to significant traffic increases, and traffic increases will be questioned if there is no subsequent increase in business generated from the website. This is a good thing for quality search engine marketing firms, since the "snake-oil" practitioners that have given the industry such a bad name will never be given serious consideration by any company that does its homework in the vendor selection process.

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By: Matt Hockin

Want to know what it will take to get your website ranked at the top of the search engines? It’s all about links. Links are the most fundamental building blocks of the Internet and Search Engine Optimization (SEO).

As Google explains on their technology page [google.com/technology/], in-bound links (links pointing to your website from other websites) and Google PageRank are critical to ranking high at the Google search engine. In fact, we’ve found that inbound links (also called “backlinks”) and the keyword optimized text in and around those inbound links account for about 95% of optimizing for the “Big 3” search engines — Google, Yahoo! and MSN Search.

SEO Gap Analysis:

If you want to know what it will take to get top rankings for your keyword phrases do the following 4 steps…

1) Identify Your Keyword Phrases - Research and identify what keyword phrases your target market uses to search for products or services like yours. List them out.

2) Analyze Google’s Top Sites for Your Keyword Phrases - Simply go to Google, type in the keyword you want to rank for and see which competitor sites rank the highest. Take note of their URLs. For example: competitorsite1.com, competitorsite2.com, etc.

3) Anchor Text Analysis - Now, go to Yahoo.com and run anchor text analysis to see what their in-bound link text says. Look at the exact anchor text they’re using by searching Yahoo! like this… link:http://www.competitorsite1.com. This will display a list of the websites that link to your competitor’s site. Click the links, look at each web page and take note of the link text that is hyperlinked to your competitor’s website. You’ll want to use the same (or very similar) anchor text that your competitor’s are using. NOTE: This is time consuming! To speed things up, I highly recommend Brad Callen’s “SEO Elite” software. Simply open SEO Elite, type in your keyword phrase you want to analyze, click all 5 Search Engines and have the software find ALL the links.

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By: Loren Baker | Source: searchenginejournal.com

The Question & Answer human powered search alternative has expanded beyond Yahoo Answers & Google and has now found a home with Microsoft’s Windows Live QnA. Windows Live has opened QnA up to the public for BETA testing and is looking for feedback on its product. Betsy Aoki posts on the MSN Search Weblog:

For all of you still new to our question-and-answer service, we will be providing more blog posts here to help guide you through the features, but here’s a quick roundup of what you will see with the Windows Live QnA beta:

* A smooth interface that enables you to ask, answer and vote on a question.
* A free-form “tagging” system that allows you to attach your own keywords and phrases to your question to make it more discoverable by other users. With QnA, you tell us what the question is about, not the other way around!
* Integration with Windows Live Spaces via modules that show off questions you’ve asked and questions you’ve answered.
* See your score constantly increase on the Superstars page and earn reputation stars for consistently giving great answers.
* Windows Live Messenger “gleams” that show when you and your buddies have participated in QnA.
* Email notification that someone has answered your question, or when others have voted on a best answer, via MSN Alerts.
* Ability to subscribe to a customer, question or site search via RSS.
* Message boards that let you get support information, discussions with other people, and contact with the QnA team. You can’t chat or discuss things in Windows Live QnA without breaking the format… so instead, go to our message boards.

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