‘Change’ seems to be the predominant keyword for 2009. Changes are being felt on every level, and despite the slump, and despite the terrible start to the year I feel that many of them are positive ones.
OK, to start with I spose you’re wondering why I didn’t just say ‘my predictions for SEO in 2009?’ In short, I feel that SEO is becoming less and less a standalone issue and more and more an integral part of online marketing. More importantly, I feel that more so than ever before you will need to implement a multi-pronged online marketing strategy if you want to carve out a decent share of your niche market in the coming year.

So let’s get to it.

1. I predict that the beginning of Google’s downfall has, in fact, already started, and will begin to be detectable around the middle of 2009. It will take a few months for word of this to get around, and another few months for most people to grasp the fairly astounding implications.
2. Expect to spend a lot more time considering your niche because this will be of increased importance. Even more so than it has been in recent years. The Internet is huge and the only way that search engines can serve their visitors well is to break it all down into bite-sized chunks.
3. To this end, expect to see fewer and fewer webpages optimized for single-word search terms. Could it be that the time has come when long-tail search is actually more important than even two-word search terms? We shall see…
4. I feel that we will see more and more niches that actually are an ‘intersection’ between two niches: If you’re not sure what I’m talking about, then Karl Long might clarify it for you. But in any case, you should definitely read The Medici Effect (free download alert) because this concept is going to come into its own in 2009.
5. The time has gone where a marketer could just throw up a site and scare up some traffic. Social media is the way of the future. Online marketers will rely more and more on social media marketing for

Online branding
advertising
traffic
and even market research/product creation

6. We won’t see much evidence of the so-called economic slump online. Here’s just one survey that shows that only 25 percent of online marketers plan to cut their advertising budget in 2009:
7. Branding is going to be a lot more about who you network with and how they see you, than how many advertising bucks you’ve invested. This has already started to manifest: a famous case was the Motrin ad that was pulled because of the response from moms on Twitter. Here’s another site that talks about how important it is to network in order to grow your business.

It will be interesting to look back at the end of 2009 to see how close this list was, and to also take a look at some other marketing predictions for 2009. Do hope you’ll join me in December for that.

Blogging is a new industry, and while it is already huge, it seems the surface hasn’t really been scratched yet. Learning how to use blogging to enhance business might be something you’ll want to do in order to establish your online brand. One of the latest forms of blogging is micro-blogging, as in Twitter or Plurk.

There are lots of reasons why opening an account with Twitter is a great thing to do for your business:

1. Joining Twitter is free, easy and takes only seconds (OK you’re right, that’s two reasons right there).
2. You can create a Twitter network that links you up with some really impressive people in your niche. We even have celebrities like Britney Tweeting now. You can find best selling authors like Scott Allen and towering business personalities like Guy Kawasaki.
3. Twitter is one of the best ways there is to keep abreast of trends in your niche. Communication is essential for anyone wanting to succeed in this information age, and if that information can be had in real-time on a breaking news basis, just imagine what an edge that would give you compared to your competitors who have not yet discovered Twitter. Many times we hear important news before it breaks in print and broadcast media. There have even been instances where they’ve taken queues from us–not always successfully. Jill Whalen calls it the ‘water cooler aspect,’ and that about sums it up.
4. Even if you don’t feel like it now, grab your Twitter ID (especially your name) now in case you really regret it later when you see that everyone’s using Twitter, (chances are you will).
5. Twitter is a fantastic way of getting inspiration for your blog or website, or any other project you’re working on. Users often use it for feedback, canvassing the market and a lot more. Here’s just one example of how bloggers get material for posts as well as business development ideas.
6. Have questions about business? Give them up to the Twitter universe. Chances are you’ll be pleasantly surprised at the results.
7. Used correctly Twitter can be a superb reputation management tool both for getting the good word out and suppressing the bad. But that will only work if your Twitter network is already well established when you have a reputation crisis to contend with.
8. Some really interesting writers/artists are easy to link up with.
9. Itinerary coordination: Obama’s presidential campaign made extensive use of social media channels including Twitter for announcements and coordination.
10. Twitter makes a very effective mode of communication and coordination if there’s a crisis, or heaven forbid, a disaster. But if you’re not already established on Twitter with an effective network, when a crisis erupts it’ll be too late.
11. If you choose to you can keep an eye on your market/network anonymously by signing up for Twitter in another name. You can have as many accounts as you want, and if you use an Twitter client like Twhirl, Spaz or Tweetr for Mac you can tweet in more than one profile at once.
12. You can Tweet from your PC, laptop, handheld or smartphone.
13. Twitter takes far less effort to keep up with than some other social media platforms, such as FaceBook, for example. You are in complete control of how much interaction you choose to take on.
14. All the coolest bloggers like Tech Crunch, Problogger, Copyblogger and lots more, are on Twitter. And before all my blogger-friends raise a howl of protest, I cannot list all you cool and notorious bloggers on here I want to finish some time today.
15. You can post your Twitterfeed to your blog or website to increase your network and provide enhanced interactivity for your clients/customers.
16. Join a multitude of entrepreneurs who are actively promoting their goods or services via Twitter in the form of special offers and so on.
17. There are a multitude of Twitter applications such as Twitter Grader, or Mr Tweet that will help you gauge your popularity, market reach and even shortcomings. All vital for social media marketing in any form.

All I can say is, whatever floats your boat.

This post is loosely in response to Jamie Harrop’s comment on my guest post over at his blog. Jamie disagrees with me, so no offense at what follows Jamie.

There’s always more than one way to do anything. When you get advice, the person giving it can only tell you what they think is best from their perspective.

The <title></title> tags for your web pages are of supreme importance to your ranking and which searches you come up for. You need well-thought-out tags that are different for every page in order to get the best results–which is more traffic to your website. If you get it wrong you might even be penalized (like having the same title tag for every page of your website).

From an SEO point of view it makes a lot more sense to put the phrase or search term that your potential visitors are going to type into a search box when they’re looking for whatever it is that you’re selling. Quite simply, names, or your ‘brand,’ while they are important, will not figure into the equation at the search stage. Of course, once a visitor lands on your website you want to do everything you can to get them to remember your name or your brand. But that’s once they’ve arrived. Would you lure a fish onto your line by tying a frying pan onto your rod? Using your name to get new visitors is about as effective.

So, if you’re still determined to put your name in your title tags, without a search term before it, go ahead, Your competitor who listens to their SEO will most likely get more visitors than you do.