The Future of Search
Keywords are the defining element of SEO.
They help people find what they're looking for when they perform a search -- which is why you want to make sure your site is properly optimized for your best keywords.
... But will keywords
always be the focus of SEO? Probably not.
Even now, the search engines place a lot of importance on the words that
surround the keywords on your site. It's not enough for you to have your best keywords embedded in strategic locations on your site. The rest of your content
also has to be relevant.
Latent Semantic Indexing
For example, if you sell a diabetes cookbook and your top keyword is "healthy recipes for diabetics," you need to optimize your site for that keyword.
...
But you also need to make sure your content includes
other related words and phrases, such as:
- diabetes
- cookbook
- healthy eating
- insulin
- glucose
- blood sugar
- diabetes management targets
- nutritional requirements
- carbohydrates
... and so on.
Some of these terms, such as "carbohydrates," and "healthy eating," aren't specific to "healthy recipes for diabetics" at all... yet they're terms the search engines want to find on a site that's optimized for that keyword. They are
a sign that the content on the site is relevant and useful.
... And that's what the search engines are in the business of providing: USEFUL information to their users.
This focus on related terms is called "latent semantic indexing." That's just a fancy term describing how a computer determines the meaning of a body of words by looking at the relationships between those words. Instead of looking at the words and phrases individually, they look at the content as a whole.
Right now, search engines aren't yet able to employ true latent semantic indexing-- with all the information on the Internet, this job is enormously complicated! But that's the goal they're working toward. And when they reach that goal, your individual keywords won't be nearly as important as
the depth and breadth of your content as a whole.
What we'll see in the years to come
Computer engineers are trying to build computers that are capable of truly understanding information in a variety of formats, instead of simply recognizing words on a page and sorting them into predefined categories.
As the search engines become better able to interpret the meaning of non-textual
content, the way we search is going to change.
Imagine being able to say, "Computer! How do I get ticks off my dog?" or "What's the name of that war movie with the guy from Forrest Gump?" and have your computer run a search and tell you the answers -- out loud.
Or how about doing a search on a photo of an old car and have the search engine tell you the car's make and model... or running a search on a music video and having the search engine tell you name of the song, who sings it, and the lyrics?
What does this mean for your business?
These advancements in search technology are still years away, so you still need to focus on optimizing your site for your top keywords.
However, if you want to get a head start on preparing your business for the future, here are some tips:
1. Have a blog? If not, now's the time to get one
This may sound like a broken record, but it's true: if you want your site to rank well with the search engines -- no matter how they change their algorithms -- you have to
make sure your site has lots of valuable information.
So, what's the smartest way to do this?
Start a blog. It's the easiest way to build the content of your site quickly.
Once your blog is set up, make sure you publish at least three blog posts a week.
Remember, every new post counts as a new page on your site -- so
the more blog posts you publish, the "deeper" your site content will become.
And since keywords still matter, make sure each blog post is optimized for one of your best keywords and is properly tagged and categorized. It must also include useful information, though!
2. Add more keyword-optimized images to your site
Since Google includes images in its search results, you need to make sure you use some.
On all the pages of your site, add images that complement the content. Your blog posts are an especially good place to include images that add visual oomph to your content. In the HTML code that links your images to the page, make sure you include a top keyword in your
image "alt" text.
(If you're blogging in WordPress, use the "Title" field. If Blogger is your platform you'll need to click on "Edit HTML," find the "img" code for each picture, and then go in and manually add
alt="keyword-rich text" within the image tag -- a big pain, but it's worth it.)
3. Add more video to your site
The search engines seem to place great value on videos, but there's no point going to the trouble of making videos if you're not going to get SEO credit out of them.
The problem is, search engines don't yet have ears.
Until that day comes, build each video around a single keyword, and
use the keyword in the name.
Then
add a transcript to help the search engines recognize the keywords in your rich media content. YouTube, for example, lets you add "closed captioning," so you can simply include a transcript when you upload.
You can either use the script you based the video on or transcribe the audio. Online videos should be short anyway, so it doesn't take much time to transcribe one, but if you're really cranking them out you might want to use a transcription service. It'll be worth it when you see your videos on page one of the search results.
4. Optimize your social networking
Finally, be aware that people are increasingly ignoring the search engines altogether!
Instead, they're relying on their social networks to find services and products... and reliable recommendations for both.
In fact, according to Nielsen
20% of the people on social networks use those social networks as their main online navigation portal . So -- again -- build profiles, posts, and comments around good keywords, and
make everything relevant and easy to share.
Search is going social, and even the traditional search engines are now returning results from Facebook and even Twitter. So if you're not already engaging with your potential customers on the social networks, it's time to get started.
... Implementing these recommendations right away will help you take advantage of some of the hidden SEO opportunities out there.
Meanwhile, you'll be preparing for changes that are looming on the horizon.
And since that means offering
more valuable content to your visitors -- which is going to help your business anyway -- why not get started sooner instead of later?
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