2009 saw a lot of exciting changes and additions to the world of online marketing and search engine optimization. Some important events that took place were the launch of BING, announcement of Google Caffeine, the merger of Yahoo and Microsoft search. 2010 will see real time web emerging which will become more popular than the traditional methods of optimization.

Following is the list of pointers to get your website on top, reach out to potential customers and ensure brand visibility in 2010.

1. Decrease Webpage Load Time. Google's Matt Cutts recently hinted that the load time of a website may affect its ranking in the search engines. That is, the faster a website loads, the better its chances to rank well for its niche keywords. Website load time is touted as the next big step towards improved rankings. The pre-requisites to a good webpage load time are; reputable web host and fast internet connection.

2. Get Listed in Google Local Search. Getting listed in Google Local Search ensures brand visibility in front of visitors from the nearby places. It has been proven that the number of visitors to a website increase exponentially when listed in local search results. The reason being, a customer will always prefer to purchase a quality product which is easily available in his or her vicinity rather than order it from another unfamiliar city or state.

3. Get Involved in Social Media. Social Media is the flavor of the season and in 2010 organizations are going to actively engage in conversation and social networking and reach out to their potential customers. Social Media Marketing is a must for every organization as it helps create brand awareness and build relationships with consumers in the highly competitive market. Micro targeting and Personalization will be the keywords in 2010.

4. Optimize Your Website Mobile Users. With and ever increasing number of people tweeting and using Facebook from their mobile devices, a lot of organizations are now finally paying attention to how their websites appear on mobile phones. You can have your website appear on the mobile under the same URL or have a special domain for the same. The most common way is to have the domain name as mobile.websitename.com.


5. Apply Web Analytics to its full potential. There are hundreds of web analytics tools in the market which provide a mountain of data pertaining to the visitor's usage. Some of the most well known web analytics tools are Omniture, Google Analytics and Yahoo! Web Analytics etc. Web Analytics tools can answer the "how" but not the "why". That is, you can find out how many visitors checked the product catalogue webpage, but not the answer to, why the visitors didn't place an order for the product. Organizations need to dissect the data from web analytics tools and successfully apply its learning's to enhance their visitors experience and in turn increase sales revenues.

In 2010 companies must go beyond organic search engine optimization by integrating social media marketing and optimizing their websites for mobile users.

Debbie A. Everson is the CEO of SearchMar Inc., experienced SEO Consultants and Search Engine Optimization Agency to over 2,000 small businesses. Ask about our search engine optimization, paid search advertising, social media, or email marketing services and request a free consultation. Read my SEO Blog for hints and tips and follow me on Twitter @searchmar. Call 1.866.885.6263 to speak to an SEO Consultant.

Malinda writes: I totally agree with you. These are the few things we can't ignore to have a niche in this tough competitive world. Page load time should be less to get better ranking. We can do page caching which reduces server load to 80% and helps load page faster. We can check if a website is serving cached pages at "seositecheckup.com/x_cache_header.php". It is really effective.

3:56:43 Tue Feb 23 2010 CST


dandelionweb writes: Hi Debbie,
#4 mobile.websitename.com is an interesting idea - none of my clients are giving thought to their site appearance on mobile devices.

18:41:37 Tue Feb 9 2010 CST


Lyndas9254 writes: Thanks this will really help to know where to focus with all the changes I have read about. AGain, thanks.

15:08:52 Fri Jan 29 2010 CST


Tom writes: Goddammit, I hit your print button and got 7 pages of waste and junk.

Thanks a lot.






7:08:47 Thu Jan 21 2010 CST


Sherry writes: We started our social media campaign about 6 months ago and it is just now starting to really show promise of helping the business!

12:51:00 Tue Jan 19 2010 CST


HERMAN writes: @ Bhawna...sound logic, conversion is very under utilized!



4:37:21 Fri Jan 15 2010 CST


Mitch writes: I've never even thought about including the last 10 posts, I'll be adding that in a hurry..
Thanks for the tip :)

19:02:13 Thu Jan 14 2010 CST


Bhawna Garg writes: Yes, the next buzzword is web conversion after SEO. People tend to ignore web analytics but this wont be true in 2010

8:12:50 Thu Jan 14 2010 CST


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