Local SEO Predictions 2009

It’s that time of year again friends. Without further ado witnesseth these prophecies that I have set forth hence: (If you want to see how I did with last year’s version I have updated the Local SEO Predictions 2008 post: – sorry for the extra ado).

1. Google, Google & More Google.  Did I Mention Google?
   It’s Google’s world and we all just search in it.  Yahoo & MSN will still be generating traffic but Google’s share will continue to grow and if you’re not showing up in the GSERPs you better rethink your marketing strategy.
2. The Number of Small Business Websites Trying SEO Will Increase By 10x
   The economy sucks.  Small business websites suck at Internet marketing in general.  SMB’s will realize that one of the best ways to fight the economy is to not suck quite so bad at Internet marketing.
3. A Thousand Local SEOs Will Bloom
   Probably a lot more than that.  Per my post I’m a Mortgage Broker, I Mean SEO, unemployed people with basic SEO knowledge will hang up their SEO consultant shingles in record numbers causing a large increase in the number of SMBs trying SEO (see prediction #2), and consequently causing a large increase in future clients for SEOs who actually know what they are doing.
   
4. SEO Will Become A New Line of Business For Many Companies
   In a market where cash is king, everyone will be reviewing their assets to see where the cash generators are.  If you have any kind of brand, be it local, national, whatever, chances are you are sitting on top of a valuable SEO asset and don’t even know it.  Smart businesses who understand the power of search will start to use SEO to reinvent what their brand means in search (a fancy way of saying besides trying to rank for the money terms for their core business, they will now start to focus on money terms that may have nothing to do with their core biz, but that they have the ability to rank well for).  Aaron Wall calls it “brand spamming“.  I call it destiny.
5. SEO Referral Services Will Be All The Rage
   No one has really claimed the mantel of “the place to go to find a good SEO consultant”.  Maybe SEOMoz has kind of, but I think they focus more on the community/education thing and not as much on get me five bids from five great SEO firms and get them to me now.  They’re coming baby so get ready.
6. SEO Communities Will Continue to Flourish
   With services link Ning and KickApps, the cost of community creation has dramatically decreased.  Any SEO blogger with a semi-decent brand or a lot of marketing chutzpah is going to be tempted to create their own version of SEOMoz or SEOBook’s premium service.  Why should the big guys get to have all of the fun?
7. Google Maps Will Continue to Endure Massive Map Spamming
   It seems like the only way around this is to create some kind of a Wikipedia-type thing where there is a core of crazy maniacal community editors who are watching over everything like hawks. But it could be a lot easier to prove that someone is spamming the Britney Spears page v. the local tattoo parlor profile.
8. Video SEO Will Continue to Be An Amazing Area of Opportunity
   More and more marketers will figure out that the easiest way to exploit Google Universal Search is via local video seo.
9. A Big Local Search Site Will Fix The SEO Loophole That Only A Few Of Us Know About
   I sure ain’t telling… ;P
10. Two Words: Stimulus SEO
    I don’t know how it’s going to go down but when Obama injects a few trillion into the economy you know patriotic search marketers everywhere are going to be figuring out how to get a piece of it.  For example – you could set up a site that tracks the how the pork is spent city by city (www.pork-in-city.com) and then when it hits big you redirect each city page to a local butcher profile page.  Just reread that.  It must be getting late.

    Oblique Strategy for 2009: Trust in the you of now