"Are
you prepared for the future SEO challenges posed
By the Personalization of Search?"
By John Alexander
There are
approximately 3
types of responses that we hear expressed from the
professional SEO community with respect to how the
personalization of search will affect the average business
owner's profitability and traffic. In just a minute, I'll let
you watch a video of Michael Marshall explaining these 3
responses. But if you are wondering what all of the
controversy over the issue of personalization is about, let's
touch on that for a moment first.
Most of the
major search engines have been gravitating towards providing a
much more user friendly experience by offering enhanced
personalization which can be switched on or off. The result of
switching it on is that the search engine begins to gather
data about the type of information you search for over time
and then it has the effect of "personalizes" the
search results by delivering up the most pertinent data based
on an individuals search preferences.
The
advantage or benefit is geared toward the benefit of the user.
Over time the specific search engine seems to be able to
shuffle through search results and quickly deliver the best
information based on the independent searcher's interests. Not
only that, but the results are shuffled based on each users
interests even if 3 or 4 people are all searching on the same
machine.
What this means is that the aspect of traditional
"rankings" or where a Web page shows up in the
results will totally depend on who is doing the search. The
same search for the exact same keyword phrase, will no longer
produce the same exact results to different searchers because
results will be shuffled and delivered up according to each
searcher's interests. Much of how you performed SEO and
traditional rank checking will become obsolete since over
time, you can no longer assume every user sees the same
results for a specific search term. In fact as personalization
becomes more widely adopted, the traditional forms of rank
checking will eventually become meaningless. In the future,
traditional SEO software tools for rank checking will no
longer help you determine how well you are doing or what
percentage of your audience is even seeing your page.
What is your
reaction to the personalization of search?
What are other people saying about the "personalization
of search" and it's implications to traffic and business.
Mike Moran is an IBM Distinguished Engineer, expert on
Internet marketing, and the author of Search
Engine Marketing, Inc., the best-selling book on search
marketing.
Mike Moran has stated that:
"Personalization of search, is the biggest change to
come to search marketing since pay-per-click."
SEO educator Mike Marshall,
with Search Engine Academy also recently addressed the topic
explaining some of the most common perceptions that are being
reflected about the changes to come. Watch
this short video of SEO educator Michael Marshall as he
explains the 3 most common responses from people about the
impact personalization will have on SEO for the future.
VIDEO CLIP:
Watch
Michael Marshall explain the 3 average responses to
personalization on video here.
Search
Engine Academy teaches advanced SEO skills to students in
local communities across North America in the following
locations. If you need help to build your SEO high performance
skills based on the freshest SEO research with direct
one-on-one instruction, please consider attending one of these
complete SEO Mastery Workshops.
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About John Alexander
John Alexander is Co-director of Training at Search
Engine Workshops offering live, SEO Workshops with his
partner SEO educator Robin Nobles, author of the very first
comprehensive online search engine marketing courses. John is author of an
e-book called Wordtracker
Magic and has
taught SEO skills to people from 87 different countries world
wide.
John's articles can be read in publications like REALTOR
Magazine, Search
Engine Guide, WEBpro
News and many others.
