Okay, at this SEO consultancy we’re going to bore everyone to death over 2012 with two words: quality and relevancy.
We’ve mentioned them before of course – almost every day – as we would expect any self respecting UK SEO consultant to do – but there is a point to our message. Google and the other search engines are set on a message to rid the internet of all the rubbish out there. And they are rewarding companies who take heed of the guidelines.
Websites now have to be portals that are valued by users. They have to be easily navigable and full of high quality, relevant content. Padding out websites just for the sake of it, or tricking customers into doing various things, is now discouraged.
So are websites that act as pure middle men for other websites; this are not seen entirely good things by the search engines. They like transactional websites, not bridging websites which act like black holes, pulling in traffic and then selling it to the highest bidder.
But also expect the unexpected in 2012. It’s likely that Google will shake things up, in a way that they won’t (or daren’t do) with PPC. Google introduced the Farmer and Panda algorithms in 2011 in a bid to cut out the worst tactics in website marketing.
It would be a fair bet that Panda 2 is on the horizon, or even a more radical version, maybe something like Grizzly Bear, which again knocks down the bridging sites on the rankings.
So, be warned, Google is always happy to mix things up with the organic SEO.