Search: Where to Next? #SESSJ

Search: Where to Next?
It’s been said that the best way to predict the future is to invent it. And almost everyone likes to speculate about the future. When it comes to search marketing, none are better at it than our veteran panel of industry insiders. Join us for an illuminating discussion as we peek into the next generation of digital marketing and predict what search might look like in the following five to ten years. What should be on your search radar for 2010 and beyond? Does the key to the future of search lie in personalization? Do social networks herald the end of search? Certain industry pundits have even been heard to say that SEO is dead. The future is coming. Are you ready for it?

Moderator:
Anne F. Kennedy, SES Advisory Board, Founder Partner and CMO, Joblr.com and Managing Partner & Founder, Beyond Ink

Speakers:
Stephan Spencer, Founder & President, Netconcepts, LLC
Pavan Lee (Peiwen Li), Senior Research Manager, Microsoft
Heather Dougherty, Research Director, Hitwise
Chris Boggs, Director, SEO, Rosetta
Eli Goodman, Search Evangelist, comScore, Inc.
Carla Borsoi, VP, Research & Analytics, Ask.com

Coverage: Tom Dressler, Senior Strategist, WebsiteBiz

Opening by Kennedy indicates the time allocated for this topic is way too short.

Kennedy: What is on your search radar for 2010 and beyond?

Borsoi: Focusing on semantic and variance (aka user intent) methods, asking the question “what do people really want?” Today the search marketer must focus their strategy on extending keywords; in the future the search engine itself will own this responsibility.

Spencer: The Law of accelerating returns. Humans think in a linear fashion…The amount of innovation today is moving very rapidly! We are not really able to predict what will happen next through the science of quantum singularity. The idea of a language user interface is a huge change (GUI to a LUI); Graphic User Interface to a Language User Interface. Keyboarding and texting will be predictability short as speak to text will be the method of the day.

Li: Using voice recognition as the part of the search experience is what we should watch for over the next few years. The focus is to watch what users want. Mobile search is on the horizon. 90% of the room has a smart phone and have used mobile search in the past 3 days. Audience size is approximately 300-400.

Boggs: Comments on Carla and Stephen’s comments related to what changes heve occurred as far as the topics being discussed at SES sessions. The technology is really catching up to the intent of the searcher without the physical presence of a particular keyword on a specific page.

Kennedy: What is personalization due to relevancy and what should we do about this as search marketers?

Dougherty: The use of search queries of 5 terms or more has grown significantly. Personalization in retail and eCommerce is leading the charge, but it is not refined. At times, extended search results seem irrelevant. Suggestions are based on behavior and therefore it could be on topic you don’t actually want to receive information about.

Boggs: SEO is not dead and is more critical that ever. Optimize, optimize, and optimize.

Kennedy: Has Social caused SEO to appear DOA?

Goodman: His mother is now asking about Facebook and Twitter. Is SEO dead…NO. Technology will change and we need to stay abreast of these changes. The fragmentation of the decision process is growing. People look at approx 104-105 searches per month on the Big 5 search engines. YouTube has 1B searches/month in the USA and Facebook has 1B searches/month worldwide. He also mentions the importance of who I am and what I want to be considered in the future search result sets. More will be learned.

Dougherty: SEO is not dead. Social has made it easier in some ways. Niche is also to be considered. Music/Video on YouTube is huge. Facebook is more focused on people searches. LinkedIn has a more business search. Twitter has event & people based searches. “Things are on trial till they are looked at in retrospect” quote from Keynote from Clay this morning.

Goodman: Make sure that you include Social Media as it has increased in the marketing funnel when consideration is needed.

Spencer: Do not forget about the use of social bookmarking especially when building links…potentially find power users and “seed” them.

Boggs: Watch because it can blow up if not managed properly.

Borsoi: Personal opinion based on actual experience is huge on social media…search engine needs to catch up.

Goodman: Shows some slides on the 3 big points:

1. Search activity judged by intent – not destination
2. Search will continue to grow as a branding vehicle; Offline branding dollars moving online
3. Fragmentation of the decision making process; 25% increase YOU on the number of searches per searcher as well as the search user base is growing significantly.

Li: What is the number one question we should ask? Where is digital media going next…MOBILE is the answer. The smartphone/iPhone is the number 1 digital device people can’t live without. It has extended your media habits away from the PC. It is a very personal device/relationship therefore pride and a connection has occurred. TV/reading do not have this characteristic. She the highlights a case study from Toyota to make the point that adding Mobile & Mobile Search what is the incremental impact of the online component 4X on unaided brand recall and 40% on other points that I could not capture.

Dougherty: Search/Social Media channels have passed email as the key resource leading to the relationship people want to have online.

Boggs: Follow him on Twitter @boggles

Mentions the Google Webmaster Blog on next generation infrastructure and that Matt Cutts is available to talk with and please approach him and introduce yourself. SEO is alive, long live SEO.

Highlights for the blog post include the following:

1. Crawl – SE focus

2. Index the resulting pages and compute how reputable the page/content is – SEO focus

3. Rank and return – SE focus

Now we are open to Q&A from the audience.

• Reports and reporting have increased significantly even over the short term (1 Year) Needing to show ROI to executives, clients, prospects and business development.

Tagged as: #SESSJ, digital marketing, evangelist, research director, search radar, speaker session