As another year of SEO comes to a close and the dawn of 2011 begins, the SEO folk at MEC Manchester are taking a look at some of their forecasts for the year ahead. As we look into our crystal balls we look at some of the obvious, and perhaps some of the more obscure, predictions which might ‘just’ happen in the year ahead.

Bing knocks it up a gear

With Bing’s market share up to 29% in the US I think we can safely say that this will be set to increase both in the States and here in the UK, this leading them to create even more television advertisements and take a larger slice of our daily lives.

We think Bing will also develop a page preview function as Google did earlier in 2010, although it seems Google did more copying of Bing in 2010 than Bing copying Google!

Social Media based rankings

2011 will be the year for social media with the strongest, Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, making a massive impact in the social media marketing world. Social media will become core to every business from the small to large, taking into consideration everything from recruitment to aftersales.

With the recent mass ‘unfriending’ of 500 staff from the offices of MySpace we predict there will be NoSpace by 2012.

With the news that Facebook and LinkedIn are to go public, shareholders will insist on new revenue generating advertising streams that mean your profile is dominated by adverts and the size of your feed/profile will shrink to the size of a postage stamp.

Google and Social

Social search will become more prominent throughout the year, something that will spur on and enhance Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn even more. Could Google be looking to the social sphere more in 2011 to tackle their increasing levels of spam and poor search results? If they don't will this mean in the meantime they lose market share to other search engines such as Bing and Blekko?

And as a final note on Google we at MEC are not entirely sure about, but we predict that Google might have an algorithm change or two.

Mobile

Mobile search will continue to dominate through 2011 leading to mobile SEO and apps establishing a firm foothold in the digital marketing channel.

Mobile bar code scanners and credit card payments will be the next (already well under way) development in mobile technology and this will contribute to the continuous move to a cash free world!

And on other notes…

Matt Cutts will produce a series of educational You Tube videos on how to become a hairdresser, ranging from classic ‘Cutts’ to the more adventurous and daring styles.

Social media will extend out of the virtual arena into our personal lives. Before meeting new people we will do ‘friend research’ therefore allowing us to target ‘keyfriends’ driving traffic to popular venues around cities. All of this will go about improving our own personal rankings. Friends which start dropping down the social ranking can improve their keyfriend status through a strict PPD (pay-per-drink) option.