Over the last couple of months, I had the chance to meet hundreds in the SEM/SEO industry. I attended a successful SES NY conference and spoke at SMX Toronto and ACCM in New Orleans.

Many companies are not admitting it, but this year has been a tough one. I spoke with an executive who runs a large PPC company. Their sales were down by 40% in the first two months of this year. Another executive who runs a mid size e-commerce operation told me that their international orders from the UK dropped by 90%. Their US sales dropped by 30% for the same period. The national unemployment rate is hovering around 8% with some states reporting much higher rates. Of course, our own city Detroit is reporting unemployment rate close to 23%. I am not here to talk about all the gloom and doom you already see. I also have little interest in telling you that online marketing is the way to go and that it will save your company. I am trying to understand the impact of this down turn on the practice of SEM/SEO industry. So, here are few trends I think you will see over the next 6 to 12 months.

1. More people will enter SEM/SEO field.

Search engine marketing is one of the easiest fields to start a business in or to get into. There is no lack of social media experts, SEO consultants and SEM professionals [who bring little value to client work]. With people getting laid off, many will be tempted to get into SEM field. You do not have to go far to see this happening already. SEO training offered by Bruce Clay at SES NY was fully sold out. You actually had to get on a waiting list to get into the class. As a result, this industry will grow and will become more saturated. Expect to see hundreds of more experts over the next few months. Of course if you are in the business of training SEO, this is great news for you. But how about the rest of us working in the SEO/SEM field? For the top companies, this means very little in terms of competition. However, if you rely on local market for business then expect a lot more competition. Perhaps the other side affect will be in terms of industry reputation. An industry that promises to deliver decent income with no barriers to entry attracts many snake oil salesmen. It will be interesting to track the reputation of the SEM/SEO industry over the next 12 months and see how others react to it.

2. Lack of standards will burn many companies

 As business owner you are never sure you are hiring someone who can help you unless you are hiring the top companies in the field. I talked to a business owner who spent over 20k on SEO for his e-commerce store. He does not understand SEO and can only judge the results. There were no results. Did he waste his money? Yes he did.

I am not sure if we need standards or certification in the first place for the SEO/SEM field. In some professions, such as law or medicine, you have to take an exam before you are allowed to practice. This exam does not guarantee that you will be good at what you do, but it does guarantee that you meet a certain minimal level of knowledge. In other professions, such as computer science, certification is insignificant. The way you measure a good software engineer is by presenting them with complex problems and the time it takes to solve them. You do not need a certificate to prove your work. But in SEO, who sets the standards? Search engines or Google in particular have little interest in revealing how their algorithm works. Search engine optimization comes down to deconstructing software algorithms. And while we might conclude that certain factors do help ranking, the actual reason why these factors have an impact on ranking might be completely different than what we assume.

I was reminded of the need to get some sort of exam when I chatted with a gentleman who runs SEO for one of our clients. I was discussing with him duplicate content issues that were created due to a new navigation scheme we introduced to the site. His response was, “duplicate content is a myth.” I am afraid my client will learn duplicate content is not a myth the hard way. Does this guy need to get some sort of certification?

3. More conferences

I do not know what to make of this trend but we are seeing a number of new conferences spring up all around the place. Is it a well thought and direct response to the first two points? I am not sure. The SEO/SEM person who wants to go to an industry conference has good options to select from. With varying price points that range anywhere from $350 to $2,000. This is a time where conferences that differentiate themselves will continue and those who do not will eventually die. With competition come discounts so it is good for the attendee of these conferences. I know that conferences that target beginners seem to do well but I think that advance conferences (think SMX advance) where we actually learn something new will gain more popularity in the industry.

4. Consolidation

We have not seen much of this yet but I suspect that if things do not improve by August, you will start seeing some companies merging together. You can see the start of this with many one man companies folding. Many of these independent consultants are looking for more steady employment instead of having to chase one client after the next.

5. More SEO companies will jump on the band wagon of conversion optimization

Three years ago, few companies talked about conversion optimization. The concept of testing was foreign to many in the field. Nowadays, everyone talks about testing, personas and conversion rates. It is good and bad at the same time. I have always said that conversion optimization is a lot more than testing. Testing is not but one element of the optimization process. So, while I welcome this new attention to CRO, I remind people that poor testing is a waste of time and money.

6. More tools

Many SEO/SEM companies are building new tools. As links get harder to acquire, tools are an effective link bait mechanism. That however does not discount the value of these tools. Some of the tools help automate the manual tasks done by SEOs, some provide competitive intelligence value and finally the suite of testing and analytics tools continue to grow. As more companies will continue trying this new venue, the space will get more crowded and its effectiveness will diminish.

Your Turn:

Well, instead of rambling on why don’t you share your thoughts with me? What do you think some of the big trends in online marketing in the next 12 months?