Photo by Jon_Marshall

Listen here lad, I’ve been making websites since the year dot and I know that all your Digs and Tweeterings are good for only one thing – spam email.     Trust me, all you need for them search engines is Meta Keywords.

I wish that quote was a work of fiction, but it’s not. It’s the befuddled claims of a web developer who I had the pleasure of arguing with over the phone last week. The methods he was promoting were sound and proven – but they’re now wildly out of date.

Don’t make the same mistake. Get up to speed with what you need to know if you’re planning on doing any SEO in 2010. These five steps won’t teach you everything you’ll need to know, but they’ll help you get started. 

1) Meta Tags are Old Hat

If you had your ear to the ground in 2009, you’d know that Google and Yahoo both disowned the former powerhouse of SEO, the meta keywords tag. They’re always likely to change their minds, but you shouldn’t think meta tags will magically cure poor listings. Put twenty words in the keywords tag, make sure your description carries your main phrase and move on.

2) Content is for Customers

The days of keyword stuffing are also at an end. That’s not to say that content isn’t vitally important. It is. But it’s important for your customers. If you’re worried that you’ll be promoting a website filled to bursting with repetitive keywords and dull copy, contact an SEO copywriter and ask for help. Otherwise, make sure your key words are where your clients want them – page titles, headers and scattered liberally across the copy to help skim readers glean context.

3) Links are your SEO Lifeblood

Links and anchor text. If you’ve not thought about where to get the former and how to write the latter, then you’re not going to rank well in 2010. If you’re serious about SEO, you need to get serious about links. Write linkbait, track down dofollow blogs and start networking. Hell, if you need a link for an SEO or copywriting blog, you could even ask me.

4) Social Media isn’t the Future. It’s the Present.

Ignore all those people out there saying “Twitter will” or “Facebook could”. Twitter has. Facebook is. Major search engines are incorporating information from social media sites. Canny SEOs are building up a good rep on Sphinn and Digg. Anyone with half an idea is promoting it on Twitter. These aren’t spam email generators. They’re link generators. Enquiry generators. Used properly, they will get you rankings and make you money.

5) This List will be Useless in 2011

Ok, it might not, but don’t take that chance. SEO is moving faster than ever before. With more and more of the world’s population going on line, the Internet will be flooded with new ideas. If Twitter changed SEO in 2009 and led to real time search, what could change the game in 2010? Keep your finger on the pulse and make sure you’re using the most up to date information. Subscribing to my RSS feed might be a start.

Related posts:

1. Five Wildly Inaccurate Social Media Predictions for 2010
2. New Years Resolutions for 2010
3. “Breaking” News From Google HQ

Photo by MrMatze77

The end of a year can’t just be a time for retrospection and reflection. It should also be a time for wild speculation and crystal-ball gazing. Luckily, like Cassandra before me, I have been cursed with the gift of being able to see into the future with 100% accuracy.

So fire up your stock portfolio, get down to the bookies, or just prepare to tell all your friends that “I told you so!” It’s time for five completely accurate Social Media predictions for 2010!

Five Wildly Inaccurate Social Media Predictions for 2010

1) Twitter will replace verbal communications

Twitter has already completely revolutionised the way that homo sapiens communicates. If the papers are to be believed, Steven Fry doesn’t even open his mouth anymore. On the set of QI, he tweets his lines to a producer who then has to stitch his dialogue together from archive audio clips. And as anyone who’s read the Guardian Tech section knows, by signing up to Twitter you enter into a contract that states Mr. Fry will make all of your decisions.

By mid-2010, the streets will be silent and the Fail Whale will become the most recognisable image in human history.

Or in reality: Twitter is barely new and excititing as it is. It’s going to become just another communication tool. Like email.

2) Google will buy everything

On January 1st, Google will announce that their company motto will be changed from “Don’t be Evil” to “Total Global Domination”. By January 2nd, they’ll own everything – Facebook, Yahoo, your house. Matt Cutts will go from head of Web Spam to “Commissar for Thought Spam”, using a powerful new search tool to root out and destroy anyone who even thinks the word “Bing”.

By December 31st, Google will have patented actual robot spiders, which they will use to index the population and “cache*” dissenters.

*or maim. Maim’s probably the more likely of the two.

Or in reality: 2008 and 2009 saw Google investigated by the monopolies commission. Branching out is still a probability, but they might have to play it safe in 2010.

3) Confused and scared Silver Surfers will turn the power of their SimplicITy computers against the masses

For years now, anyone over the age of sixty has decided that they can’t work that Interweb thing and that they’d rather be knitting. Unfortunately, the modern world has different ideas and the tendrils of online interaction are snaking around the nursing homes of Britain. Soon the online sphere will be crammed full of unwilling elderly folk, all repeatedly hammering “Werther’s Original” into Google. Flickr will crash under the load of so many mis-labelled photographs of grandchildren, and Twitter’s new trending topics will be variations on “During the war…”

Or in reality: My Nan is already on Facebook. My Gran sends me email birthday cards every year. Silver Surfers are here, and they don’t need condescending to.

4) Social Media will become less about people and more about business

In 2009, chances are that you’ve read dozens of articles on why businesses should embrace social media. Unfortunately, evil capitalists have read them too. In 2010, going online will be like jumping into an ad break. Sneaky salesmen will pose as your friends in order to tell you about great offers, Richard Branson will personally reply to each one of your Tweets to tell you about Virgin Rail, and Alan Sugar will replace Tom as everyone’s first MySpace friend.

Or in reality: Social media has the power to revolutionise the way businesses interact with customers – but the power still lies with the average user. Business will bend over backwards to stop you sharing bad experiences.

5) Sites like Facebook, Bebo and MySpace will turn the next generation into asocial potato people

Don’t just take my word for it. Listen to the not-reactionary-scaremongers-at-all over at the Daily Mail. An actual SCIENTIST has said that FACEBOOK IS DAMAGING YOUR CHILD’S BRAIN!

That’s right, exposure to the INTERNET will turn any CHILDREN that aren’t MURDERED by gangs of PAEDOPHILES into DROOLING IDIOTS. This isn’t idle conjecture, or rabble-rousing in an attempt to get traffic. This is an UNDENIABLE FACT. FACT!

Or in reality: They won’t. 

So there you have it. Lock your doors and windows before Google’s Thought Police arrest your children. Be quiet though – don’t forget to mute the notification sounds on your Twitter App.

Share your predictions in the comments section below, or get in touch with Andrew through his Twitter account.

Related posts:

1. The Problem With Social Media? You’re Doing It Wrong.
2. Simple Social Media Advice
3. Trial by Twitter – Jan Moir Feels the Brunt of a Social Media Backlash