The Internet As We Know It Is Changing

As marketers, we are all too familiar with change whether its technology, user intent or, more commonly, an algorithm update. Adapting to these fluctuations in our field has become par for the course and means continually learning about these changes if we want to be successful and maintain our exposure.

This has many asking a very common question, “What’s next?” What is the next big thing and where will it go from here.

With wearable tech and kitchen appliances now connected to the internet, how are we to optimize for the future of search?

Is Social Media on the Rise?

A recent post by Shareaholic shows search engines such as Bing and Yahoo have a higher level of engagement on websites when compared to traffic from Google. Granted, Google currently holds between 66-81 percent of the search market (depending on what source you check) so naturally more traffic is bound to see a higher bounce rate. But what about social media referrals?

Facebook and Pinterest are the reigning champions of social referrals and both have their own high level of engagement. With marketers scurrying to find way to future-proof their sites in fear of another Panda or Penguin, many have turned to social media as a way of solidifying an online presence.

We know that brands with successful social media campaigns post high engaging content such as nostalgic images, videos thanking fans, jokes, puns and poles.  But how much of that traffic converts? Rhetorical question, I’m not going to post any stats that can be misconstrued.

Are Apps the Future of the Internet?

Native and web apps are extremely popular and it seems that new ones are popping daily. Apps quickly give users the information they’re looking for and are placed right there in front of us on our phones and tablets.

Convenience is a big thing to consider especially with the number of wearable tech and always connected devices on the rise.

At the F8 summit, Facebook recently announced that apps will now have a back button and the ability to deep link to a billion of other apps. That’s billion, with a B.

Is this the rumored Google killer that everyone has been theorizing about for a while? If apps have the ability to connect to one another then how will this affect search? A user can open their travel app, check flight status, weather and local places to eat all without having to search for anything. Would we no longer need to optimize for search engines and just focus on the convenience factor of our apps? Probably not. The focus will however shift to optimizing our apps for the app store and Google play.

Speaking of Google, the search giant recently announced greater app indexing within search. This means that more and more Android apps will be appearing in the SERPs in the coming weeks.

This is going to make link building even more challenging than it currently is!

Even though this new development is HUGE news to us in the marketing world, it is still in its infancy and many are slow to adopt (1/2 of SMBs still don’t have a website) so I don’t predict a huge decline in search engine traffic any time soon.

My Two Cents

Yes the internet is changing, just like it always has and will continue to. Remember not too long ago (back in the 90’s) websites didn’t even have static navigation so certain sites had hundreds of orphan pages. It was a mess, got cleaned up, then social media happened.

Apps are the next progression of the web and cross-app linking will benefit those connected in a large way and can be a great win for SEO. Websites will still be important for businesses as the user experience is no doubt different on a desktop, having access to more information on a larger screen.

Please share any experience you may have had with optimizing or indexing apps as we are big fans of success stories here at AmsiveDigital.