With the new year fast on our heels, changes that 2009 will bring to online marketing are at the forefront of search engine optimisation (SEO) discussions across the Web. The events of the past year have been centred on a still unfolding economic slowdown. The credit crunch brought by the collapse of major banks on Wall Street and across Europe has certainly altered SEO strategies due to smaller advertising and marketing budgets. The gloomy economic backdrop of 2008 has SEO marketers speculating the changes that paid search marketing will undergo over the coming year. Let us discuss the shift in directions that an SEO firm has to consider taking in 2009.

Ranking vs. Conversion

A new approach to SEO that is fast gaining ground is a focus on conversions rather than rankings. Sure a high search engine ranking is great publicity, but the endgame for marketing is a conversion. A conversion represents some user behaviour that matches the goal of a marketing campaign. This goal might be a sale, a lead, a registration or any other action with which a user fulfils a site's requirement. The ranking approach is a phrase or keyword based strategy while conversions look at a larger picture of creating content, receiving steady traffic and generating sales. More experienced SEO firms understand that conversions are a truer metric for success of an SEO campaign.

Optimising vs. Marketing

An increasing number of SEO firms now look at themselves as marketing companies rather than web designers. This paradigm shift is indicative of the direction that search engines have taken thus far. An increasing emphasis on content translates to SEOs getting more involved in content creation, submission to directories and management across networks. The web design oriented strategies are quickly making way for social media and viral marketing programmes. Optimising involves HTML tag manipulation, sitemap creation and other on-site tactics that have been used and exhausted across the Web. Marketing, on the other hand, is a creative process driven by ideas and the impetus is on creating a buzz, building a loyal customer base and optimising the ROI.

What the year 2009 will bring one cannot say for sure. However, sound preparations to weather the economic turmoil, to define goals and to remain surefooted until the markets bounce back must take centre stage. SEO firms must determine the direction they wish to take as they shed their guise of site optimisation and move forward as marketers.