In 2011, search truly entered the consciousness of mainstream marketing as one of the cornerstones to digital marketing success. Previously, attitudes to search have ranged from mild disinterest to being outright ignored in favour of flashier digital creative and strategy. SEM was often the last thought or applied as a token digital marketing gesture while SEO just seemed too hard to understand with some even questioning if it had any value at all. Not even the fact that Google being arguably the corporate global success of a generation and its fortunes based on the online search habits of the global population seemed to make an impression or translate the disciplines value. The smart ones however, knew from early on and worked hard to establish best practice parameters that delivered paid and organic results that went straight to fattening up the bottom line while concurrently delivering accountability, visibility and brand impressions with an ROI all other mediums could only dream about.
Nowadays anyone with half a marketing brain and any brand with serious aspirations to success are not only embracing it but are understanding its influence and place alongside all other communication channels. 2011 was in many ways the year that search came of age and now the marketing world understands and anticipates the evolution really has begun.
So where is search heading in 2012?
In 2012, Atomic Search believes there are going to be some defining moments that will fundamentally alter the current landscape. The top predictions for the year ahead begin with a game-changer of huge potential and a number of other developments that will affect the face of search and the business both here and overseas.
In 2012...
Facebook will launch a search engine. As the dominant social force it makes a whole lot of sense to combine search and social to deliver intuitive results in one seamless hit. Google have tried to jump the gun with Google+ and not really hit the mark. Our call is that the path to search success for Facebook will be a whole lot easier. Facebook teamed up with Yahoo! in 2011 to develop search technologies that utilise Facebook’s rich social data to provide superior personalised search results. The initial results are very impressive and provide a serious threat to Google's long-term dominance of search. Given their economic might and the attractive commercials of search marketing, Facebook will launch a smarter, more peer-informed search engine that will compete quickly with Google. Despite its dominance in search, Google has flaws. It has long relied on robots and dated algorithms to produce its search results. Social media has the ability to produce tailored, personalised search results that are peer-informed.
Google+ will flounder. In response the the above, Google launched Google+ in 2011 and claim 60+ million users within six months. We can expect to see aggressive marketing of Google+ in 2012, but adoption and usage will slow in preference for a single point of social activity with Facebook. Google will force its hand by rewarding businesses that do adopt with improved search rankings. This will improve business adoption and niche the product to this purpose.
Imported digital labor will rise sharply. The local market for savvy experienced digital marketer is highly competitive. Salaries are rising beyond inflation and businesses are finding it hard to attract and retain staff. The continued economic recession in Europe provides rich pickings and savvy Australian recruiters and digital service providers they have already started to exploit this market for experienced and willing talent.
The rise of the inbound marketing and earned media managers. Still not a pervasive job description, but expect to see references to 'inbound marketer' and 'director of earned media' on Seek this year. The importance of developing engaging innovative content and then spreading it via search and social media is understood - and agencies now have a need for talent that understands creative content, digital channels and what makes people share content and how it all works together.
Mobile search will continue to explode in growth. Better technology, intuitive app-based search and social and search convergence coupled with continued user uptake will see the onward march of mobile search continue to gain ground over desktop search. Mobile-specific architecture and optimisation is now a necessity and those who embrace it in 2012 will reap significant rewards.
Industry accreditation will be a reality. The current absence of a globally recognised digital accreditation will not be maintained. The industry is in sore need of a program that helps employees and employers develop and recognise talent and best practice. Today, SEMPO, Market Motive, Inbound Marketing University (from Hubspot), Search Engine College and a variety of others provide an accreditation service, but none of them are yet respected or recognised as mainstream accreditations. We predict that Market Motive will lead the field in 2012 and become an accreditation worthy part of every practitioners resume. Market Motive’s use of leading global thinkers as course instructors places it well ahead of the pack.
Spend on search will continue to grow at at least 10% in Australia. The IAB has reported YOY growth in search spend of 10% since 2005. Australia now spends far in excess of a billion dollars on search per year and represents around 50% of all digital spend. This spend will increase again in 2012, driven by new entrants to the search channel and organic growth. Advertisers who have been in search for some years have become smarter in their calculations of ROI from this channel and hardened by the reducing returns as bid costs increase. New entrants will enter boldly causing higher bids and lower returns in many verticals.
The application and approach to search will evolve considerably. Better content writing will become a must and be rewarded with higher rankings and customer conversion. Website optimisation will go from being an after thought to a start point in website creation and ensure users are be better rewarded with more accurate alignment between what they are looking for and what they get through search queries. Search creativity and strategy through better landing page theory and architecture will also evolve to be a credible and rewarding part of the marketing mix rather than simply being a point of redirection. And last but not least, better website analytics and better audit transparency will further drive business confidence in the value of search.
2012 will be the year search truly comes of age.
James Dixon
General Manager
Atomic Search
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