Well it is a Friday, so I thought I would have a bit of a ramble and jot down what I think have been some key Landmarks in SEM 2009 so far this year. If, like me, you don't get enough time to read the 100's of blogs posts which pop up in your RSS reader / system tray every day then this post is definitely for you. Where appropriate I have included some of my personal insights in to these events and also some general musings on love, life and the search industry.
I hope you find this post useful and interesting!
Twitter – Its top of my list so I can get it out of the way. Good as it is, you can't go anywhere this year with out someone talking about Twitter. Twitter has become massive in 2009. More specific points of interest being that Twitter has proliferated use of the term "Real Time Search" which is slightly interesting but for me the really interesting part is their API. seo is fading out and it is less about Search and more about Applications is something I have been saying for a while now. This is a trend that I see continuing. Twitter API, Facebook connect etc. All are creating very useful interfaces which in turn means very useful apps and my personal thought is that apps are the future. Also if you think about things like Hilltop theory, you can imagine how with in the social world there will be little hill tops and social bubbles. Being at the top of your industry hill top, I think, is still going to win you rankings. I won't go into the science of that as I don't have the time or the inclination, it is just a hypothesis based on experience. We are @fireflyseo BTW, just incase you want to follow us.
SES New York – My first business trip to the USA as an seo professional. Google launch new version of Adwords and I meet David Szetela of Clix Marketing who I thought was a thoroughly nice chap and very skilful marketer. Thanks for your time David.
Facebook buy FriendFeed - Some consolidation in the internet landscape. I love FriendFeed! It is a fantastic way to stalk people and to be stalked and actually its one of the few services that acts as a portal for social and actually does it quite well, with minimal fuss or overhead. I am starting to view social sites in terms of how much overhead they demand. If a social site takes a lot of my time to operate, then I am less likely to use it. Facebook for example!! I hate using Facebook as it is a faff, useful, but a total faff. FYI, if you want to stalk me on FriendFeed I am available here or on Facebook I am available here.
Yahoo and Microsoft merger - More consolidation in the market. I can see a lot more of this. The internet is maturing and what happens in mature markets? Consolidation! I think we will see a lot more of this. I also think we will see a few failures from a VC point of view in internet investment. PE ratio's and valuations are stupidly high and not based on real money, top line and net profits. Anyway, I digress. My point is that internet properties are markets, and as markets mature they tend to consolidate, so don't be surprised to see lots more of this happening.
Microsoft launch BING - What is BING? Its Bing Not Google, quite clever I thought. A new search engine with faster indexing, faster search and more relevant results (than MSN and some would say Google). At FireflySEO we love BING, the results aren't half bad, UI is awesome, but the main point is it that it is just really fantastic to have some more competition in the industry.
Yahoo! To use BING to deliver their search engine results - Good for searchers but probably bad news for fly by night affiliates who like to use display URL's so they can pretend to be the companies that they represent. Full details of how the two disparate paid search marketing platforms are to be merged are not yet released, time will tell but me thinks it could be pivotal.
SMX Advanced – Matt Cutts and Google send out lots of confusing messages about the sodding “no follow” attribute. I have just decided to ignore it, have for a while now in fact, and go with what I think makes sense. I already talked many times how I think no follow is a load of crap and I am not going to link to any external articles that debate this fact as clearly it is correct.
Google Conversion Optimiser - Now this is an interesting move from Google. Pretty much, you set the CPA and Google takes care of the sales. Who needs affiliates anymore, right? Wrong, it works, but is not without its problems, trust and conspiracy theories being amongst them. Use with caution, use as a part of a blended PPC strategy. Definitely worth a test though. Have a look at the snazy Google video...
Pub Con 2009 - The first Pubcon London for 3 years yet it seemed a bit of a quite one. Proof perhaps that lack of momentum is a killer? Did anyone go? Please do tell, piccies and blog post links very appreciated.
Kenshoo – Totally amazing search engine marketing platform with distributed key phrase attribution and a myriad of related bid management strategies. Its not just bid management, trust me, as a business tool this is second to none.
Google update Vince - Has Google put more focus on Brand? Makes sense really, if you think about it search has a limited appeal and more often people are searching by brand, CTR on PPC is higher, brand is authority, trust, diversity etc. The video below explains some of the detail.
Google Caffeine – Well its all a big mess at the moment, but lets not focus on the small stuff. The big and important change, I think is the fact that Google are becoming more transparent in their approach, giving us a Sandbox now and letting us see algo changes before they actually make those changes live. For those who are interested here is the sandbox.
SMX London – Give It Up Session. No body actually did give it up, even after the 30 day embargo. No write ups, at least none that we found. Very sad and I can only assume it was totally awesome (and nobody wanted to discuss) or totally rubbish (so nobody bothered). Anyone know?
LondonSEO.org – If you are an seo and you live in or near to London then you should definitely be aware of LondonSEO.org and their groovy events for seo people. They don’t happen often, but when they do they are worth making the effort for.
Rebecca Kelly moves from seo Moz to 10e20 Media.
CiranJ leaves Altogether Digital and joins Mindshare.
I Discovered that Evilgreenmonkey he doesn’t spend (waste) hardly any time on personal Twitter or blogging accounts. Clever chap that he is.
Mobile - I know, just know that it is going to be huge soon. Given the increase in affordable and “useful” PDA’s the only way is up and if they are not already, I would be advising most businesses to start investing in this channel sooner rather than later.
Braodband Access - The Internet is going to be more integrated with our everyday lives with technologies such as SIP, DLNA, Wireless IP homes and cloud computing. The impact of this on seo will be huge and means a hypercompetitive landscape across a range of broadcast mediums. I like to draw a comparison here with south Korea where they have 1000GB internet access for £10 per month. Imaging if UK or USA had broadband speeds like that!
SEOktoberfest – The very definition of a cool seo conference for a select bunch of L33T affiliates and seo gurus. Unfortunately the £4000 price tag per ticket meant that I could not quite afford to go this year as my wedding in October has monopolised most of my finances for the year.
WebMasterRadio - Joost launches Press This a very cool show about WordPress and WordPress seo. Search Cowboys launch a new show covering European seo and other things. Both definitely worth adding to your ITunes podcast library to listen to on the way to work.
seo Ranking Factors - Basically this is the bible. seo Ranking Factors from seo MOZ has been updated. If you are an seo there is no question that you should be reading this.
Distilled gain a lot of traction and brand awareness in the search space.
Well that is all that I can think of for now! Obviously this is not an exhaustive list but feel free to comment if there is something that you think should be added.
Thanks for reading. 
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