SEO White Paper: SEO in the Web 2.0 Era

BKV’s Will Fleiss examines the evolution of search engine optimization in this white paper

I decided to take a break from skimming Digg top ten lists and surfing MyBlogLog profiles to actually read a full length article about SEO in these changing times we live in. This SEO white paper was put together by Will Fleiss and entitled SEO in the Web 2.0 Era. Will is an Organic Search Specialist who works for Bennett Kuhn Varner, Inc. (BKV), a direct response ad agency and the sister company of the SEM/SEO firm that I am proud to work for in Atlanta, GA, USA: Response Mine. I have been fortunate enough to have worked with Will on several projects and have been impressed with his research and insight into the search industry. With his first white paper, Will is propelling BKV into the future of search engine optimization. By the way, Will is also a graduate of Emory University where he majored in psychology. He says it is his fascination with human behavior leads him to pursue SEO. Rumor has it that Will has reserved a few domains. I can’t wait to see what he’s up to.

This is truly a time of great and wonderful changes for search. Many of us who rely on organic search are nervous about what the future holds. Will traditional SEO morph into something an AOL user can do (I couldn’t resist that one, Mom)? Will SEO disappear into the rising tides of social media and personalized search? It was refreshing to take a step back and observe SEO from it’s inception and imagine where the industry may be going.

What about this Web 2.0 stuff? From Will’s SEO white paper:

This second generation of the Internet, often referred to as Web 2.0, has moved away from the old model — based on static websites, clicks, and impressions — and burst onto a cyber playing field built around communities, participation and open cooperation towards better products and services.

Technical advancements in web navigation and design, as well as increased penetration of high-speed and broadband connection, make the new Web a foreign landscape compared to its older version.

In Web 2.0, a fully comprehensive linking strategy must spend more time producing quality, viral content and less time submitting to directories, buying links, and reciprocal linking.

 And what might the future look like for SEO?

There is no doubt that SEO has undergone, and will continue to undergo, a certain level of compartmentalization. As different areas of SEO continue to experience the growth of specialized services, such as blogging, widget baiting and social networking, the future SEO will spend a large part of his or her time moderating and collaborating with more outsourcing opportunities that are not, by themselves, SEO related. In the end, however, SEO is a sum of its parts, and from the perspective of a company looking to pay for SEO services, all methods of driving organic traffic will reside under the umbrella of Search Engine Optimization.

Another insightful prediction which I agree with:

The SEO’s level of understanding of both human and computer behavior will distinguish how effective they are at achieving high rankings and driving organic traffic to websites.

Download and read the entire white paper yourself. Here is the link to the pdf file. It’s not a white paper unless it’s compiled in pdf format, right? Well, okay, if you insist, an excerpt has been published by SEO Manager, Munaz Anjum if you want to have a peak.