In various sites you find keyword suggestion tools that are intended to help you to find popular keywords with high traffic. None of these tools are referring to Google.com, Yahoo.com, Live.com ( MSN ) or ask.com nor any other major search engine. Typically the data they use to create the help for you comes from minor search engines such as Wordtracker or Overture. (Workdtracker uses data from dogpile and metacrawler, which are both antiquated).

A brief example of how inaccurate and ridiculous such tools' result can be:

These days I have a keyword-pair that directly relates to the season / holidays and appears to be Google USA #1 and #2 and in other global Google search databasis at least in the top 3-5 - typically out of about 8 Million competing pages.

Here is what one most commonly used keyword suggestion tool says about the traffic potential:

* Wordtracker: No data for phrase
* Overture: 17.9 /day

What is the real traffic on these keywords compared to predictions from the keyword suggestion tool:

Google alone sent me yesterday a total of 4468 visitors for these keywords ...

Now you have to keep in mind that this is in no way to total use of the keyword pair - this above number is just my tiny share of the total searches made on Google using the keywords for that particular single page. The total number of searches made the same day - 08 December 2008 - may be 10-15 times higher. That is but a guess from a www oldie and no exact statistical data!

That shows and proves that many tools on the www are of zero use and zero validity - even insufficient to give you a "clue" or rough idea about a traffic potential in Internet for a particular topic or keyword!

Why this extreme discrepancy between a keyword suggestion tool and reality ?

The answer is simple: The major search engine avoid giving secrets away - and the "hobby-search engines" that offer access to their databases do so to attract visitors and thus in an attempt to survive in the search engine world. No reasonable person would use such minor SE to find important data. Dynamic professionals use Google, conservative people are happy with inaccurate partial results - hence they use Yahoo, people with no idea about search engines use the built in search or their factory pre-installed windows operating system - hence they use live.com. The number of users of the two small search engines used for the most common keyword tool is so tiny and the type of person so exceptional and out of the average person, that under no circumstances a mathematical model could be made to calculate or near-accurately guess the real number of searches for any keyword out there.

I was using now and then that tool myself - but never applied the results found. Now after a precise research I know why.

Aaron Wall of SEOBook has a great write-up on the changing face of Google’s Search Results (SERPs). They now include Vertical-Creeps of its various properties and the integration of Google News into the *organic* listings.

We are now seeing Google pulling information beyond its own vertical search engines with the actual integration of editorial information with Google News *inside* the organic listings.

SEO’s purpose is to optimize Search Engine Listings (SERPs), but how people are getting their information is evolving:

* Google/Yahoo’s main Search Page now includes information from Local Search, Real Estate, Maps, Weather, TV Listings, and Google News (inside Google’s SERPs), Yahoo Answers (Bottom of SERPs in Yahoo), etc.
* Than there is the increasing use of specific communities and content where people are also searching: Yahoo! Travel, TripAdvisor, Yelp, etc.

So again, what does it mean to do SEO? What is the point of doing Local SEO, if you’re local business (or saw local branches) are not listed on Yelp?

How Google and Yahoo are handling search is changing. How people are now using sites like Yelp is also changing. How will SEO Change?

earch marketing veterans have seen the shift of SEO tactics moving from keyword density and page title optimization to the leveraging of PR-like tactics to conduct link-building (building rankings by having others link to your website) and to now even more complex strategies. At this point is SEO still SEO or has it outgrown that name? Maybe it is time to look at the idea of “Strategic Website Positioning”?

The maturing of the SEO industry has resulted in many changes. The top four has been 1) the further integration of PR-ish tactics like “linkbaiting”; 2) the embrace of social media in social media marketing; 3) changing the metrics from rankings and to relevant traffic and conversion; and 4) thinking about usability and conversion optimization, not just search traffic generation.

All of these new changes will be unfamiliar to someone from the early days of SEO, which mostly concerned itself with placing important keyword on the webpages.

What Does Strategic Website Positioning Mean?

The Working Definition

The idea behind “Strategic Website Positioning” is not original. Businesses create websites with considerations of what the website should be to their targeted audience.

The idea of Strategic Website Positioning is to think of search marketing (organic SEO and PPC), social media marketing and website development as an integrated approach, by asking questions centered around:

* How is your website’s content, structure and usability fit with the intent of your audience?
* How does your website “fit” in how people search (one-box searches on Google/Yahoo, Technorati, Oodle, vertical search engines)?
* How is your website positioned in Social Media Community? How do you want to participate?

From this we can build further questions…

Community Positioning

* “What are similar people tagging (or perhaps tagging with similar words) - Del.icio.us and Google Search History” (SEOBook)
* “What are similar people reading? (Via My Yahoo! or Google Reader or MyBlogLog) - Graywolf recently highlighted how MyBlogLog can use your readers to show what community your site is in” (SEOBook)
* “What words are associated with your brand or site? What sites are associated with those words? What searcher intent is associated with those words? What else are they searching for?” (SEOBook)
* What Terms Are Your Competitors Using? On their website, on their copy, on their AdWords campaigns?

Content Building based on Community Positioning

Building on the above, but including:

* Content Funneling (See Emergence-Media on “Building Content for Branded and Non-Branded Search“)
How is your website catering to your target audience in general product research, comparative shopping and purchasing mode? How can you be considered an authoritative source for each?
* What is the approach on new sources on online content like blogs and widgets?

Social Media Assessment

* How Visible are You in Social Media Websites?
How “popular” are you online? Do reputation management? See how communities, blogs, reviews and del.icio.us describe your website?
* How do you want to Participate in Social Media Websites?
Do video promotions? Community building? Virals? Podcasting?

Search Engine Positioning

* Getting on One-Box Search (See Google on Travel searches, Website Searches)
Are you using Google Base to get listed on Google’s Real-Estate Seach?
* Getting on Vertical Search like Technorati, Oodle, Kayak, *Shopping Search Engines*
Beyond the big search engines Google/Yahoo/MSN/Ask, what about the specialized vertical search engines?

Greater Marketing/MarComm/PR Integration

* Sharing “Keywords” Knowledge:
Does some department have consumer studies on what words people use to describe your product?
* Integrating Offline Ads with Search:
What’s your slogan, hook, that song playing in the background of your commercial. Is that integrated into your search strategy?

Conclusion: SEO Needs a Conceptual Reset and Reboot

I could go on and on, on the list above. They are not hard and fast categories, but they are the type of questions that need to be asked. They maybe best laid out in a mindmap (see Emergence Media’s SEO Mindmap from last year).

There are many folks trying to tackle what the new SEO exactly is. Todd Mailcoat has placed it forward as “New School SEO”, pointing to various other tactics that beyond traditional SEO: Social Media Marketing, Video Promotion, Community Participation et cetera. Aaron Wall has looked at the community (a more precise type of link authority and PageRank) as the next possible area where more search engines will determine relevancy.

Whatever it is, conceptual we need to rethink how we think of SEO. It’s not just about using WordTracker to do keyword research anymore, so our frame of thought has to change too. “Strategic Website Positioning” is an attempt to reset that thought. Once we figure what exactly SEO will be, there comes the next step: How do we explain it to our clients?

Google will change the layout of their SERPs (Search engine results pages). They've experimented with many designs and it seems they chose the most simple one, the layout that uses more space for the results. Google will automatically sign-up Google Account users to additional services by default, including “Personalized Search”, which will gives users unique Search Results (SERPs), basing rankings of websites on past search history and other behavioral data.

So now, what ranks on Google will depend on each Google user, ending the notion of different people being able to see the same search results. While people are asking “How will SEO change because of this?”, another question also needs to be asked is “How much will this effect the average Google Search?”

If you’re search engine optimization campaign is targeting Google, then what are you doing about the “searches” on Del.icio.us, Technorati, StumbleUpon, Yelp, Wikipedia, Oodle and even Digg? Maybe those searches are not for the mainstream (yet), but it maybe where the Linkerati, the savvy “Influencers."

No longer is getting to the first page of Google good enough. Now you need to be in the top 5 or 6 positions as the rest will be taken by video and news.

SEO no longer means optimizing only one’s website, or links…it means being active promoting and staying relevant through a variety of channels and mediums. It means distributing your content on YouTube, Yelp, Wikipedia, Press Releases etc.

Google Universal Search really presents no new known challenges of SEO. It just brings the message home: Old SEO is Dead, New SEO is a form of Multi-Channel Content Optimization and Distribution.

The Google Personalized Ranking Variables and the SEO Tactics

Here’s a quick recap on the new variables that will effect organic rankings and what SEO needs to do to address them. See Nick Wilson’s SEL article for more.

* Google Search History:
What it is: Keeps a log of all search queries were conducted and what links on the results page (SERPs) were clicked on
How it effects SEO: Page titles need to not only help a webpage rank high, but be attractive to be clicked on
SEO Tactics: Page titles need to concentrate on CTR as much as getting the ranking.
* Google Personalized Homepage
What it Is: Like Yahoo’s “Personal Homepage”, but with the ability to add various widgets and RSS Feeds
How it may effect SEO: 1) What widgets are being used; 2) What RSS feeds are being subscribed to and clicked on
SEO Tactic: 1) Create helpful Widgets; 2) Do Blogging; 3) Engage in promoting Widgets and Blogs via linkbait, WoM etc
* Google Reader
What it is: Google’s fast raising web-based RSS Reader
How it may effect SEO: What RSS feeds are being subscribed to, which one’s are being read and to what frequency
SEO Tactic: 1) Do Blogging; 2) Engage in promoting Blog via linkbait, WoM etc
* Google Bookmarks:
What it is: Bookmarking tool, like Del.icio.us etc
How it may effect SEO: What pages are being bookmarked by the user
SEO Tactic: 1) Create “Bookmark worthy” content and tools; 2) SMO with “Add to Google” Links; 3) Do WoM, Viral, Linkbait etc.

How much will this change Ranking for Google?
From everything I gathered, Google’s new move will only effect those logged into a Google Accounts when doing a search, so…

1. What percentage of users is this?
2. How many of these users use the advance services like Google Reader, Bookmarks, or Personalized Homepage with widgets and RSS feeds? The features that are now used in ranking?

Unfortunately, I couldn’t find any readily available satisfying answers for Question #1, other than there are ~51 million Gmail users (so at least that many accounts) and there are ~103m US searchers per day on Google. Unfortunately, these statistics doesnt bring us any closer to how many searches were done under a Google Account. And we can’t even deduce users did all 103 million searches per day.

However on Question #2, the use of Google services, even popular services like Google Reader, while fastly growing, are not market leaders (in traffic terms) as of yet. And Google Bookmarks is a virtual unknown, while I would assume Google Personalized Homepage’s more advance features are only slightly more used.

So what about and who should be worried about the new system?

* Search History is one service that is guaranteed to be used, so attractive titles and descriptions are a must to increase CTR.
* If your website is targeting tech-savvy, early adopters (who are likely to use Google Accounts) than you should worry about Google Reader, Google Personalized Homepage Widgets and so on.

Of course, as part of SEO, one must think about blog marketing, widget creation and social media marketing (all what Nick Wilson emphasized), but right now for Google, it doesn’t seem to be necessarily needed until services like Google Reader are more popularly used.