The Importance of SEO and Personalized Search

In the last few days the Internet seems to be all abuzz about personalized search from Google being rolled out to everyone, whether the searcher is logged into a Google account or not.

Of course the privacy brigade are screaming this is just wrong, an invasion of our rights, that Google should be forced to make the service opt-in instead of opt-out. Other people are shouting this marks the end of SEO as we know it.

I'd like to share my opinion, SEO isn't dead, it's just beginning. For the longest time SEO has been too easy, yeah you read that right. SEO has been too easy.

All you really needed to know in the past was how to optimize your onpage elements and get more back links than your competition. Now everything is going to change, and what does this mean?

Well it means that other factors are now going to be hugely important, like time to download a page, number of calls to the server, bounce rate, page impressions, support for mobile devices etc.

Does this mean what we do changes? Yes, now we actually need to study our site visitors and give them a good experience. Google at least are able to track all of the things I mentioned above, and they think it's time webmaster starting taking them into consideration.

What's going to happen is that every person who searches the web is going to be given personalized results based on what their previous search history suggests is important to them, so if your website gives them that info they're going to click through.

However, the initial rankings are still going to be made up from solid SEO techniques that we already know and love. The site with the most relevant content, the best converting content, and the most links to it is going to be the winner in this new paradigm Google are introducing.

I guess it begs the question will I change the way I work? Nope, I'm still focused on creating niche sites. Let me tell you why. I don't think it matters how much Google change their search engine, they are still looking for the most relevant sites to list in their SERPs.

That means anyone who follows the techniques of good SEO, and builds networks of niche sites is going to win big time.

In fact everything you need to know about making money online and building niche networks, especially now that Google have changed the rules, you'll find in Janet Smith's "Nomad's Guide to Make Money Online". This book has just been published, and if you follow the system introduced I believe personalized search will be something that will help you make an even better AdSense income.