5 Search Marketing Wishes	Visited: 1255 5.0/5.0 (14 votes total) Rate: Select 1 - Terrible 2 - Poor 3 - Average 4 - Good 5 - Outstanding
by Brian Easter December 14, 2010

I wish I may, I wish I might… see my wildest dreams come true this year.  In the spirit of Christmas, new beginnings, or just plain old wishful thinking, there is a certain feeling in the air around the office that is conducive to fantasizing.  Although our wishes aren’t for the latest and greatest toy anymore, except for the newest iPhone, that doesn’t make them any less fervent.  Mixing one part Grinch, one part childlike spirit, and one part rant, here’s our Christmas list.

Yahoo/ Bing Will Die Due to Their Awful Merger

Let’s face it, nobody is up to being the Google killer yet, but Bing might be making some headway.  The announcement of their 10 year, multi million dollar merger may not have shocked the interactive community, but it certainly has us all shook up.  As one of our employees says “I wish I would wake up on Christmas morning and the Bing-Yahoo merger would only have been a nightmare instead of reality.”  In our opinion, the Yahoo-Bing merger is a completely backwards step with no insight into what is working from a paid search perspective.  You don’t know if Yahoo or Bing drove traffic or conversions, and you can’t opt out of either, leading to wasted time and money -- two things clients hate the most.

Google Will Bring Back Some Old Features

Google is about relevance, and relevance online is mostly about what’s new. Google does an excellent job of continually rolling out new features designed to make searching easier, and marketing more effective.  Google Analytics consistently ranks as one of the top tools, free or not, for managing traffic data and AdWords is usually ranked highly as well.   So usually, when Google implements a change into one of its interfaces, the change is for the better, and makes it easier to understand the vast amount of data Google provides for your perusal.  And then, sometimes, it’s not.  So, whether Google is just getting a kick out of making people jump through hoops to make reports, or if they truly don’t understand the blunder they have made, we wish that Adwords would bring back the Reports Center instead of forcing us to make reports through tabs.  This is when we are most thankful for our interns.

Augmented Reality

Augmented reality goes beyond a simple Christmas wish to a Christmas dream.  To begin with, we wish for augmented reality to gain more traction on wireless and mobile devices.  The marketing implications could easily tie into the focus on localized search, as businesses could create virtual signs with daily specials or augmented reality-only deals to attract customers as they walk and drive by.  Augmented reality is like the real world, only better.  The best example we’ve seen so far is on the EVO phone.  When in augmented reality video mode, you can see your surroundings but it also provides icons for restaurants or business you are looking at, a significant first step towards object recognition.  Augmented reality is tantalizingly close to achieving the dream of being able to "right click" real life items or "control-F" to search for things.

Links Retain Their Value

We all understand the importance of brand-building, messaging, awareness, and consumer reactions to creating a long term successful strategy.  But sometimes, you just want the traffic, and the quickest, simplest (no, not best) way to get traffic thus far has been links.  So as Heather says, ”I wish that all directories that claim to be ‘PR5’ actually gave you PR5 links.” Succinct, to the point, and one wish I bet most SEO firms share.  Which leads to our next wish….

Publish Google’s Algorithm

Yes, it’s outrageous. Yes, it’s pointless, but don’t you secretly want to know?  Not that many people can read Greek variable symbols and formulas like English, but knowing what you’re fighting is half the battle.  Even though making Google’s algorithm public would cause terror and panic to reign in the Googleplex, being able to determine exactly why certain sites always outrank yours would be somewhat of a relief (for a short while at least.) 

So, when you’re asked that inevitable question by family and friends this season, dream large, go big, and look out for Google publishing their algorithm.  Happy holidays!