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Blogging and RSS: Predictions for 2006
What's in store for us in 2006? Inspired by Google's poor search
relevancy and making friends with Wall Street rather than its
users, disaffection is growing apace and surfers are switching
their loyalties to Yahoo and MSN. Conspiracy theorists believe
that Google influenced pay-per-click and the ranking process to
crank up their share price to almost double that of January 2005.
But whatever negative sentiments are shared about Google, all of
the major search engines have recognised that users are
demanding far more specific search, a trend driven by localised
search, personalisation and increased specialisation. These
three initiatives are narrowing the scope of the current
problems inherent in generic search.
Today, web users are demanding far more selection and choice,
with personalised content gaining the upper hand. This has been
achieved with syndication through RSS. Today, the web is no
longer about surfing and passive reading; it's about creating,
sharing, socialising and collaborating. Increasingly, many new
websites are disseminating news and views through blogs and
articles.
RSS really did make headway last year - and expect even greater
take-up this. Instead of the web browser, users are increasingly
looking for content via news feeds. This allows them to see at a
glance what sites have added new content on any of the topics
they select as being of interest. This means less time is wasted
on checking to see whether or not a site's content has changed.
It also ensures a more efficient delivery platform.
But it's not just news sites that have converted to RSS feeds,
companies are increasingly offering information via news
feeds
using WordPress as a seamless and integral part of their
website. This method of information delivery helps users
evaluate new content and, as a bonus, categorised sections of
WordPress blog are being indexed from the home page. This in
turn increases the volume of data on the site, thus boosting PR
ranking, and broadens keyword exposure.
Also, professional blogging has a very bright future. Internet
search now finds many blog sites on first-page returns. Many
professionals are also using external blogs, such as
blogger.com. When these keyword-rich blogs are linked to the
main site, it helps the site to grow. However, the blog should
be fresh, as it would be foolish to merely duplicate content and
get the main site blacklisted.
The third aspect of the paradigm is article writing. The aim
here is to provide interesting articles that, even though they
have limited time exposure on the engines, do find themselves
float to the top very quickly.
So the professional blogger has a lot to look forward to in
2006. And as business blogs start to take hold as the new
standard for marketing, public relations and SEO, 2006 should
witness a huge increase in demand for their services.
About the author:
Kathryn Dawson, BSc (Hons), MBA, is the general manager of
Strategy Consulting
(http://www.strategyconsultinglimited.co.uk). She is an
experienced consultant, former head of Strategic Business
Analysis and International Client Administration with
multinational corporations in both the UK and US, and is
responsible for client, supplier and associate relationships,
delivering effective search engine optimisation solutions to her
clients.
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