As 2011 draws to a close, we can reflect on the changes in SEO and Google over the year. 2011 may have been the year of the Panda with Algorithm updates shaking up the SERPs and scaring webmasters into action, but this wasn’t the only advancement which gave search engine marketers something to think about when approaching strategies for 2012.

Mobile SEO
We all know mobile search is up – and its set to increase even further in the new year. What makes the difference now if whether your site is ready to actively target this market. Mobile SERPs are a lot more tailor-made, so you need to ensure that Google sees your services as the most suitable and easily associable both technologically and physically.

Smart Content
Now more than ever websites need accurate and informative information to get ahead of their competitors. In light of the Google freshness update this should include a blog or news section that adds valuable disccusion to your industry. And, as always, a properly optimised Content Development Section is essential for all traffic targeting pages.

Full Social Media Intergration

Its hard to believe years after social media went from a buzzword to a fully fledged sector of the marketing industry that some business are still without without proper Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter profiles. For 2012 we can expect Google+ to play a more prominent role in SERPs in some capacity, so a business profile should be first on your check list for 2012. The introduction of the author markup on page and in results is an indicator that more and more building an identity for your company will be a part of SEO.

The Christmas Holidays are nearly upon us, and, like you, our SEO experts are looking forward to a well-deserved rest over the coming days.

Before we break for festivities we would like to take the opportunity to thank all of our customers for their support throughout 2011. This year has been an important one for Smart Traffic, and your role as our client cannot be underestimated. We were listed in tenth position in the Sunday Times Microsoft Tech Track 100 for 2011; this is an annual league table of Britain’s fastest growing private technology companies, and our listing is a testament to our expertise and our customer’s loyalty. You can read more about it here: Smart Traffic Microsoft Tech 100 company profile. We were also listed in the NMA Marketing Services guide for 2011.

Additionally, our teams have been working tirelessly to ensure we keep ahead of the game and react to changes in the marketplace as soon as possible- this year has been an important one in terms of updates such as Panda, and we pride ourselves on working hard to ensure that there has been minimum impact on your search campaigns despite these significant changes.

As we think ahead to next year, our clients are at the forefront of our planning. In the fast moving world of SEO it is important to stay ahead of developments, but also to keep in mind the single most important consideration- our customers.

To that end we would like to wish you a very Merry Christmas and a prosperous New Year, and we look forward to working with you in 2012.

The Smart Traffic Team

Previously, Google provided the use of “+” operator to help you search for specific terms. However they have found that less than half the percentage of all searchers uses this operator. So a couple of weeks ago Google decided to remove it.
Right then, a lot of anxious users and SEO specialists raised this problem and requested for a more deliberate way of searching using the exact terms. Google has answered this concern and rolled out the verbatim search mode. This enables one to find the result that matches the exact word or phrase that they have entered. With this tool they have restricted the new improvements and updates such as the following.

- making automatic spelling corrections
- personalizing your search by using information such as sites you’ve visited before
- including synonyms of your search terms (matching “car” when you search [automotive])
- finding results that match similar terms to those in your query (finding results related to “floral delivery” when you search [flower shops])
- searching for words with the same stem like “running” when you’ve typed [run]
- making some of your terms optional, like “circa” in [the scarecrow circa 1963]

How do I get this tool?
The instruction is easy just click on the “More search tools” link found at the left side navigation and then select “Verbatim”, after that you’re ready to go!

For those of us working with search every day, we’ve been concerned about the amount of time spent on searching the right information. This time I could say that this tool has finally pulled out the trigger. Using the exact terms, we can now save time in finding the results of our query. Try this by yourself and let us know your comments.