Rand Fishkin's SEO & IM Predictions for 2016

[Ryuzaki]

Full Source: https://moz.com/blog/10-predictions-for-2016-in-seo-web-marketing

You can read the full explanations for each prediction at the official link above, but I've included the short versions here to save you a click.

Rand Fishkin's SEO & IM Predictions for 2016

#1: Data will reveal Google organic results to have <70% CTR

#2: Mobile will barely cut in to desktop's usage and its growth rate in developed countries will slow

#3: Twitter will figure out how to grow again

#4: Social content engines will become a force

#5: Yext will IPO, prompting even more interest in the world of local listings

#6: The death of normal distributions will hit both publishing and search results hard

#7: The rise of adblocking is going to trigger attempts at legislation and incite more sites to restrict adblocking users

#8: DuckDuckGo will be the fastest-growing search engine of 2016

#9: Content marketing software for the non-enterprise will finally emerge

#10: The "big" trends for 2016: Wearables, VR, smart home, and Internet of Things will have almost no impact on the world of web marketing (yet)​

We once had a killer discussion about the future of marketing, but we were looking far into the distance. These 10 predictions are for the coming year. Which do you feel are accurate or inaccurate, and which should we begin to take action with now to position ourselves for glory in the coming year?

 

[Steve Brownlie]

#1: Data will reveal Google organic results to have <70% CTR

If it wasn't for (not provided) we'd probably already know this is true.

#2: Mobile will barely cut in to desktop's usage and its growth rate in developed countries will slow

His argument here does make a lot of sense but I do think there is still a chunk of people who use budget laptops etc who will probably switch to tablet only over the coming years so maybe there's a little more downside to desktop than he imagines? Particularly if the 'tell it what to do' type apps get better than Siri et al are now.

#3: Twitter will figure out how to grow again

I think people who use Twitter kinda like it... and TV has been pushing it hard for ages for audience interaction. I don't have any ideas myself about what they're doing wrong that they can fix to grow again if what's going on isn't enough. Don't hire me as your CEO Twitter!

#4: Social content engines will become a force

Some of the general social sites we use want to be that force too so it's not just the specialists here, Facebook and Twitter would love to fulfil your content needs so can't see this one not coming true with so much effort to achieve it by so many.

#5: Yext will IPO, prompting even more interest in the world of local listings

This will be good for local businesses (many of whom don't really get that having all their listings in order is a good idea) but probably bad for local focused SEOs and marketers as it'll lead to some cheap and easy solutions. But then in a couple of years when everyone has the 'basics' right it'll open up again and marketers who can break the deadlock will have a lot of value.

#6: The death of normal distributions will hit both publishing and search results hard

#7: The rise of adblocking is going to trigger attempts at legislation and incite more sites to restrict adblocking users

This now sees me close almost as many sites due to their stupid ad blocking rules as it had me close when I didn't have adblocking and their ads were just dumb. So yeah probably right here.

#8: DuckDuckGo will be the fastest-growing search engine of 2016

Who else is even growing much? Bing maybe but cannibalising Yahoo who used to show your results anyway isn't major growth. Maybe one of the overseas/language specific engines can beat DDG, otherwise nobody I guess.

#9: Content marketing software for the non-enterprise will finally emerge

Definitely.

#10: The "big" trends for 2016: Wearables, VR, smart home, and Internet of Things will have almost no impact on the world of web marketing (yet)

Yeah these will be 'fun things' in 2016 not major things. Look how long it's taken for even SnapChat to get people like Gary Vaynerchuk raving about it. The same path to mainstream awaits these new things.

 

[Ryuzaki]

#4: Social content engines will become a force

Some of the general social sites we use want to be that force too so it's not just the specialists here, Facebook and Twitter would love to fulfil your content needs so can't see this one not coming true with so much effort to achieve it by so many.

I felt like he was talking about sites that you give access to your main social accounts and they aggregate it all into one giant feed, but also perform their own analysis on what's worth seeing. Kind of like a Reddit system but each sub-reddit is your various social network feeds. I could see this doing "okay," as in just generating a ton of views for someone and collecting data to sell to advertisers. I've already seen at least a dozen of these trying to grow (good place to get links!), but none that made me think "wow this is going to work for them."

I see it like Inception but backwards. Why would you want to be on dream level 3 watching people interact on a screen when all of your friends are on dream level 4 interacting with each other "for real." It's just increasing the level of detachment and dissociation without really offering anything unique. It's just RSS feeds for Social basically.