Today I mused on the idea, ‘What happens next with the online world?’. The reason I found myself asking this is simply because the online environment is ever increasingly competitive. With an Estimated billion businesses worldwide what happens when all of them are online. What happens when only ten results are available on the first page of Google but there are ten trillion sites?

Surely there has to be a saturation point or will we just keep competing for the top ten positions?

(Google may have started out as a little guy trying to give to the community but make no mistake they are a business now and they control about 75% of the market for search results.)

Aside from Google the point remains the same on competitors like Bing and Yahoo. There are still only a few positions available which are good for business. Further to this are the industries that have been built around Search Engines.

SEOs, Online marketers, Social Optimizers are all reliant on the ability to generate ‘presence’ online. With , what I expect to be, the massive influx of websites to the online world how much harder are these jobs going to become? Will these jobs become Professions?

Personally I have a sense that the online world is going to need to be bigger than Google, Bing and Yahoo. I have a sense that niche segments will need to arise which become the authority on sectors. As communication evolves so must the platforms on which we communicate. Yes Google will most likely never go anywhere and it is necessary to have a central source but surely the way we share information will change.

Social media has already begun what will end in the revolution of information – an ongoing revolution that will change from generation to generation.

From an SEO perspective I would suggest that (and Google says it too) optimization should focus on content. Not just what you are going to say but where are you going to say it? Why are you going to say it and how are you going to say it?

But that is only the beginning. The next (more complicated) step is listening…. Find out what people are saying. Monitor the message and adjust it appropriately.

It has been said ,and flung around with indifference, over the last 5 or 6 years but it is still resoundingly true, “The consumer controls your brand”. So you had better be listening to what they are saying

What used to be a simple technical tweak here and there has changed and called upon SEO and Online Marketers alike to join forces to generate strategies that work.

By work we mean get your market share, develop presence, reach the market and Up the ante at the Bottom line.

Companies who have been keeping their heads neatly hidden in the sand are going to be unceremoniously flung into the present when their bottom lines start to… well bottom out. Generations change and the way we communicate evolves.

SEO, ORM, SMO, SMM, SEM, PPC… these are terms you need to know and if you don’t get someone who does. The world is getting smaller, that means it harder to keep your little part in it.