Smart watches and SEO

We're still in the Stone Age when it comes to wearable knowledge. For all the pleasure over Google Glass and the smartwatches rolling out from Samsung, Sony, and, inevitably, Apple, we're still far off from any of these belongings being the status quo of personal computing.
It is expected that we'll be adopting these more personal and streamlined means of accessing the Internet en masse over the next couple of years.

Smartwatches and Content Strategy

So if we accept that our near prospect is more "Dick Tracy" than "Videodrome", what do we do to ensure that we are creating the right kind of user experiences? Because if the average desktop website wasn't working well on smartphones, it's going to have even bigger challenges on smartwatch screens.

Faster acceptance of Server-Side Responsive Design

Responsive design has fixed on quickly as marketers begin to realize that multiple screens call for a more fluid and bendable approach to content delivery. However, responsive design in its strictest sense would involve sending a extra amount of data to a smartwatch which is why it is likely that we'll see a faster adoption of responsive design with server-side components (RESS).

Rising Adoption of Location and Proximity-Triggered connections

Early predictions from analysts posit smartwatches as "remote control" devices that will simply deliver filtered content from smartphones and tablets. No doubt this will be a big part of the value proposal but they are also likely to have extra, standalone uses.

Greater Acceptance of Brand/Consumer Messaging and Alerts

In fact, smart watches are very likely to altogether increase our dependence on alerts and bite-sized brand/consumer messages.
The smaller screens of these devices will make a desire for extremely succinct and efficient content because if our broadmindedness for extraneous and irrelevant content was limited on a Smartphone, it's going to be even more limited on these devices.

Growing reception of Opt-in Search Models

The limited screen size of smart phones is also apt to increase consumer acceptance of behaviorally and contextually-customized models of search such as Google Now.
The smaller our screens become, the less attempt we'll be expect to expend in searching for and gathering data – all the better if we can get our search criteria pre-filtered and proactively delivered.
Heavier reliance on voice search
If you thought fat finger syndrome was a problem on smart phones, just wait until your screen shrinks to 128x128 pixels.

Accelerated uptake of app content

Another effect of diminished screen size may be enlarged consumer appetite for content in native app form. The simplified, icon-oriented user interfaces of apps present greater ease of use than the more info-dense arrangement of mobile websites and hence, are likely to increase in appeal.

Smart watches and SEO

So we've recognized that smart watch content will probably look much special from that consumed on smart phones and tablets – more stripped down, preference-based and action-oriented with a greater reliance on alerts, apps, and voice input. But how this content gets found is likely to look quite different as well.
Based on our assumptions of what the content will look like, we can maybe make some fairly accurate predictions as to how the SEO best practices for smart watches will unfold.

Site Factors

Location-specific keywords are bound to increase in significance with smart watches; the fact that smaller screens call for more exactly targeted content practically ensures it since location is one of the foremost factors that influence real-time consumer behavior.

Special Factors

In fact, we may find that it's the consumer's position that's really the determining factor, not the brands. This is something we've previously started to see taking shape with products like Google Now.
Rather than the consumer receiving search results that are customized to reflect a brand's local presence, we're more likely to see permission-based, Google Now type models come out in which consumers specify what types of content they'll be looking for or be open to receiving in certain locations and under certain conditions.

Voice Factors

Clearly voice search is going to come into its own finally and smart watches will no doubt speed the process. As discussed in my last post on SEO for apps, we're likely to see development in optimization for natural language queries vs. keywords but in the near term, there will be an enlarged focus on well-optimized mobile web pages with an emphasis on local content as well as optimization for longer queries and more slang and colloquial terms.

Optimization for Apps, Feeds, Locations, and Alerts

The main change of all may be that search from smart watches is likely to be less listening carefully on website results in favor of more actionable, bite-sized pieces of content. Physical locations will clearly be a popular query but consumers will also be more apt to search for feeds, opt-in alerts, and apps.The lesson? You SEO strategy will need to expand far beyond the web page of even the mobile web page since your users are probably going to be searching for a different set of content in total.

Summary

It may seem like an generalization to say that the changes brought about by smart watches will be all about the screen size but it's all about the screen size. Less room for user input, steering and consumption will turn up the pressure on us all to simplify, then simplify again and that's not essentially a bad thing.

Is it the moment to take a Machete to Your SEO Strategy?

Disclaimer: This column contains ideas that advocate essential changes to the SEO strategy for a lot of web publishers. This may or may not be the finest thing for you to think for your website. You need to assess that risk for yourself, and neither the author, nor Search Engine Watch, can be answerable for how you take this advice or the impact on your business.

Has your site been matter to a steady ongoing decline in natural search traffic? Or even hit by a penalty? Either of these are likely signals that something is wrong in how your site is being alleged by Google. Your site likely is sending Google signals that it is infected with poor quality SEO or commercialization practices.

Do you want to overturn the damage and get back to strong traffic growth over time? Then you should pay close consideration to what Google's Distinguished Engineer Matt Cutts said about disavowing links:

"One common issue we see with disavow requests is people going through with a fine-toothed comb when they really need to do something more like a machete on the bad backlinks."

While Cutts' comment was focused on links, this idea really applies to the entire web strategy of many different publishers for whom SEO or commercialization has become an extreme focus.

Using a machete sounds like it hurts! And, it will.

Seriously, for most businesses, trying to save as many links or doubtful on site SEO practices as possible will doom you to a long slow process of trying to get clean in Google's eyes.

You can spend 6 to 12 months trying to get well if you get too cute about it. You may need to sacrifice short-term revenue to get back to a place where you can grow your business going forward.

Google's Algo Update Process

It will always likely for people to name reasonable exceptions, except, for one fact – Google is not building spam fighting algorithms to assess each individual site on the web. They are building spam fighting algos that get better the overall quality of search results.

The new search algorithm launch process looks something like this:

They assemble a series of test cases for areas that they want to address. This comes in the form of a set of motivating searches, where the results are not as high in excellence as they would like.

They come up with an algorithm to address most of the test cases.

They run a series of in-house tests to see if it works. To do this they show a number of "raters" two results side by side, the current search result, and the search result that makes use of the new algorithm.

If the raters pass the new algo, they then test it with a little part of the Web population, in what Google calls a "sandbox".

They determine whether or not the net interaction with the search results is improved.

The output of these experiments is then discussed with a launch decision team. If it is approved by that team, they roll out the change to the general population.

The decision is data-driven, based on the overall development of search results. The algorithm update is designed to get better overall search quality, and it is truly not about your site individually.

The Key Takeaway

Don't think of the Google algo as performing an analysis on a site by site basis. Think of it as looking for signatures or profiles of sites that are excellent for users vs. those that are not good for users.

It is not about you. To Google it is about recognizing patterns in web publishing behavior that allow them to show more of the top excellence sites in the first few search results, and less poor quality sites there.

What does that mean for you? It is about how your motivations convey themselves as a web publisher. You should be OK if your day to day focus is something like:

"We want to offer the best damn ______________ resource on the web and we will recognize nothing less"

There are other variants of this, such as a determination to present the fastest way to learn about some topic, or the lowest prices anywhere on the web, or goals of these types.

Here are a few motivations that won't work:

• We will build more money per visitor than anyone else.
• We are going to compete for every long tail search query we can think of.
• We are going to direct our publishing strategy based on rankings reports
• Let's boost organic traffic by getting lots of web sites to link to us (without a concern about the relevance an quality of those sites).

Summary

While this article is a "philosophy piece", the reality is that without the right philosophy no amount of efficient execution is likely to help you win in the long run. The reality is that Google, and to a lesser degree Bing, make the rules.

Get your priorities in line with the right motivations and you will be in line with what Google and Bing want you to do. This will get you out of the business of trying to figure out what they will let you get away at present, and set you up for much less risk of getting slammed by their algo changes of tomorrow.