We are already well on our way into January and need to make sure our SEO and marketing strategies are suitable for the new year. There are already plenty of SEO predictions 2012 being discussed across forums and blogs, and considering the latest updates to the search engines, it is a good idea to keep them in mind when planning and conceptualising campaigns for the upcoming year. We take a look at the top predictions that your SEO agency needs to think about for 2012.

1. Fresh, Relevant and Enticing Content

Regardless of how exhausted the poor Panda may be, Google is almost certainly going to continue its focus on providing good quality and relevant search results by penalising sites with duplicate or low quality content. So the first of the SEO predictions for 2012 is that more emphasis will be placed on new and relevant content.

In September this year, search engine giant Google created a stir with the release of their newest search enhancement, Google Instant. This led to a great deal of speculation about the implications for search engine optimisation, Pay per Click and Google marketing. Now, a few months down the line, it’s clear that Google Instant has not spelled doom for SEO as some predicted, and while some searchers have been quick to adopt the convenient autocomplete technology of Google Instant, others are content with the previous Google search suggestions.

In the past week, Google Instant has taken the next step and gone mobile; iPhone and Android users in the US now have access to a beta version of Google Instant search functions. Google describes this latest innovation as “pushing the limits of mobile browsers and wireless networks”.

I’ve spent a fair amount of time since last year trawling through the net to find statistics and figures regarding the South Africa online market. Without free resources such as Comscore and Hitwise within SA, it has become quite a task to find any substantial information about the local market here in South Africa.

Besides the standard internet usage reports and the large volumes of mobile facts and figures for South Africa, information is far and few around the actual search market share for Google and other local engines, unless you are willing to spend a few coins on the amazing reports from World Wide Worx. Last night was the last bit of compiling the bits and pieces together of all the bookmarks for this mornings presentation.