The New Year has come, and apparently it is not the end of the world, at least not for search engine optimization, online marketing and content marketing. So what do netizens, surfers, consumers, marketers, businesses and plain web users  look forward to when it comes to SEO? Here are the trends projected to shape the web and the world of SEO as we know it.

SEO and Content Marketing: How it developed

Looking at the future wouldn’t be complete without a glimpse of the past and even the present. Remember the past where websites are ridden with fonts the same color as the background, texts that are hidden and pages that are stuffed with a lot of keywords? This forced early updates and pressured webmasters to create something with content and not just text.

When it comes to links, they are easy to place in the sites, but still, they need a vehicle. This gave birth to sites with content articles, which met the need to carry a link.

In 2011, website creation and promotion was changed, there was a growing need to go beyond thin prices of content, webmasters and SEOs are pushed to have contents that are more meaty. Site developers find themselves going out of the random content and slow rollouts, websites are now developed to have a more readable content. The number of companies and providers focused on making this content possible exploded

What does the Future Hold?

Recent studies on SEO and content marketing show there is an increasing demand for high quality content, and that low quality content would not make the cut, not even when it comes to building links. The recent ICOA press release reveals the key for long term brand building is finding a sustainable yet quality strategy.

This, however, catches the world of SEO in a paradox, if the strategy implemented is easy it is likely to be abused, if the strategies are hard, profit and scalability are questionable. So the SEO industry would just have to stay in the middle and balance out these things, with these in mind, the future of SEO is directed towards the following:

• The Demand for Quality Content

The 2013 clients are looking for quality high end writers, who are not just good in writing, but are experts on their chosen field.

• Content that Shouts a Voice, a Personality or Own Brand

For the coming years, companies face the challenge of differentiating themselves from the  other vendors. Having an almost perfect, high end, quality article is not enough to make the cut, as similar competitors may also have the same content. This gives a challenge to marketers, to separate themselves from the other vendors, create a brand of their own or a personality that would shout out what is uniquely theirs.

• In Depth and Longer Articles are In

According to SEOmoz, longer articles tend to have more interactions, and this helps with the effort of building links. The insights represented would help build trust with clients, brand authority and it also improves conversions.

The trick does not lie with the number of words, but on the concepts and ideas delivered by the article.

• MultiMedia Power

Studies have shown that sites with photos boost interactions, videos do have a similar affect but ina smaller scale.

The author of this article on SEO tips is written by Amarendra, a writer of articles on SEO and content management. He particularly focuses on guiding readers on how they can optimize keyword searches through SEO management and also on the different trends that affect the SEO industry.