#1 – Search is more important than ever: 2010 was, indeed, the year when Facebook delivered more data than Google but the numbers show that search is far from dead. While pundits expected search to begin to wane as Q & A sites and social networks became the places where most online users got their data from, this clearly has not happened. In fact Google reported that search queries rose as a total and search queries per user rose. Both indicate what we already suspect: the online population rose and search engines is how they primarily look for something and those who work and ‘live’ online know that Google and the other search engines are the places to start from when looking for something online.

#2 – Social marketing and website ranking are now interlinked: This was something which I predicted early on in 2010 and was written about in my book SEO Help: 20 steps to get your website to Google’s #1 page and which has now been independently verified by Google’s Matt Cutts in a video which confirms that Google looks at a website’s social presence before deciding how to rank it in the organic search results pages (SERPs). This makes perfect sense. A website that’s really worth its salt these days will be talked about and shared on Facebook and Twitter. A website which isn’t will rank lower against competing websites which are.

#3 -  Social marketing, Brand building and SEO are now aspects of the same activity: Conventional SEO wisdom required that a website was linked to by offsite sources in order to get indexed. However we have seen that an SEO trend which is now increasingly dominant is the mention of a website by authoritative but non-relevant sources like magazines and newspapers. A website which, for instance, is mentioned by The Times or the Wall Street Journal and which is not linked to can be crawled deeply by the Googlebot within moments of the content where it is mentioned going live even though there is no link going directly to the website.

#4 – Google is still dominant and becoming even more so: When BING took over Yahoo! search the net result was a degradation of the collective power of the two and a clear win for Google which continues to gain numbers and search queries each month and it is Google which still leads the search trends. Globally BING and Yahoo! control a maximum 15% of search and in the US a total not exceeding 30% which means that Google continues to be the dominant, unchallenged player in the search engine wars.

#5 – New search engines are appearing all the time: While it is difficult to predict anything in the online world Google’s dominance is not without challengers. New search engines appear all the time as in the case of Wolfram Alpha. Rather than take Google head on like the now defunct Cuill most try to refine search in ways that Google can’t or won’t in the hope that they will bite at its heels long enough to gain traction or for Google to buy them out. Either way the pressure on Google means that search is being refined all the time and this keeps things moving forward and SEO constantly changing for, I hope, the better.

#6 – Google local is going to get even more so: Google’s failed bid on Groupon and its attempt to buy Yelp last year as well as the very recent move of former Google Vice President, Marissa Mayer, from search products and user experience to geographic and local services is a clear signal that Google is intent on a rebalancing of its strength from global to local with the web being global but working locally. This reflects in the power the web has shown in being able to serve business locally with many more local as opposed to global business going online. Mayer did brilliant work in improving the user experience with regard to Google and guiding products through Google’s poorly defined beta process and her move to local search is an indication of where the company is betting its future success and the way SEO is currently trending. Certainly, with regards to that, we are seeing a large movement across all countries with local business going online and then using SEO to attract local customers. This is something which will continue throughout 2011 onwards. If you have a business which works locally and you have not yet tried Google Places 2011 is the time to give them a shot and start to benefit from the web even if you do not yet have a website.

#7 – The changing landscape of infodata updates: In 2010 Associated Content was bought by Yahoo for $100 million a clear signal, if any were needed, which is placed these days upon content on the web. As we get into 2011, content plays an ever increasing role in the way it helps websites differentiate themselves and attract unique attention. Content in specific places like Associated Content and Squidoo helps deliver highly targeted traffic results.

#8 – Topic modelling now suddenly is critical: In my book, SEO Help: 20 steps to get your website to Google’s #1 page I spoke, frequently, about thematic linking in content and the need to build thematic linking in a website. The official term of thematic linking is topic modelling which in machine learning and natural language processing is a type of statistical model for discovering the abstract "topics" that occur in a collection of documents. In other words there is little point in keyword stuffing and pages which overtly belabour specific words. It is better by far to stick to natural speech as much as possible and allow content, building over time to create a natural thematic weight in terms of what your website does and what it’s about.

#9 – Link building now less important though not yet discounted: Though Google ran a major link filter update back at the beginning of 2007, three years on link building is still subject to manipulation. Linkfarms still exist and links from bad neighbourhoods do not always get filtered out or are penalized. Links are still being bought (a banned Google practise) and links are still being exchanged. Google is still working on how to best work in this area so that it creates a level playing field, avoids spam, improves the organic search results and does not penalize websites unfairly. At the moment we have not seen anything but it is more than likely that over the next 12 months or a little later there will be another big update regarding links and PageRank (PR) like the one we saw in 2007.

#10 – Search engine optimization is moving into the DIY zone: When it comes to the web there is a predictable development curve we have seen time and again. First the task is technical and restricted only to those who really understand some arcane language, which means it is expensive. Then it becomes easier, open standards (of some sort) creep in but you still need the ‘experts’. Then it gets to be really ‘easy’ in terms of being executable by anyone and all you need is the right kind of knowledge to keep you from the pitfalls. We saw this in website building and website design and we are also seeing that SEO has undergone exactly this kind of development curve. Right now, armed with some practical knowledge such as the steps detailed in SEO Help almost anyone can be responsible for the optimization of their own website. This trend is likely to continue in 2011 with money being spent on SEO only when you have not got the time to do it yourself (just like it has been with web design and website building).