1.Search will continue to get more personal

Desktop Search Expanding

This time last year desktop search was only available from small companies like Enfish, dtSearch, and x1. This year all of the major search engines have entered or will soon enter the desktop battle.

Desktop Combat

– October: Google Desktop Comes out

– December: MSN and Ask

– January: Yahoo

– AOL Beta (when)

The spoiler: Gartner released a report advising companies to discourage use, stating that desktop search opens up your network for security and privacy issues and potential for new viruses.

MSN Engine

Shortcuts and Direct Display – Invisible tabs moving forward, with introduction or expansion of “detours” or “shortcuts” (AOL Snapshots, Ask Smart Search, Google OneBox Results, Yahoo Shortcuts)

Web results won’t be the only and premier item on the results page, how often do you see Google News, Yellow Pages, Froogle, and definitions at the top?

The spoiler: The user. This level of personalization might just be too sophisticated for the end user.

Search Everywhere for Anything

Search Optimization will mean much more than just optimizing for the desktop search. We’ll need to continue to optimize for cell phones, PDA, your iPod?

The spoiler: The user. This level of personalization might just be too sophisticated for the end user.

The Growth of A/B Testing

A/B testing will grow this year as companies realize the importance of testing and the ease of implementing A/B testing.

The spoiler: Limited resources. Is there such thing as too much testing?

2.Local Search Will Get Better

Local Search is getting better and better. And now engines are starting to list yellow pages and local directory lists in the search engine results. We wonder if there’s favoritism for the local directory listing?

The spoiler: The engines themselves. Will people start going directly to the yellow pages and local directory sites once they know they can get good local results? Why would you go to a huge search engine when you are looking for a Nashville Hotel for the weekend? You might just start going to local directory sites like MyPages yellow page listings.

Spoiler 2: Longitude and Latitude searching. Is this too much targeting? Will it turn off people to search that local?

3.ROI Won’t Be the Only Stat in the Game

We’ll see more statistics and calculations for return on investment. This is only the beginning. This year we already saw Google launch reporting features that include statistics on: cost per transaction, total value, avg value, value per cost, value per click, and the ability to track sales, leads, signups, and page views. Whew!

We’ll see even more offline conversion calculations this next year. Just this month we saw FindWhat and CitySearch launch pay per call. We’ll be more sophisticated in our abilities to track online to offline and vice versa.

The spoiler: Companies budgets. This type of tracking will take money and advanced web analytics tracking. And then once the tracking is in place, will we be able to comprehend it? (of course Anvil will!)

4.Branding Will Be Reborn

We’ll see the rebirth of the impression this next year, as we realize clicks aren’t everything. Branding will be important in organic search engine marketing, as brand protection has already started getting heated. Just do a quick search for a few Fortune 500 companies and you’ll see the importance: Home Depot (homedepotsucks.com #3) and Starbucks (ihatestarbucks.com #3).

Branding will also be important in the PPC realm once the Google/Geico ruling continues to hold. Is this the new Pepsi vs Coke war in the Internet age?

And will we see the revival of the microsite? Once companies recognize visitors and customers are not all the same, the microsite will be vital since you can control their experience with your brand.

And dare we say Blogging! Blogging has already gotten so huge this year that you cannot put it on your prediction list. However, we’ll see a rise in corporate blogging as a branding vehicle.

The spoiler: The same thing it’s been in year’s past: inability to track branding. Will the marketer’s get bored with branding or tired of justifying a branding budget?