SEO 2.0

While the term SEO 2.0 is not new, those who already used it define it in various differing ways. Before I bring up my own definition of SEO 2.0 I want to create an overview of what others say.

1. Todd Malicoat (Stuntdubl): SEO rebranding and SEO 2.0 as meta discipline
http://www.stuntdubl.com/2006/04/10/being-an-seo-can-we-start-seo-20/
Stuntdubl was one of the definitions that inspired me most. He wants to rebrand SEO and basically make it a meta discipline dealing with anything that impacts the success of a website.

2. Kid Mercury (Kid Mercury Blog): Attention, Community, Trust
http://kidmercuryblog.com/showthread.php?t=1670
For Kid Mercury SEO 2.0 stands ob three basis pillars: Attention, community and trust, those who get attention, create a community and maintain trust will rank as a side effect.

3. Lee Odden (TopRank Blog): Holistic approach, “Digital Asset Optimization”
http://www.toprankblog.com/2007/06/digital-asset-optimization/
Lee Odden claims that in the future only a holistic approach that encompasses all digital media and the ability to make it crawlable and thus findable will allow to be noticed in a personalized search world. He calls his approach therefor “Digital Asset Optimization” as the value of text alone and conventional SEO wisdom will diminish.

4. Kevin Newcomb (SEW): Multiple media SEO
http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/showthread.php?t=17794
As new kinds of search opportunities will arise Kevin Newcomb sound very optimistic in Search Engine Watch thread. Video, Books, Maps are all open to optimization from on to rank high. So SEO 2.0 is SEO for multiple media.

5. Jordan Behan (telltenfriends): SEO 2.0 is Social Media Optimization
http://www.telltenfriends.com/blog/2006/12/12/seo-20-or-social-media-optimization/
As Jordan Behan explains SEO 2.0 is all about reaching out to potential clients and markets through all Web 2.0 channels that like Blogging, MySpace or Flickr. He explains that his static website does not perform well compared to all the social media out there.

6. Mike Levin (HitTail): Long Tail and answering questions
http://www.hittail.com/blog/2006/06/what-is-seo-20.html
Web analytics specialist Mike Levin tells us how posing the right questions paves the way to SEO 2.0. It won’t be the same “ranking factors” SEO of today but it will take into account usability and what users want. It will be about thelong tail so that you know what users want in the first place.

7. Jody Nimetz (enquiro): SEO 2.0 means content, content and more content
http://ask.enquiro.com/2007/seo-20-will-content-still-be-king/
Jody Nimetz convinces us that content will still be the key in SEO 2.0. He goes on to explain how and which content. He differentiates between fresh and existing content and urges us to update older contents while blogging is of course a must. Moreover he states that with various media you reach a larger audience.

8. Rob Garner (Search Insider): Pageless web and Rich Internet Applications (RIA)
http://blogs.mediapost.com/search_insider/?p=427
While Rob Garner does not really define SEO 2.0 in the manner the other definitions did, he outlines what SEO 2.0 has to do so that search engine optimization still maintains it’s relevance. It has to deal with the pageless web of AJAX powered applications.

9. Ryan Holmes (Invoke Media): Blogging, one way links, virals
http://www.invokemedia.com/seo-20-blogging-one-way-linking-virals.html
Ryan Holmes explained the term SEO 2.0 already in 2005. Back then he stressed mainly three factors: Blogging or content creations, one way links through directory submission for instance and virals, referring to what is also called guerrilla marketing.

10. AU Interactive
http://blog.auinteractive.com/seo-20-redesign-is-the-the-hot-new-seo-trend
Although AU Interactive does not define SEO 2.0 the context of the usage of this term is very interesting: redesign. SEO 2.0 seems to have something to do with the appearance of a site.

So, while I complied this list I also chose to order the definitions according to how much I agree with them. Also the sheer quality of a definition influenced the order. Nonetheless my definition does not reflect any particular one of those. It will encompass all of them and still differ though.