The Future of SEO from the Definitive Top 13 Experts

Because we all know that the search engines can change things on a whim to suit whatever direction their executives decide to move in that week, and because the author didn’t have anything else to write about this week. Here’s the guide to what the search engines (Google) are going to be doing in the next 10 years, and how you as an SEO should then tailor your long term strategy to take advantage of the specific predictions from our prestigious panel of the definitive top 13 SEO experts* in the world.

(* the only 13 people who responded to my begging letters for answers to the question when I realized I was going to do this last week).

Grizzled Industry veteran

In my opinion, as an elder of this industry, someone who’s been around since before Google was a thing, and indeed, before SEO was even known as SEO, the future of what now is known as SEO, will be very similar to the recent past.  By being vague, and non-commital I will be able to state, in 6 months time, that whatever happens is what I said would happen, but I’ll imply that I couldn’t come out and clearly state it due to the search engines forcing me to sign NDAs, which they’ll deny exists, because they don’t, but that’s what you’d expect them to say about an NDA isn’t it?

Agency CEO

Just remember that whatever I say here wasn’t written by me, but by a low level staffer who actually knows about these things.  Of course, my name is attached to it, as I’m the public face of the company, and I’m expected to know about these things.  If you corner me at a party and ask me about it, expect me to smile blankly, and extract myself from the conversation as soon as possible.

Wacky Founder of SEO Tools Company

Hey, you all know me, and that I’m going to say something outrageous here, along with a couple of predictions that actually match what the search engines have said or loosely implied over the last 2 weeks.  That way when people hear about them, they may perceive that I predicted them, as long as they don’t look too closely at the timeline.

CEO of another Agency

I’m just going to post a couple of ideas that I found on another recent article that asked this same question, only I’ll tart the answers up a little, and pass them off as my own.  If anyone notices, I’ll just say something blithe like “great minds think alike”.

Mid level Agency Guy

I really don’t know what to say, so I’m going to both make a controversial point, then backtrack and give the opposite point of view in the exact same paragraph.  That way, no matter what happens, I can claim that I totally called it, plus I won’t look like a fool to the real people in the industry who actually know what they’re talking about, which petrifies me.  I’ll also name drop some people from the search engines and quote them from articles and videos they’ve done previously, although I’ll make it sound like they said those things to me in confidence because we’re such good friends.

Another Mid level Agency Guy

A real expert confided in me, over a drink at a networking event, a tactic that’s working for them, but shouldn’t be.  So I’m going to tell everyone about it here, to make it sound like I’m really an expert and deserve to be here.  I’m going to predict that this unknown tactic will get shut down within an hour of this post going live, so I’ll be seen as an expert twice over.

Generic Expert SEO

I know most people don’t know why I’m always on these expert lists, but the reason I’m on them is because I’m always on these expert lists, and the people who write them just assume that means that it won’t be an expert list unless I’m on it.  So here I am.  I’ll  probably just make some kind of joke here, so that people won’t notice that there’s no substance to what I’m saying.

Low level SEO / friend of the author

I’m going to throw out an insight based on something I saw doing client work last week.  It’s probably the only actionable thing in this whole article, but given that you don’t know my name, you’ll most likely just have skipped over this one anyway.  Oh, and since I’m now officially an expert, I’m looking for a new job…

SEO Tools Agency VP of Sales

I’m going to make some predictions that make the case that everyone should be using our toolset.  I’ll also be forwarding this article to all potential clients, to both show that we’re experts, and that what we’re telling them on our sales literature is correct, as it matches what experts say.  I’ll not mention that I’m only on the list because we’re a premium sponsor of the WTFSEO conference series.

Regular WTFSEO Columnist

I’m really here so I can put in a bunch of links to my old WTFSEO articles, that way I can sound like I’ve known what I’ve been talking about all along.

Industry Guru / Author of 3 books you’ve been given for free, but not read

My predictions will be meaningless, vacuous and devoid of any analysis or data, but I’ll use lots of buzzwords as well as some quotes from my 2^nd book, such as “you can’t teach a fish to fry” and “Don’t end up in the sausage” that virtually none of you will actually get, but you’ll not admit, even to yourself because you secretly think that you should have read my books.

Solo SEO Consultant

I’m super excited to be on this list because I’m hoping it’ll lead to lots of business for me since I was laid off by my agency last month I decided to throw off the corporate shackels and go solo.  So I’m going to differentiate myself by talking about something that I don’t think the others will have covered, perhaps one of the other search engines that isn’t Google.  The problem is, that no matter how insightful I am, given that I’m this far down the article, nobody’s still reading, and even those that do, once they see I’m not talking about Google, they’ll skip over for now, saying they’ll come back and read what I have to say when they have time… but they won’t.

SEO Agency guy

I want everyone to know how plugged into everything I am, so I’m going to go off on a long winded set of predictions covering everything from the color of the links to the day that Google becomes self-aware, creates itself a giant robot shell, and goes on a rampage resulting in the destruction of the Library of Congress and a taco stand in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.  I’ll do this in a minimum of 3,000 mind numbing words.

UPDATE:

After publication, it was brought to the attention of the WTFSEO staff that the above list of the definitive top 13 industry experts wasn’t actually representative.  We, of course, realized this pre-publication, and had hoped that no one would notice this post publication, but since it has been pointed out, we’re going to address this issue here.

In-House SEO Guy

Corporate communications won’t actually let me say anything worthwhile, so I’m just going to talk in vague terms and mention a tactic that worked for me 2 years ago, but hasn’t worked since thanks to a Google update.

FURTHER UPDATE:

After publication, it was once again brought to the attention of the WTFSEO staff that the above list of the definitive top 13/14 industry experts still wasn’t representative.  So we’re now going to fix that here:

Female SEO Expert

I’m too busy for this crap