SEO Technology Overview

SEO is no longer just about search. In fact, SEO which in its early days focused primarily on keywords (finding, optimizing, ranking) is now a baseline factor of a broader Internet Marketing strategy across the Enterprise. This new SEO-driven market segment that has been called Web Presence Management (WPM) is based on the reality that keywords no longer drive search results, optimized content does.

As the SEO market matures, quality measures, such as reputation, trust, content relevance and author authority, are replacing the old quantity metrics, such as keyword rankings and link volume. Advanced SEO solutions now weigh campaign performance metrics (based on brand building, site traffic and conversion) more heavily than keyword rankings.

This reality is based on changes in the way customers search, the increasingly integrated omni-channel marketing environment and, most notably, changes to Google’s Search Engine Results Page (SERP) algorithms that favor page content freshness, density and content rich media over standard keyword search.

All of this means that Modern Marketing Organizations (MMOs) must re-evaluate their SEO strategies, processes and campaigns. In this report we will examine the state of the market, share results from the SEO Benchmark Study, evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of 15 top SEO solutions in our vendor landscape to help organizations choose the best solution for them, highlight the current trends in SEO that will have an impact on Enterprise SEO initiatives and provide some recommendations for the way forward as SEO is redefined right before our eyes.

Demand Metric defines Search Engine Optimization platforms as those frameworks, tools and technologies that use search-related functionally to secure high visibility and web presence for brands, products, services and companies through the use and management of elements, such as keywords, links, content relevance and social signals tracking.

This study covers the following sections:

• Executive Summary
• SEO Marketing Overview
• SEO Vendor Landscape
• Evolution of the Landscape
• Analyst Bottom Line
• About the Research Analysts
• Our Technology Overview Methodology
• About Demand Metric