The SEO industry in the USA has grown massively in the past few decades along with the general increase in the use of search engines. Google has dominated the US market for the most part, accounting for about 66%, so most of the optimisation has been focused on improving rankings in Google searches. It is worth noting that this is much less than the UK’s staggering 90% market share. In recent years Yahoo! and Microsoft’s Bing have been, albeit slowly, increasing their market share in the US.
Many do not see a future in the SEO industry in the US. It is not uncommon to come across blogs with titles such as ‘SEO is dead’, and this seems to be a widely held opinion. But there are many who do not think the industry is doomed, but do think that it needs to address some important issues.
Sadly, the name SEO has developed connotations of spamming, or at least with the very stripped down service of boosting search engine ranking. Of course, this is what SEO is for, but it is often overlooked that successful SEO agencies have to engage with online PR and in social media in order to secure more visitors to a page.
Many place the sole responsibility of this reputation with the companies that are involved in spamming and other ‘black hat’ techniques, but it is also the result of those who purchase the services and their ignorance about SEO. A must for the industry, then, is making more customers aware of what SEO services are and when they are required.
Nevertheless, in 2010 the US SEO industry made up 10% of the worldwide market, hitting a massive 130m per year spend. It is clear that the SEO industry has the ability to change in order to survive. The only agencies that need to fear are those that indulge in ‘black hat’ techniques, and those that are unwilling to change, because developments in search engine algorithms and the problems just mentioned will make life very difficult for them.
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