Over the past few years, traditional forms of search engine marketing have been able to help a website achieve high levels of traffic and sales. However, the game plan looks set to change during 2013 because there are many search marketing trends that used to be popular that are no longer as effective as they used to be. The good news is that while there will be changes that will affect search engine marketing in 2013, most of these changes will be for the better.

Elimination of Poor Quality Back Links

Although building back links used to be one of the easiest ways to generate traffic to and from websites, search engine marketing in 2013 will see a lot of poor quality links being deleted or filtered from Google search results. In some cases, the poor quality back links may remain on the website, but they may have a negative effect on search engine rankings. This is why it is always important to ensure that you only solicit or create back links with websites that offer high quality content as well as back links from other sites. Provided that the sites you are linking to have high quality content, the amount of relevant text or keywords will not have that much effect on your website’s search engine rankings.

A handful of great blog posts discussing search engine marketing for 2013.

• Where Link Building is Heading in 2013 (Search Engine Watch)
  
• Your Link Building Blueprint for 2013 (Search Engine People)
• Link Building in 2013 [With Traffic Statistics] (The Social Sketch)
• 47 Resources To Carry Your Link Building Through 2013 (SEOmoz)
• 7 Scalable Link Building Strategies for 2013 (iAcquire)

Quality versus Quantity

When it comes to search engine marketing in 2013, the debate regarding quality versus quantity still rages on. However, it is becoming more apparent that Google is favoring websites that are able to offer their readers content and posts that are engaging, relevant and of a decent length. If your website is well-constructed and offers readers the information that were looking for before they arrived there, Google will find favor with your site and not penalize it for poorly-constructed or insufficient content. While your content should be factual and contain information that is relevant to the keywords you have chosen, it is also important to ensure that readers actually enjoy reading what you write.

Google’s Author Rank System

Website owners and bloggers could soon see themselves being assigned with an Author Rank which will be based on a number of parameters such as domain expertise and niche authority. This means that the higher the author’s reputation is, the better their chances are of gaining higher search engine rankings than their competitors. Another upcoming change with regards to search marketing trends will involve having an author’s content be directly linked to their Google Plus profile, which means that their reputation there will also be taken into account when it comes to receiving higher or lower search engine rankings.

When it comes to predicting which search marketing trends will be used in the upcoming year, it is difficult to predict exactly which changes will affect which websites. This is because at the end of the day, the deciding factor regarding which websites receive the highest search engine rankings is Google itself.