It’s that time of year where everyone speculates and lays down their predictions and I thought what better way to start the New Year than adding my views into the mix.

1. Google Local/Places will be massive this year with many SEO’s offering ‘optimisation’ for this niche field. This is due to the full integration of Google Local/Places (I still don’t know what the true name for this is) into the organic listings for almost any search that includes a place name.

2. The next thing I think will happen… and I’d hazard a guess at this becoming a reality around the end of April 2011, is the integration of Google Local style- non linking citations into the organic rankings algorithm. This will see sites like Yelp becoming more prevalent as emphasis is taken off links and anchor text and reputation taking a stand and being counted. After all Google is interested in showing high quality results, and what better ‘quality’ than sites that have independent citations.