Yahoo and Bing Holding Hands, Now What?

Yahoo and Bing have been hoping and praying that everything with their recent partnership would go through as smoothly as possible with no hang ups. Recently everything was approved for these two giants to be allowed to put their heads together and change things for the future of both businesses. With Bing really increasing in [...]

Yahoo and Bing have been hoping and praying that everything with their recent partnership would go through as smoothly as possible with no hang ups. Recently everything was approved for these two giants to be allowed to put their heads together and change things for the future of both businesses. With Bing really increasing in market share and Yahoo decreasing, it was an obvious marriage that had to happen. Don’t forget that Yahoo is still a very powerful website and one of the most trafficked websites in the world. How is this going to change things for SEO professionals who have been focusing on just Google for so many years?

The united pay per click advertising platforms of Bing and Yahoo will surely be a new force in the industry. As reported by the Associated Press they will be sharing ad revenues which is really going to change the way businesses market their websites outside the walls of Google. Bing is also working on a unique partnership with Facebook allowing almost everything in the social network to be completely searchable in the search engines. Pretty soon if you want to find something on a specific person you will be able to search in Bing and it will filter not just for their name but through their profile for items as well. It seems like many people are very excited to see this go through. According to a poll done by Search Engine Journal , 62% of voters think that this partnership is going to give Google a real run for its money. It was bound to happen sooner or later. Don’t be surprised if you see Bing making some serious moves that involve sacrificing revenues just for market share increase. I think these massive search giants want to do anything to just pull users away from Google and they are ready to use anything within their grips to make it happen. There has already been chatter in the industry how there will be a massive forward step to outperform Google’s algorithm in the newly combined search engine.

I think eventually we will see a shift as to how search engine marketing professionals approach their focus. Over time we will see an importance for businesses to be visible in Bing as well as Google. Everything that comes up must come down sooner or later and I don’t think Bing will take out Google but they might pull some of the focus off of it for quite a while if they play their cards right.

Top Online Brand Survey – Your Company?

An interesting survey by the Forrester Blog: Google, Yahoo! and Amazon are the most trusted brands online. I’m really not surprised by Google and Amazon, but I’d have thought that Yahoo! lost more ground. They were in second place in 2007 and still hold onto second in 2009 even though they’ve lost ground with consumers. [...]

An interesting survey by the Forrester Blog: Google, Yahoo! and Amazon are the most trusted brands online. I’m really not surprised by Google and Amazon, but I’d have thought that Yahoo! lost more ground. They were in second place in 2007 and still hold onto second in 2009 even though they’ve lost ground with consumers. Amazon gained and still is in third – barely.

If I were to hazard a prediction here, I’d say by the next survey, Amazon will hold second place behind Google and Facebook, Microsoft, and YouTube will all have gained higher recognition with at least one of them possibly passing Yahoo! I also think MySpace will fall off the list and be replaced, possibly by Twitter.

But here’s the question: What does it take to make the list in the first place?
Trustworthiness, helpfulness, and relevance. So does that mean if you develop those three qualities for your website that you’ll stand a chance to be on the list in the next survey? Probably not. But I do think that if you gain a reputation for those three qualities within your niche then you could be one of the most trusted authorities within your niche and industry online. Don’t you think?

Having a trusted brand online goes way beyond a solid search engine optimization and pay per click advertising program, it means your company is truly a leader in your marketplace. For instance, I have a client that is a manufacturer of restaurant equipment. Yes, I have helped them achieve top search engine rankings, a robust pay per click advertising campaign in all three search networks and have even gotten them active in social media. What I have found is that everything performs very well for them online since they have been a true leader in their industry for over 40 years (well before the web existed!). So the point is it takes a good amount of work, energy and innovation that goes way beyond marketing efforts to become a top online brand in a given industry. Are you and your company up for the task?

The Number One Rule of SEO

That might sound like a silly question – what should be the number one rule when it comes to Search Engine Optimization? However, everyone has their own ideas. For some it relates to keywords, for others, on-site optimization or off-site optimization (or link building). It may sound like I am repeating the same philosophy all [...]

That might sound like a silly question – what should be the number one rule when it comes to Search Engine Optimization? However, everyone has their own ideas. For some it relates to keywords, for others, on-site optimization or off-site optimization (or link building). It may sound like I am repeating the same philosophy all the time – here is a different twist.

When it comes to SEO, every site, every business is unique in every respect. They are have their own set of unique requirements and their own unique blend of options that can help lift them to the front page of the search results. While there may be a range of basic white hat optimization strategies that every site can implement, once you get past the basics it is a different story.

Some businesses can succeed with pure organic search results; others may need the help of pay per click advertising. Another business may find that social media marketing through the use of videos delivers more and better targeted visitors than organic search on its own.

To be successful online now you need a blended strategy that uses every available channel promote your business. You also need a website that fulfills all the requirements needed to be successful – that includes design, content and usability. A mistake can be to try and copy what another business has done – it often doesn’t migrate to your business because you haven’t taken the same direction with other strategies.

So – the number one rule (for want of a better phrase) is that each business is different and each business requires a different set of strategies to succeed online.

Seth Godin: Sliced Bread

Malcolm Gladwell: Outliers

Anthony Parinello: Your Price is Too High