Yahoo and Bing Merge Search and PPC

Yahoo is now switching to Bing Search. So, what does that mean for your website? Well, if your site was ranking well for searches in Yahoo previously, it may now rank lower. Bing has been the search engine behind MSN. While Google still holds the lion’s share of searches (between 65% and 70% depending on the industry), Yahoo and MSN made up most of the rest. Now, they will be using the same algorithm for searches.

Not only should you take this time to check up on your SEO, but you may also wish to consult with an Internet marketer who spends time keeping up with the changes in the SEO market. Contact us for a preliminary review.

Here is another article with some helpful tips:

Yahoo switching to Bing’s technology in the US and Canada is probably the leading search news story of the whole month.

Yes, Yahoo has fully switched to serving Bing results to the U.S. and Canadian searchers. While the average user may not care too much as to who’s providing the results (as long as they’re good of course), this is huge news for search marketers.

We’ll look at how this change affects the search landscape and how you can leverage this for your site a bit later, but first things first.

Today we’re disabling Yahoo! API key in Rank Tracker (which was on by default to let you query Yahoo safely and shield you from ranking dances caused by Yahoo-Bing tests). As soon as you get the new version (restart the tool to auto-update as usual) and run a check you’ll see your Yahoo! rankings change dramatically and become exactly as on Bing (or with some slight alterations).

Whether your positions in Yahoo! rise or fall it’s all because of the switch to Bing technology (this is something you might want to explain to your clients).

If you haven’t been watching your Yahoo rankings and want to learn how this change affected your site, take a peek into the trick that we share at the end of this post. It shows you how to check your old Yahoo rankings. And now let’s see how you can leverage Yahoo’s switch to Bing for your business.

Turn the Yahoo-Bing Merger to Your Advantage

Combined Bing and Yahoo account for about 5.2 billion monthly searches. This is a pretty large traffic pond to tap into (not as large as the ‘Google Sea’, but still). So let’s see how you can leverage the ‘Binghoo’ search traffic.

Since Bing is already serving organic results on Yahoo U.S. and Canada and will be powering all of Yahoo search soon, you only need to concern yourself with optimizing for Bing. Grab top rankings there and you’ll be crowning Yahoo results as well. One shot – two rabbits dead, so to speak. So let’s cut to the chase.

1. Keyword Research

No matter what search engine you’re optimizing for your first step is keyword research. You sure already have a list of keywords that you pursue on Google, but search habits of Yahoo and Bing users are not necessarily the same. That’s why it’s a good idea to use specific keyword research tools for those search engines just to make sure you’re on the right track and check if there are additional keyword opportunities.

Here are collections of Yahoo keyword research tools and Bing keyword research tools (in 2 parts) to help you out.

In case you wonder why you should care about Yahoo keyword tools since it’s Bing that determines the rankings, the thing is Yahoo users will retain their search habits (at least for a while), so Yahoo keyword tools may still be useful.

Depending on the niche there may not be a huge difference in the keywords people use on Google, Yahoo or Bing but it’s still worth investigating.
2. Rankings Check

As soon as you have your list of keywords you need to check where you currently stand in terms of rankings. This way you’ll see how much work is needed to get a decent ranking for each keyword and you’ll learn what webpage ranks best for each term, so you know what page to optimize. So that’s another two-rabbit shot here.

You don’t really need to check your site’s positions on Yahoo as they mirror your Bing rankings.
Checking your Bing rankings is enough. You can quickly do this with the help of Rank Tracker (get a free version if you don’t have one) or with any other ranking tool you use.

Once you know your Bing rankings, compare them against those on Google. If your Google and Bing rankings come close or are the same, you don’t really need to do anything specific for Bing. Just carry on with the SEO work you’re already doing.

If your Bing rankings are considerably lower than your Google positions you’ll need to put in some extra Bing-focused SEO effort.

3. Optimize your site for Bing

If you compare the search results on Google and Bing you’ll see that the two engines rank sites differently. The difference in results suggests that there’s also a difference in ranking factors and the value attached to them.

Among other things Bing tends to put more weight on domain age, topical relevancy and outbound linking. Let’s see what SEO factors play a role in your Bing rankings and how you can optimize your site to drive your website up.

• On-page SEO

There’s no magic bullet for Bing as far as the content optimization goes. Cover the basics and you’re good to go: put out unique content, optimize your page titles, H tags and meta-descriptions, strategically employ your keywords in the body, optimize images and so on. Try to focus on one topic per page as theme relevancy is really important on Bing.

• Relevant Inbound Links

Link relevancy is another key to high rankings on the decision engine. Bing tends to favor links coming from pages with the same or similar topic. Try to acquire links from pages with your targeted keywords in the title, URL, H tags and in the body. Links with your target keywords in the anchor texts are even more effective on Bing than on Google, so be sure to take care of that as well.

• Linking Out

It’s not just who links to you that’s important. Outgoing links are also a factor on Bing. By linking out to authority sites in your niche (where appropriate of course) you increase the authority of your own site and as a result get a ranking boost.

• Blogs vs News Sites

We’ve all heard about Google’s love for blogs because of their fresh content. There are a lot of results from blogs in Google News as well as in the news block in the general SERPs. Bing on the other hand tends to give preference to major news sites. Blogs don’t often make their way into the news sections on Bing, but so if you’re a news blog it may take more effort to get a high ranking on Bing.

• Domain Age

Bing tends to favor old domains even more than Google. The older the site, the more chances it has to rank well on Bing. This tip has not much of a take-away to it, apart from something like: Go, age your domain. Domains are not jeans and the artificial aging trick doesn’t work here, so just sit back and let your domain grow old.

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Facebook Now Sending Weekly Updates on Visitors, Fans

The only true way to evaluate the effectiveness of a marketing channel is to track it. MTECH is all about comparing the ROI of one marketing channel versus another. With the advent of social media, many clients constantly ask me how this helps them increase the bottom line of their business.

Well, Facebook just made that decision a bit easier by now Emailing a weekly report of the visitors, fans and posts to your Facebook page.

By comparing this to other website landing pages driven by marketing advertisements, you can start to see how Facebook compares to the amount of traffic it potentially drives to your site as well as how well it connects to your key audience.

If you don’t have a Facebook Page (not profile) yet, you might be surprised how many of your customers are using this vehicle. So, I encourage you to take a little bit of time, set one up and start playing with it.

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Google Scores its Own SEO Results…Not so good…

Feeling bad about your search engine optimization ranking? Don’t worry…Google just released a SEO report card on their own site and it shows they have a lot of areas to improve.

View the Report Here

This extensive report shows all the things you need to consider when doing SEO on a website.

Recently, I just got a new client who has been paying thousands every year on SEO from a “large firm”. What amazed me was that this large firm didn’t even do the small basics, such as having unique title tags and description tags on every page nor did they have any “alt” image tags, yet they were charging them every year.

If your web site firm or SEO firm is not spending time explaining what they are doing and equipping you along the way, then you may need to take a second look. Also, make sure your web firm and/or Internet marketing firm gives you a Google analytics login so that you can check results yourself. So many times firms keep charging you without providing continual value.

I have clients that I have equipped along the way so they no longer need my monthly services. It doesn’t bother me since I can proudly say that their web sites continue to give them business long after I am done. They feel great about the “value” I provided and in turn, recommend me to other clients.They also use me still upon occasion when they truly need my expertise.

If marketing firms want to continue to survive over the next decade, they need to learn the importance of empowerment. Otherwise, their reputations will suffer and they will go by the wayside. Marketing firms need to explain how all of these new social media and Internet tools will help companies bottom line as well as listen to the needs of the company or business. If a firm has an owner or staff member who can tweet, blog and post, it is better for them to do it in-house.

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You Can’t Teach What You Don’t Know

One of the guiding principles in my life has been to only take advice from those who have solved problems and personally experienced success. So many times we take financial and business advice from those who have not actually lived what they are professing. They “heard” through other sources that you should do this or that. However, they have never actually done or followed the advise themselves. There is a big difference between recognizing something and truly understanding it. One of my business mentors always says “If you listen to them, you will live like them”.

Case in point…many people profess to know about Search Engine Optimization based on articles they read 2-3 years ago. However, if they haven’t been optimizing web sites themselves over the past year, they would not be aware of the profound changes in the industry due to social media outlets.

So, the next time a “friend” or colleague gives you marketing or financial advice, evaluate their lifestyle and business success. Do they truly know and live what they are telling you or is it just a theory based on their own opinion?

MTECH has followed new marketing trends, but holds back on giving a lot of advice until we successfully implement the new marketing strategies and see in real world examples how they fit into the overall picture. For example, you may recognize you need a blog, but if you do not understand how fresh content and engaging with other social media channels affects your blog success, then you will not get the same results that others are experiencing.

Here is a great article from Colorado Biz magazine that speaks to the same issue:

http://www.cobizmag.com/articles/how-to-think-like-a-billionaire/

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SEO is a Moving Target

In this fast-paced digital world, Search Engine Optimization is an-ever moving target. Now that Google is indexing Facebook comments and Tweets, the competition just got even stiffer. So what is SEO anyway? SEO is the organic results that appear just below the “paid advertisements”. In order to rank high in the “organic results”, you have to have a well-designed site that is “search engine friendly” as well as employ some other basic strategies.

These “friendly” strategies include but are not limited to:
1. Well-written title tags and description tags that are not too long or too short.
2. Make sure all of your website images have “alt tags” that contain your keywords.
3. Work on getting quality “inbound” links from web sites. Those are links from other websites that link to yours. However, understand that not all links are weighed the same. A website with a higher Google Page Rank will be worth 5-10 links of smaller web sites that have little Page Rank. For example, a link from your Town’s website or Chamber of Commerce will be worth more than a link from a small plumbing company web site that has barely any traffic.
4. A blog that has new articles on a regular basis. Make sure you have links from your blog back to your website and there is a link in many of the articles as well.
5. Updating new content on your website on a regular basis.

SEO is an moving target. Strategies that worked just 6 months ago may not be working as well today, especially those by “SEO firms” that try to “trick” the system. If you produce quality content and spend time and effort of increasing quality in-bound links, your results will pay off!

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