Analyses: Are You Up-to-date to Capitalize on Major Web Events?
Updated – Feb. 27, 2011
February has been an eventful month for the Internet and marketers. Developments include the major players – Bing, Facebook, Google, and Twitter. Are you positioned to capitalize?
Here’s an update:
Google. Because it’s the longtime mega search engine, let’s consider Google first. Depending on which research firm you prefer, such as ComScore or The Nielsen Company, Google has about a 66 percent search market share. So whatever innovations it makes, it’s important.
Google has made a major change in how it ranks search results probably because it’s been under siege for being manipulated by certain Web sites.
The vaunted Google algorithms – its tools that determine how it ranks Web sites – have been fine-tuned to reward publishers of original content. Unique valuable information, if you will. That certainly includes in-depth thought leadership. Google says it involves about 12 percent of search queries. That might not sound like a lot, but 12 percent of millions and millions of search queries is meaningful.
You might recall numerous recent news stories: JC Penney, for example. The 2010 $17.8 billion retailer was chastised for dubious Internet practices. The retailer denied it approved spam-like behavior by its search-engine optimization company, SearchDex. But right after the story broke, SearchDex was fired.
Indeed, it must have been an eye-opener to the search giant to be labeled as the “tropical paradise for spammers and marketers” by a U.C. Berkeley scholar, Vivek Wadhwa. Hence, its algorithms upgrade.
Another search development: The Google Chrome Web browser now permits sites to prevent other sites from appearing in their results. (Its competitor, Blekko, does the same.)
So, Google has taken action to disallow Web sites, with little or no unique value, to dominate in search results.
My sense: The jury is still out on Google’s changes. In my sampling, I haven’t seen a positive noticeable change, especially in its key word results. Otherwise, if successful, Google is to be commended for dealing with a crisis confronting its quality of relevant search and its image. (Candidly, as a business-performance consultant, I’ve always advised clients on the importance of frequent, strong informative content.)
Bing – social search. Bing grew to a 13 percent market share at the start of this month. But it’s created new buzz by adding Facebook “likes” that allows Internet users to see the results that their friends like.
Here’s how it works: Pictures of your friends appear when you search after you connect with Bing with your Facebook account. You can disable it easily if you choose.
Bing now includes related Twitter features (so does Google).
My sense: The new development in the Bing-Facebook partnership is unique and it affects word-mouth-marketing – as businesspeople and consumers make buying decisions. This helps to make marketing fun. It’s also a reminder that content, search-engine optimization and social media should be synergized and orchestrated in your overall marketing.
This includes:
- Listening to Internet-user preferences
- Interacting with them to maximize your opportunities
- Continually measuring results
- Fine-tuning your approach
From the Coach’s Corner, Bing’s partnership with social-media giant Facebook should remind you to capitalize on Bing search.
Here are valuable tips: Get Busy With Bing Webmaster Tools.
Web Publishers: Are You Optimized for Bing?
Updated Aug. 17, 2010
The time has come to optimize your Web site for Bing. That’s because the long-awaited deal between Yahoo and Bing is in effect. Microsoft Advertising’s Tina Kelleher explains in a blog post today the change is underway. Initially, the change will take place on English-language Yahoo searches.
Why is optimizing for Bing important? In terms of market share, Yahoo and Bing are expected to combine for 30 percent – hence, the need to act.
Bing is powering the search for Yahoo. However, each will still have separate identities. You might recall that Yahoo and Bing signed the advertising deal for a 10-year duration.
This column originally quoted a Website Magazine report about the change. Website Magazine also suggests you check out Bing’s new webmaster tools.
The magazine reported an alert by Yaho0 to optimize for Bing “…if organic search results are an important source of referrals to your website.”
You know what? Success in organic search listings is indeed noticed by most Internet users.
“It also indicated that Yahoo! hopes to migrate its paid-search ads to Microsoft’s adCenter by the beginning of the 2010 holiday season, but that it may wait until the start of 2011 to take that action,” states Website Magazine.
In my experience, Bing has kept its promise to improve its method of organizing searches compared to MSN. The navigation has proved to be easy. While it’s similar to Google in many ways, personally, I’ve found it to be a great search experience.
Moreover, it’s fairly easy to optimize your site for good placement on Bing.
Here’s a checklist:
- Make sure you add your site to Bing. It has a dashboard for analysis of your summary, profile, links, keywords, site map and crawl issues. Don’t forget to add your site to Bing’s Local Listing Center.
- Like Google, Bing more easily recognizes domain age. Both recognize title tags and keywords for your content.
- Unlike Google, Bing is not as concerned about the quality of back links as it is anchor text. But my sense is great content attracts great links. (In my SEO work for clients, to save time from having to review other linking sites, I simply don’t allow back links with a Google Page Rank of less than 3. Even then, I do check to see the site’s focus before allowing it to back link to my client.)
- Be extra careful with your content, especially the headlines and blog summaries. Bing has a great feature, a document preview, which is a text box that shows up next to your mentions on Bing – the verbiage is copied from your site.
- As both Bing and Google pay homage to flash with stronger prominence, be sure to consider inserting such videos.
- Bing is far more amenable to publishing quality press releases than Google, which accelerate your success. Here’s a sample from Bing News of how some of my press releases appear. They’re in place for four weeks.
- Bing is very cognizant of social media. The more relevant social media you have, the better. Twitter and Facebook are good. Despite what you’ve read about sharing blogs on Digg.com, Digg is still a player. LinkedIn is terrific.
On a side note: If you want to reach professionals — LinkedIn is outstanding — if you participate on a frequent basis. LinkedIn members respond well to good content, especially if you introduce your content with a question. Actually, LinkedIn provides this Web site with more visitors than Google.
To summarize, it’s important not to dismiss the potential of Bing. Bing is attractive and is doing a good job. You’ll find it to be a fairly simple process to optimize for Bing.
From the Coach’s Corner, if you’re launching a new Web site, try to use HTML. That will help you make faster progress than you will with a blog format, such as WordPress. Google gives more preference to HTML, especially if you want to be inserted in Google News. WordPress simply will take you a little longer for success.
Here are some other basic pointers: Startup Toolkit – How to Make a Hit on the Internet.
Tech Drama: How Microsoft-Yahoo Can Beat Google
Pick any high drama you want. But the desperate high-stakes competition of Microsoft and Yahoo vs. Google certainly has more drama than some other events preoccupying Americans. For countless stakeholders – from investors to technology employees – the nail-biting is as intense as it is for sports fans seeking respite from the weak economy in rooting for their favorite teams in the World Series or Super Bowl.
A lot of commerce is at stake: The future of the three companies, more than $22 billion in advertising, financial success for advertising companies and their employees in a tepid economy, as well as the efficacy for 180 million daily Internet users.
The 10-year Internet marketing deal – Microsoft’s Bing will power Yahoo’s searches and Yahoo will sell advertising for both companies – awaits regulators’ approval. And Google has been trying to crush the deal.
I’ll explain the merger delay a little later in this column.
Meantime, intense work is being performed by engineers from Redmond, WA near Seattle to the Silicon Valley in the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area.
Does search giant Google feel the threat of competition? Yes, however, no one probably feels sorry for Google because it’s under attack by Microsoft and Yahoo.
Aside from the fortunes of the three companies, it’s worth noting the winner in this passionate competition will be Internet users thanks to major innovations in online searches.
Who would have anticipated that Twitter, which rose to prominence as a social networking site, would be courted by Microsoft’s Bing and Google. Just hours after Bing announced its deal to search postings on Twitter, Google followed suit.
In music, Yahoo reminded us it has shown audio-file links with Rhapsody since 2008 – just after Google announced users can easily find links to their preferred songs on Lala or MySpace.
Even with the proposed merger, Yahoo has been working on its search engine. Yahoo is allowing users to bundle searches from their preferred bevy of publishers. Yahoo also features a search pad so users can see their search history.
Google is constantly fine-tuning, such as its real-time search feature, moving its advertising closer to content results and enlarging the size of its search box. With its revenue down in text and display ads, Google is constantly updating its approach to appease publishers that have also felt the financial squeeze. (Disclosure: The Biz Coach site uses Google AdSense., but it is proving to be unsatisfactory)
According to comScore at the start of Q4 in 2009, Google had a 64.9 percent market share in search compared to Yahoo’s 18.8 percent and 9.4 percent on the Microsoft sites.
Despite all the hoopla over Google, advertisers would be well-advised to consider the time-spent user data from The Nielsen Company also during Sept.
Nielsen confirms Google is number one in total searches with an average user time-spent of one hour fifty-three minutes. But Yahoo users stay about 50 percent longer – three hours nine minutes. Users on MSN/WindowsLive/Bing spend two hours one minute. Obviously, a longer time-spent viewing on Yahoo by users means advertisers have a better shot of their messages being seen.
My sense is that Yahoo’s success in time-spent users’ data has to do with its terrific content in finance.
With video watching up 25 percent in Sept. 2009, Nielsen says Google maintains a huge lead. YouTube had 106 million viewers.
It’s interesting to note the change in online searching and the expectations of consumers. In 1999, Nielsen reported there were119 million U.S. users and the Internet began attracting more women. At first, mostly men used the Internet.
No longer are users content just to find a Web site; they’re looking for more specific information, and they want it to be comprehensive, more appealing visually and lightning-fast. Go to any search engine and you will notice more images in addition to information, not just blue links.
The Microsoft-Yahoo merger is in a sense a surprise. Microsoft isn’t known for major alliances. And it remains to be seen if the merger will yield a productive return because of corporate cultural and technological questions. True, a merger would probably give Microsoft a bigger standing in the Silicon Valley, and momentum in Internet search expertise.
What now?
The merger ostensibly displeases the brain trust at Google, who is reportedly trying to stop it – How Google Is Trying To Hold Up The Microsoft-Yahoo Deal (GOOG, YHOO, MSFT).
Size matters in the advertising world and Internet advertising growth is the most prolific in history – even more so than television’s legendary track record. Clearly, Microsoft has ratcheted up its online search capabilities with Bing’s execution and monetization to attract consumers. But that’s expected given Microsoft’s acumen in monetization.
To simultaneously compare Bing and Google side-by-side: www.bing-vs-google.com.
My sense is that the success of Microsoft and Yahoo Google will depend on user trust, which helps lead to strong brand equity. Trust and brand equity are closely related. In years past, I wrote that Microsoft was faring badly in brand value, according to Forrester – 2005 Technology Brand Scorecard.
In March 2009, CoreBrand’s Brand Power Index – which ranks the top 100 brands in market reputation and awareness – indicated Microsoft’s brand made a small comeback in 2008. But it’s doing much worse than in 2005 – 2008 Corporate Branding Index.
However, BusinessWeek reported in 2009 that Microsoft is doing well on its top 100 brand ranking. Microsoft No. 3 behind Coca-Cola and IBM, respectively. Google is ranked No. 7. Yahoo is not listed.
The jury is still out. It’s all about user trust and other basic elements of brand equity. But to explain all that it entails requires a separate column.
As always – whether it’s the World Series, Super Bowl or business – I tend to root for underdogs. Competition is good. But as the disclaimer in the BusinessWeek ranking states, “Valuations do not represent a guarantee of future performance of the brands or companies.”
From the Coach’s Corner, here are steps to alleviate wireless Internet threats while you’re traveling, courtesy of consultant Jerald Savin at Cambridge Technology Consulting Group, Inc., www.ctcg.com.
He advocates taking charge of your WI-FI connections on Windows XP:
Step 1: Go into Wireless Network Connections from either the tray icon or from Network Connections. In Wireless Network Connections, go into “Change advanced settings.” There are three tabs: General, Wireless Networks and Advanced. Click on “Wireless Networks.” Your first surprise will probably be the number of wireless networks listed under “Preferred Networks.” My guess is that you won’t know half of the networks listed there.
Step 2: Delete the wireless networks you don’t need. Use the “Remove” button below the window listing the Preferred Networks.
Step 3: Change all of the wireless networks to “On Demand.” To do this, highlight the network and click on “Properties.” In “Properties”, go to the third tab, “Connection” and uncheck the box “Connect when this network is in range.” This means that whenever your laptop senses a wireless network, it will prompt you to connect; it won’t automatically connect. (Note: The first tab, “Association”, is where wireless network keys are entered.)
Step 4: Go to the “Advanced” tab and unclick the box “Allow other network users to connect through this computer’s Internet Connection.” This prevents “bridging”, connecting between networks across a computer.
Mr. Savin admits the steps aren’t 100 percent foolproof, but you’ll be headed in the right direction.
Incidentally, if you’re considering upgrading from XP to Windows 7, he suggests for many people it will be an arduous task. So he advises buying a new preloaded machine instead.
