Search Engine Optimization Fundamentals | Stacey Morgan Smith

Chris Crum of WebProNews.com recently explained bing’s link building policies. It’s a nice summary of bing’s “dos” and “don’ts.”

What stands out to me is that this lists mirrors the best practices we currently follow for optimizing site pages for Google. Best practices should be universal, so it appears your efforts, whether for bing or Google, won’t hurt the other. As Crum states, “Most of the stuff [bing's Rick] DeJarnette shared is nothing any savvy search marketer is not already aware of.”

If you are new to optimization, print Crum’s article and hang it on your wall. If you’re currently link building, you may still learn something new to help you correct your course.

Stacey Morgan Smith is the director of search engine optimization for Northern Virginia Internet Marketing Company NetStrategies. With over 14 years’ experience as an editor and proofreader, she brings a different viewpoint to SEO. Along with the rest of the NetStrategies team, she can help you increase your leads from search!

Search Engine Optimization Fundamentals | Stacey Morgan Smith

Tuesday’s sessions at SMXEast in New York continued with “Ask the Search Engines: Best Practices Edition.” Danny Sullivan, Editor-in-Chief of Search Engine Land moderated, and notes from the presentations and Q&A with Google, Yahoo!, and Bing include: Read More »

Search Engine Optimization Fundamentals | Stacey Morgan Smith

Last week bing released Visual Search, a new feature of its relatively new search engine. Instead of traditional query searches, where you type in a term to find information, with Visual Search, you look at pictures to find information.

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Learn Social Media with Laurie Dunlop

It’s the simple things in life we sometimes take for granted. For example, the view from my desk of the Occoquan Marina in Northern Virginia is lovely, even on rainy days. Without question it puts me into a better frame of mind for writing. No matter how many times I see a bald eagle swoop through the sky, it never fails to give me a thrill! My poor husband works from a windowless cubicle deep within the Pentagon. How can I forget how fortunate we are at NetStrategies to see such beauty while working?
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To complement Stacey Morgan Smith’s post regarding the impact of the bing and Yahoo! union on organic search, I’m writing to you about its impact on Pay Per Click advertising. Here are some of the facts that we know so far:

• The deal is still a long way from closing, in fact the complete bing/Yahoo! search engine is at least two years away. The process of approval alone will likely take the rest of 2009.
• Microsoft’s adCenter platform will replace Yahoo!’s Panama platform. This means that ads placed in Yahoo! will be managed through MSN adCenter’s interface. This will take additional transition time after the deal is approved by regulators.
• Cost Per Click (CPC) prices will be set by adCenter’s automated auction process. With an increase in advertisers coming to bing from Yahoo!, it will be interesting to see what happens with CPCs. Like anything in the PPC medium, industry verticals will obviously play a large role.

One of the primary shortcomings of Microsoft’s adCenter was lack of volume. It simply does not generate as much traffic as Google or Yahoo! This is one of the most intriguing parts to this partnership. In the words of a press release from www.choicevalueinnovation.com:

“With the addition of Yahoo!’s search volume, Microsoft will achieve the size and scale required to unleash competition and innovation in the market, for consumers as well as advertisers.”

Overall, the general consensus among the PPC community is that this partnership is a good thing for the PPC industry. It will give Google increased competition and also will give Microsoft the search volume it needs to accelerate the learning from its own marketplace and improve its adCenter platform more quickly. I’m looking forward to any improvements Microsoft can make to its adCenter management interface. At the moment, AdWords provides the most advanced campaign management tools, so it will be interesting to see what improvements Microsoft can make with the increased search volume and insight from Yahoo!.

Sources: ad Age, Choice. Value. Innovation., and SEW

Search Engine Optimization Fundamentals | Stacey Morgan Smith

You may have read this week that Microsoft Corp. and Yahoo Inc. will create a new partnership. If you’re like many of our customers, you’re probably wondering how that will affect your Search Engine Optimization. Read More »