Yahoo-Microsoft Transition: Impact on SEO and PPC

It looks as though the Yahoo-Microsoft transition is starting to become reality. The companies announced last week that Microsoft’s Bing was powering Yahoo’s organic search results in the U.S. and Canada.

Earlier this week, the companies also gave advertisers the go ahead to start transitioning from Yahoo search ads to Microsoft Bing search ads. As this transition begins to unfold, we can start to see what some of the changes will be and how they might impact the future of search.

From a visual perspective, Yahoo Search still looks the same but has a small “Powered by Bing” at the bottom of the results page. Another aspect worth noting is that the two companies combined own approximately 28 percent of the search market, according to comScore’s July search report.

Long time search marketing expert Bruce Clay has also noticed some interesting findings regarding SEO and the new Yahoo search. He tells WebProNews that, based upon information from Yahoo’s API team, the company intends to use Bing’s index but apply a slightly different algorithm to it. In other words, the search engines will still produce different search results. From this information, Clay believes that users will still see value in Yahoo search.

The paid search transition, on the other hand, could have a more dramatic impact. Bing has been very effective in pay per click, and as a result, Clays says it offers a high click through rate.

“I would have a tendency to think that Bing advertising will see many, many more people using it,” he points out.

Although the companies would like to have the paid search transition completed by October, they have said it could be delayed if they see a potential interference with this year’s holiday season.

Regardless of what other changes will come as this transition is fully rolled out, there is no doubt that it will be marked as a turning point in the search and advertising industry. Interestingly, Clay calls these latest developments a “resurrection” of the second and third search engines. Do you agree?

How Retailers Can Leverage the Economic Comeback

Fortunately, online retailers are beginning to see the economy bounce back. According to Ryan Gibson, the Vice President of Marketing at The Rimm-Kaufman Group, online retailers are seeing improvements in conversion rates.

As the economy continues to turn around, there are some elements that retailers should apply to better leverage the comeback. From a paid search perspective, Gibson recommends that retailers update their keywords based on incoming inventory.

During the recession, many retailers cut back on their inventory. Now that the economy is starting to improve, they are ordering more products. Gibson says retailers need to make sure that their new inventory is represented in paid search. He also adds that retailers need to optimize pages to guarantee that they are found in the search engines. Ultimately, no one will benefit if the new inventory cannot be found.

Gibson also tells WebProNews that The Rimm-Kaufman Group is adding products. In the past, the company focused primarily on paid search. As Gibson explains, it is now adding an attribution management component that will help its clients understand what is happening outside of paid search. RKG will talk with clients about the data it collects and help them build an attribution model.

Facebook to Take on Google?

Although it’s only 6 years old, Facebook has reached a considerable level of success. It is the largest social network, and just last month, it announced that it had more than 500 million users. Not many companies have this much success in such a short period of time, and those that do, make up an elite group.

Incidentally, another company that is included in this select group is Google. Although Facebook has been likened to the search and advertising giant on many occasions, the list of similarities might get a little longer in the near future. Speculation has it that Google is in the process of developing a Facebook rival called “Google Me.”

Google has had several failed attempts in social with products such as Sidewiki, Wave, and Buzz. However, there are no signs that it is giving up in its quest for social success, especially, since it recently acquired Slide and Jambool.

Even if it is developing the rumored “Google Me,” could it really compete with Facebook? As we all know, Google is clearly the leader in both search and advertising. So, is social the only element it is missing?

WebProNews spoke with Ed DeRosa, News Editor with the Thoroughbred Times, who said he did not believe Google could create a product that could legitimately compete with Facebook.

“If you’re already on Facebook, I don’t really see any migration to another platform that Google would offer. We’ve seen what Facebook did to MySpace – they crushed them,” said DeRosa.

On the other side of the equation, since Facebook has the social component mastered, is it trying to extend its success to other areas? It already has access to valuable user information. In addition, there is speculation that it could expand its advertising platform to other sites, which could pose a direct threat to Google’s AdSense. All that said, is Facebook the one that is trying to outpace Google?

Emily Sandford of Office Suites PLUS tells WPN that she believes the two companies will grow more and more similar with time. She said, “It’s really going to be an interesting fight to watch.”

What are your thoughts on this issue? Do you believe Google wants to be a viable social competitor to Facebook? Or, is the social network looking to take on the search and advertising giant?

How to Improve Your Quality Score

Quality score has a certain stigma to it that often scares people away. According to David Szetela of Clix Marketing, most people make quality score a lot more difficult than it actually is. He says it is, essentially, a way for Google to reward advertisers for writing good ads.

Because Google cannot tell every advertiser all the factors that go into quality score, it often results in confusion. However, if Google did reveal this information, advertisers would get an unfair advantage. As he explains to WebProNews, there are so many other elements that are involved with quality score that the aforementioned factors play a minor role.

Google uses quality score as a rewards system since it wants to provide relevant answers to search queries. The advertisers that are able to help it do this not only receive a better quality score, but also receive a lower price for their ad position.

“Basically, Google rewards advertisers with better quality score and a lower price to do what they should be doing anyway,” says Szetela.

He goes on to say that good quality score has two parts: great ads and acceptable landing pages. People think that by improving their landing page, their quality score will improve as well. Szetela points out that this is not the case. Instead, he says the landing page component of quality score can only hurt, not help.

Overall, having great ads are the key to having good quality score. Szetela recommends including the following elements in an ad:

1.    Keyword in text (preferably in headline)
2.    Reader addressed in first person
3.    Features/Benefits
4.    Call to action

Are you using this information to help improve your quality score?

Creating Content That People Want to Share

The Web has drastically changed the way business is conducted. Fortunately, it not only provides many new opportunities, but it also, simplifies certain tasks. According to David Meerman Scott, Author of World Wide Rave and New Rules of Marketing and PR, there were essentially three ways to generate attention before the Web.

As he explains to WebProNews, these ways were buying advertising, the media, which he calls begging, and a sales force. These tactics work well for generating attention offline, but online, it’s a different story. Generating attention online requires marketers to create content just like a publisher.

Scott says the old rules make it hard to generate attention. However, the new rules allow any organization to earn attention, if it creates valuable information. He points out that organizations need to stop thinking like marketers, advertisers, and public relations specialists, and instead, think like publishers.

Once businesses create content, what can they then do to get people to share it? According to Scott, most companies talk about their product, which is not what users want to hear. He advises businesses to create content for their target market, or as he likes to call it, their buyer personas.

“It gets an organization away from talking about themselves in an egotistical way,” says Scott.

In reality, consumers only care about themselves and solving their problems. As a result, Scott suggests that marketers create individualized content for each of their buyer personas.

Once this is done, he recommends creating trigger points to encourage users to share. These trigger points could involve contests, humor, blog posts, videos, and many other ideas. If the content is good, then users will naturally share.

Lastly, Scott says marketers need to point users back to a place where some type of action can take place. Once again, as long as the content is valuable, it will draw users back to make a purchase.

Are you creating valuable content for your buyer personas?

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