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?

The Changing Search Landscape

“Every Monday, SEO is a new industry.” Those are the words of long time search industry specialist Bruce Clay. He tells WebProNews that search results are changing, links are changing, and social media is impacting search in many different areas.

First of all, although social is growing in popularity and value, Clay says it is still hard to determine the extent of its impact on search. Both people and businesses are still learning how to use it. He believes there are two different camps on social. The first is similar to PPC since users can leverage ads in their social networks. This way can be thought of as an ad network, and it allows users to drive traffic and raise awareness.

He classifies the second camp as being closer to SEO since it can be used to encourage people to link to you. In addition, it can be used for reputation management. Just as SEO and PPC are more effective together, using both camps of social media are equally important. He says marketers will miss out on valuable opportunities if they do not utilize social media.

Linking is another area that has changed. As Clay discusses, there are several ways to do links such as stimulating people socially, begging for links, and being a link magnet. Social media is tied to the aforementioned stimulating people for links and also to link begging, since it could provide a target through a social relationship. As he points out, link magnets are the best method because marketers create great content that people want to link to.

Although link networks are also included in linking practices, Clay believes they could become a serious problem. These networks allow one user or company to have some level of control over a group of different sites. Although he has no direct inclination from Google, he believes the search giant will crack down on this practice. He thinks Google has no choice but to either lighten up on its standards, which he believes is wrong, or enforce stronger regulation. If link networks were eliminated, he says there would be a “massive change in the linking structure and rankings.”

In regards to changes in search results, Clay recalls that Google offers more options, maps, and more in the SERPs. He predicts that searchers will be able to selectively turn on live feeds and engagements objects (video, images, etc.). Google has also made efforts pertaining to search intent and behavior. With linking practices changing as well, he believes we will see many new developments in search results. Additionally, he says these changes will continue and traditional SEO will lose its effectiveness.

Are you accommodating these changes?

How Caffeine Is Already Changing the Search Landscape

When people talk about the future of search, they often include factors such as mobile, social, real-time, and other buzz-type words. But it is not very often that they offer an explanation as to how these elements will impact search moving forward. However, in this interview with WebProNews, search veteran Bruce Clay tells that side of the story.

In the early days, Clay says SEO was easy. He goes on to say that it was somewhat defined even 5 years ago, but social, mobile, and local are not defined at all. Now, SEO is more difficult and targeted and will get even harder over time. He calls the top 3 search results the new first page.

“You can’t be good at SEO, you have to be great,” says Clay.

In the next 18 months, he believes the hottest topics in SEO circles will be local, social media, conversions, and somewhat surprisingly, only some discussion about mobile. The reason for this lack of mobile discussion is because people do not like the mobile browser.

Clay thinks the mobile device will become an operating system with the ability to connect apps directly to the Web, which would eliminate the need for a browser. Although he believes a “find” app will be dominant over a search app, he doesn’t believe that mobile will replace search.

In regards to Google’s recent MayDay update, Clay says he saw nothing but good results for sites that optimized for the long tail. While sites that had casual long tail results lost some traffic, he pointed out that it didn’t impact their conversions.

Google Caffeine is another update that has been receiving a lot of attention of late and Clay had a lot to share about it as well. Last year, Google said that it was rolling Caffeine out to one data center and would slowly roll it out to the others. After having a conversation with Google’s Matt Cutts, Clay believes Caffeine is completely rolled out now but just not in 100 percent of the queries.

He goes on to say that advantages of Caffeine are the near real-time page index updates and increased spam filters. In addition, he says there are several behind-the-scenes factors that make it even more interesting. Although Google has not officially announced it, users can now buy Unicode characters in urls and the search engine supports it.

He also brings up a point about how Google recently said that it has 200 variables in the algorithm. As a result, search results were slower and behavioral search was penalized. Moving forward, Clay believes that multiple disjointed queries will determine search results but says it can’t be done without a faster index.

One of the big details that Google has emphasized about Caffeine is its faster index. According to Clay, if behavioral search works, PPC ads will be better and more targeted, which means that ROI will increase. As the ROI increases, the bid will also increase, which would ultimately generate more revenue for Google. All that said, the searchers would win as well since they would be getting better results.

Clay has given us a lot to think about. How do you feel about his projections?

Breaking Down What Search Is

According to Bruce Clay, the current concept of search is that a user has to know what he is looking for in order to type it into a search engine. Although the user might not know the specifics of what he is looking for, he has already made the decision to go to a search engine and find information. Clay, however, believes search should be an extension of marketing since most searches are a direct result from other forms of media.

Mike McDonald of WebProNews pointed out that this new view of search could raise problems for businesses. He said if businesses pay money for ads that prompt searches, they could be driving traffic to their competitors if they are not number one in the search engines.

To do it the right way, Clay suggests planning a strategy. First of all, decide what you want to promote. Secondly, optimize your website so that you are number one, at least with PPC. Thirdly, decide to dominate and succeed. Lastly, get a billboard with a catch phrase or write an article with a catch phrase in it. These steps will prompt people to search based on the action phrase.

As you do this, make sure that you have fully optimized. The last thing you want to do is not be number one after you have taken the time to promote a product. Clay says the SEO needs to be ready to respond to the promotion. He also issues a warning in regards to the media promotions: “If you don’t do the offline right, nobody knows to go search for you.”

In summary, think about how the user would search and tie it into an action phrase to brand with your business.

What are your thoughts regarding search as an extension of marketing?

Bruce Clay Debunks Local Search Myths

There are certain myths associated with local search that many businesses unfortunately, get wrapped up in. Bruce Clay, the President and CEO of Bruce Clay, Inc., talks with WebProNews and explains why these theories are false.

First of all, small businesses do not always realize that they are competing with businesses with large budgets. Small businesses naturally have small budgets, but they need to provide the same level of optimization as their competition in order to adequately compete.

Secondly, small businesses think that they only need to do local search optimization. Clay points out that, just because a business is small and local, doesn’t mean that it doesn’t need to fix its entire website. He says:

“No matter what, the work is pretty much the same. No matter how you want to cut it, SEO is SEO.”

Small businesses still have to do technical work, build links, provide good and relevant content, and demonstrate that they are experts in their field. To help small businesses with their local efforts, the search engines offer many tools to assist them, such as maps.

At a local level, Clay says businesses need links from other people and businesses in their same region. In addition, the content should be specific and localized. However, if a business wants to rank internationally, then it needs to have links from other countries.