Bing and Ping: Share Search Results on Facebook and Twitter

Microsoft let everyone know about a forthcoming feature of their new search engine today. Bing and Ping, as they’ve lovingly dubbed it, will let you easily share search results with your friends on and Twitter as well as by email.

At least at first, the sharing tools will only be available for searches that invoke “Instant Answers.” The examples given were football scores and airline flights, with other time-sensitive data and scenarios like stock prices, movie times, weather results and more also invoking that type of search.

Underneath the Instant Answer results from your query will be a horizontal “sharing” bar with icons to send those results to friends on Facebook, Twitter, or via email.

The new feature isn’t live yet, but will reportedly be going into an invitation-only beta mode soon. To get in on the beta, become a fan of Bing on Facebook for a chance at an invite.

Since search has for so long been a primarily solitary activity, it’s almost hard to imagine how and under what circumstances you’d need to share the results quickly with people. Still, having the option would be nice and once available, we can see it becoming one of those features you’d quickly take for granted.

What do you think: would you use the option to share your search results? Will Google have to copy the idea if it takes off? Or will search remain primarily a solo activity after all?

First there were organic search results. Then there were paid search results (now popularly called Sponsored ads). Next comes Social Search Results, according to Bing, who has announced its beta Bing and Ping coming initially to its Facebook fans. I do believe I see room on that social share bar for an ad!

Posted via web from Katy Barrilleaux | Optimized

Google Analytics

The first step in increasing the number of visitors to your website, is to know how much traffic you currently have…and how they got to your website…and the search terms they used to find you…and much more. Google Analytics is a robust web analytics application and it’s free. Create your Google Analytics account tied to a URL and add a small line of code to the pages of your site. You’ll be able to see the positive changes your traffic-building efforts will have. Learn more about using Google Analytics on their YouTube channel.

Google Webmaster Tools

Use Google Webmaster Tools to improve the performance of your site. Webmaster Tools will ensure the crawlability of your site. It will show you the keywords Google found in your site. It will even show you all the sites that are linking to your website. And more. Even if you don’t know anything about search engine optimization (SEO), you should set up Google Webmaster Tools on your website to see any areas where you can improve.

Keyword Research

To get people to your website, whether from search engines or social networks, you need to know the related keywords. Keyword research can be a very complicated, scientific process. But here are just a few high-level tips to get you headed in the right direction.

Check your website logs to see what search terms people are already using to find you. Visit several competitors’ home pages and view their page source. (Right click on home page and select view source). This will show you the HTML of the page. Look for their listing of meta keywords and see what they consider to be their keywords.

Use a free keyword research tool to see what the estimated search volumes are for terms and to uncover additional or alternative terms. There are several available, but here are two of my favorites:

• Google Insights for Search
• Wordtracker

The goal with keywords is not necessarily to try to be at the top of organic search for the “obvious” keywords — generic terms like industry, product, or service categories. Rather, try to find “long-tail keywords” –  multi-word terms that get more specific, including a location, an action verb, or a descriptive adjective. For example, “swine flu” (40,000,000+ results) vs. “swine flu vaccine” (13,000,000+ results) vs. “swine flu symptoms” (4,000,000 results) . The higher the number of web pages indexed for the term, the more difficult it will be to compete in organic search. If you’re a real geek and want to learn more, check out 10 Steps to Advanced Keyword Research.

LinkedIn

Depending on your product or service, LinkedIn may be an effective social network to reach prospective customers. LinkedIn is the top social website for connecting business people. If you do not already have a profile, set it up. Then create a Group for your product, service, or brand. Invite people to join your group. Post news updates, interesting articles, and discussions. LinkedIn also has company profiles. Conduct a search to see if LinkedIn already has your company listed. If you find it, you may edit the profile. If it’s not there yet, add your company’s profile. There are a number of other ways to market your personal or business brand on LinkedIn.

Facebook

Your customers are on Facebook and so should your company or brand. Create a Facebook Page for your company, product, or service and build a community. Post updates, announcements, and share links. Invite friends, families, and colleagues to become a fan of your page. Start discussions. Not only will Facebook help you connect with your customers and potential customers, but it’s fun! Read more about marketing on Facebook in this article.

Twitter

Get on Twitter and connect with people who are interested in your related field or topic. On twitter you post little “status updates” – like on Facebook – but you are limited to 140 characters at a time. Follow people who may be interested in your service or product. Post valuable information and people will start to follow you back. The more followers you gain, the broader the audience your “tweets” will find.

To find targeted followers on Twitter, go to http://search.twitter.com and conduct a search using your keyword(s). You will be presented with all of the conversations on Twitter that mention that keyword. The key is to connect with people of similar interests, and begin interacting. You may also try to connect your followers with your website and/or other social media communities like Facebook. Just be careful not to use Twitter to just put out little “ads.”

YouTube

Another effective resource is YouTube. Open an account and upload some videos. The videos do not have to be expensive or professionally produced. Potential topics are how to’s, or product demos, or even video newsletters. Be sure to use keywords and add tags to the videos with your keywords. Google will often include video results on page one of organic results. So if you get some videos on YouTube for your keywords, it increases your chances of being on page one of organic searches.

Blogs

Blogs are also very good at building web traffic…providing you are publishing stories on a regular basis – at least weekly. Center your blog’s theme around one subject or topic and publish helpful information about that topic. This builds your authority in the industry and helps to increase your website traffic. WordPress and Blogger offer free hosting for their blogging applications, but are not necessarily as search engine optimized as downloading the WordPress free software and hosting on your own server. Blogs are more of a long-term solution because they take 6 months to a year to build traffic, so don’t expect overnight results. Once you get started, you will see a steady increase over time. If you are interested in starting a blog, here’s an article that goes into more detail.

Just Add Time

While all these resources are free to use, they do require an investment of time. If you are short on time, prioritize your efforts. Start with the one-time tools like setting up Google Analytics and Google Webmaster tools. Then select one social network where you will find the largest number of your potential customers. There are planty of stats availble on the demographics of social networks. Do a little homework, get involved online, and give website traffic the green light.

Related Articles

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And they have a photo to prove it!

Microsoft employee Kunal Das recently traveled to the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro – the world’s highest free-standing mountain – and left a Bing sticker at the top (see it on the sign right after “Africa’s Highest Point”).

Unfortunately for Bing though, Google is still the king of the search engine mountain with 64.7% of core searches according to comScore‘s July 2009 US. Search Engine rankings report. The good news for Bing is that the new and improved search engine did continue its upward trend with an increase of 5% for it’s number of searches. It’s just going to be a long trek to try to dethrone Google!

Posted in Google, Yahoo, MSN, Ask, etc. Tagged: Bing, search engine ]]> http://katybarrilleaux.wordpress.com/2009/08/27/bing-is-at-the-top/feed/ 2 katyfb13 Bing-is-at-the-top comScore-core-July2009 comScore-expanded-July2009 http://katybarrilleaux.wordpress.com/2009/05/26/lead-maverick-changes-brand-name-to-ecordia/ http://katybarrilleaux.wordpress.com/2009/05/26/lead-maverick-changes-brand-name-to-ecordia/#comments Tue, 26 May 2009 17:31:04 +0000 Katy Barrilleaux http://katybarrilleaux.wordpress.com/2009/05/26/lead-maverick-changes-brand-name-to-ecordia/ ]]> LEAD MAVERICK CHANGES BRAND NAME TO ECORDIA

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Sounds kind of boring, but leave it to Google to turn image labeling into an online game.
Here’s how it works

You are matched up with another online user and both of you are shown an image. You each start adding labels to the image until you both suggest the same label. To add to the challenge, you can’t see the labels your partner is adding. So you just keep adding labels until the game tells you that you matched — or you and your partner may click a “pass” button to move to the next image.

Once a match is made, a new image is presented to both of you and the process begins again. And just to make it really exciting, there is a time clock. You and your partner are given two minutes to label as many images as possible. And of course, it wouldn’t be a game without scoring. So there are points rewarded for successful matches.

After the clock has expired, you are shown a page containing your overall score, thumbnails of the images you saw, along with identifying information:

• image size
• image URL
• whether it was a pass or a match (with matched word)
• your partner’s labels

A little warning

Some of the images presented are a bit risque. However, Google does not believe you’ll come across inappropriate images. In the Image Labeler FAQ Google states, “While there’s no guarantee, it’s unlikely that you’ll see mature content because all images are filtered under image search’s Strict Safe Search setting.” Hmm, well I saw a few that apparently snuck past the filter.

Also, since you are playing with an unknown partner, your success – or failure as the case may be – depends in part on the other person. On one occasion, I had a partner who I couldn’t match with at all, and when the game was over and I reviewed his or her image labels, they were not related to the images at all and were rather silly like “poop,” for example.

You should give Google’s Image Labeler a try, but I’ll warn you , it is a little addictive.

However, what I found interesting is that when comparing the search volume from January to February, Ask.com shows an unusually high jump of 21% more search queries — despite February’s three fewer days.

Looking back at previous months, Ask.com has not experienced an increase nearly as big as this…not even double digits. So why this increase now?

Obviously I’m not privy to everything going on at Ask.com. But, I have seen television ads for Ask.com lately. With a little digging, I found that Ask has in fact been aggressively using offline advertising to promote its online search engine.

Ask Climbs on Board with NASCAR

In January, Ask.com inked a deal to become the Official Search Engine of NASCAR. According to Ask’s CEO Jim Safka,

Our goal is to win over the millions of loyal fans by providing them with the best NASCAR search experience on the Web, and introduce them to all of Ask’s capabilities when they come.

The advertising campaign features slices of life of a “typical NASCAR-loving family” as they follow racing.

Airing approximately 4-5 times during each of the 36 NASCAR race broadcasts, the :15 and :30 Ask.com spots feature content tied to that particular race broadcast. And, Ask.com is running television spots during non-NASCAR related programming.

Ask.com also has begun running a series of crawler ads on the bottom of the screen during some cable shows. The ads pose queries to viewers, who can then find the answers by using the search engine. The questions, which are tied to show content or subject matter, are appearing on 18 channels, including AMC, FX, National Geographic Channel, MLB Network and NFL Network.

Keep an Eye on the Little Engine

Of course, one month does not establish a trend. But it is a start. And with aggressive offline advertising and promotions, this may be the beginning of the long haul towards the top of the search. I’ll keep an eye on the comScore monthly search reports to see if Ask.com sustains this growth. I’m sure that Ask is saying, “I think I can, I think I can!“

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PubCon South is the largest search marketing and social media conference in the state of Texas. The event, which occurred last week from March 11 through March 13, brought together the leading thought experts in the field of search engine marketing and social media.

Speakers at PubCon South included Guy Kawasaki and Matt Cutts, along with numerous experts — including Lead Maverick CEO Sean Jackson and Lead Maverick Partner Tony Wright — and others from the DFW SEM community.

“We created this panel to help share with our community the information we learned from this tremendous event,” says Tony Wright, president of the DFW Search Marketing Association. Tony continues, “PubCon represents a gold mine of knowledge about tactics, tips and trends that are occurring in the market. Our goal on Wednesday, March 18th, will be to share these insights with our community in North Texas.”

You do not have to be a DFW SEM member to attend the meeting. The cost is $10 for members and $30 for non-members. You may pre-pay the event registration online.

Search engine optimization (SEO) can be a little intimidating for the non-technical person. After all, it’s a mysterious science filled with unknown algorithms, metadata, XML sitemaps, HTML tags, linking schemes, and much, much more. And to further complicate things, it’s always changing.

Then there’s the agency that is not even responsible for the client’s website. How in the world is an advertising, public relations, or marketing communications agency supposed to get involved in SEO? Actually, it’s pretty easy these days. I’ve compiled some tips to help get you started.

Take advantage of others’ SEO technology.

SEO has matured to the point that there are countless platforms optimized for search. You just have to add the content and the search engines do the rest.

• Social media sites like YouTube, Flickr, LinkedIn, and Merchant Circle, to name just a few, are large in size and highly optimized. Posting content on these sites will help you get listed in the search engines. Just be sure to use your keywords in the postings for the various sites. And include a keyword in the file name of any photo or video file you upload to a website too!
• Blogging platforms like WordPress and Blogger are free, easy to set up, and highly optimized. However, the biggest obstacle with a blog is that it takes some time to grow the blog to a size large enough to be noticed by search engine
• Press Release wire services like PR Newswire and Business Wire provide optimization of press releases and host the release on their site. In addition, the press release is distributed to media news sites that also host a version of the release on their site. This gives one press release numerous opportunities for listings on a search engine results page (SERP).
• Lead Maverick is an SEO platform developed specifically for agencies with integrated optimization tools for content, customizable landing page designs and real-time tracking stats — all in a non-technical, user-friendly interface. Lead Maverick agency partners use the SEO platform to get their clients to the top of organic SERPs or to add additional listings so their client owns more of the SERP real estate.
  

Write well, rank well.

There are a number of guidelines for developing content that will enhance its findability in organic search. The goal is not to trick the search engines, but to provide quality content on a subject while following SEO best practices.

• Length of content should be at least 300 words.
• Each content posting should focus on one keyword, keyword phrase or keyword theme. Putting too many different keywords in one posting will dilute its effectiveness.
• Headline should not exceed 70 characters and should include a keyword ideally placed towards the beginning.
• Subhead should not exceed 160 characters and should include at least one keyword ideally placed closer to the beginning.
• If there is not a subhead, treat the first paragraph of the content as the subhead by making it bold, keeping it under 120 characters, and include at least one keyword.
• Emphasize a keyword by making it bold and emphasize other important points with bold or by using a bulleted list.
• Rule of thumb for keywords is one keyword for every 100 words. If you repeat a keyword more than this, the search engine may think you are keyword stuffing and not add the page to the index.
  
• Include at least a couple of hyperlinks to your website. Also include a link or two to a third-party website, preferably ones with good size and traffic. For example, Wikipedia is good to use for a definition.
• Link your various content pages with hyperlinks on your keywords. Be sure the page you link to discusses the keyword that is hyperlinked.
  
• Avoid posting duplicate content from another website by making some edits to your posting. Add a link to the page with the original content so the search engine will know that you are not trying to trick it.

Spread Keywords Across the Sales Decision Process.

One of the greatest benefits of search marketing is the ability to track responses and conversions. For that reason, many advertisers focus keywords on driving a purchase. But, searchers use the internet throughout every stage of the sales decision process. They search for information on categories at the beginning of their research, all the way through to searches on specific products to check pricing.

Be sure you focus keywords and content for every stage of the sales decision process. Just set your client’s expectations for ROI. The earlier in the sales decision process, the fewer click throughs on the landing page. Early on in the process, you are trying to educate and build awareness for a purchase down the road. And you’ll have keywords and content covering those later purchase-related stages where click-through rates and conversions will be the key success metrics.

Leverage Existing Assets.

Most companies have a wealth of information already developed about the company. In developing your online posts, leverage the existing assets that already exist, incorporating targeted keywords:

• brochures
• white papers
• fact sheets
• executive bios
• advertisements (print, broadcast, etc.)
  
• trade show schedules
• speaking engagements
• press releases
• product photos
• how to videos
• power point presentations
  

This list is just the beginning. Try to identify all existing assets. Each asset represents a potential posting for a search engine. Spread the posts out across the sales decision process as mentioned above. Supplement with new content developed with your keywords in mind. Just be sure to follow the content writing guidelines above.

Get in the Search

Leave the website optimization to the geeks experts. Now that others are taking care of the SEO part, it’s easier for agencies to get their clients to the top of organic search — with keyword strategy and content.

Ad Preferences displays ads to the user based on the user’s interests as edited by the user and as interpreted by the user’s search history, websites visited, etc. In Google’s words:

As you browse certain Google services and websites that have partnered with us using our AdSense program, Google stores a cookie in your browser to understand the types of pages you visit (this cookie appears as .doubleclick.net in your browser). Based on this information, Google associates your browser with relevant interest categories and uses these categories to show interest-based ads on participating websites.

Google has also published this video to explain Ad Preferences.

Before you become alarmed with concerns of online privacy, know that Google does enable you to opt-out of the tracking and it claims they do not capture any personal data. But you should probably look into it more yourself. Here is where you can read more about how Google’s Interest Ads work and also the FAQ’s. Here is where you may opt out of Google Ad Preferences on your computer or set your preferences.