These commercials have brought up a TON of questions from the public, and especially the blogging community. After all, Google is a powerhouse when it comes to web search, and has become ingrained in my daily internet search routines. Like most of you, I am skeptical of the 2:1 preference that Bing claims in the ad. I wanted to do some research and find out for myself: who is the REAL champion of search.

For this post I did a bit of research. Plenty of people online are offering their opinions, and I read many of their blogs. I went and looked at the information on the independent study. I took the challenge myself, on a number of different sites offering the two side by side. Below you’ll find the definitive guide to the Heavyweight Title Fight for the future of the web:

BING VS. GOOGLE

THE CHAMPION INCUMBENT: 

IN THIS CORNER WE HAVE Google who, at least to this point, has been the undisputed champion of search. To understand this bout, you first must understand how search works.

Google sends Spiders (programs that scour the web) and returns with an index of pages. These pages then use an illusive “Page Rank” algorithm to decide which pages are more relevant, mostly based on pages that are linking to the page and how often the site is updated.

Basically, Google is playing a huge popularity game with the web, picking out the content that is most popular among respected sources.

Google displays its results in a basic list format, with some emerging apps (such as airfare results) that are being integrated into the search tool.

THE UNDERDOG/THE CHALLENGER

Microsoft Released Bing in 2009 to replace its MSN search, and it seems to have proven itself a decently competitive search engine. The biggest noticeable difference from Google is the way that Bing displays its results, by incorporating many apps into its search functionality it is able to display some dynamic search results – like if airfare is going to rise or fall in the future.

But is the search really all that different?

Short answer: yes… and no. Bing’s search hasn’t been around for quite as long as Google, and hasn’t indexed nearly as many pages. This isn’t to say that the results are irrelevant, quite the contrary – Bing DOES give relevant search results, it just means that its algorithm is in its teenage years and still trying to work out all of the kinks, and while the algorithm does share a number of criteria with Google, Bing insists that is has some work of its own.

TITLE BOUT FOR THE WEB

So I took the challenge. 5 rounds pitting Bing and Google against each other. The program gave the results side by side without any information about which site you were viewing. Here we go

Round 1: Pumpkin Pie- I like pumpkin pie, and since recipe searches are one of the features that differs heavily between the two, that’s my first test. I chose the search results with the greatest number of recipes and images: BING

Round 2: Airfare- Another segment where the two were supposed to differ greatly, I chose the results that provided a place for me to quickly update my departure times dates and cities: BING

Round 3: The Civil War- I went scholarly for the middle round, and was unable to find many differences between the search results from the two sites: I let that one DRAW.

Round 4: Search Engine Optimization- For this round, I chose the results that were more information based instead of the results that had a lot of SEO firms in the results – I was looking for information on SEO, not a salesman: GOOGLE

Round 5: 1983 NCAA Mens Basketball- About to be an North Carolina State University graduate, I wanted to see arguably one of the greatest moments in sports history. I chose the site who celebrated NCSU’s victory with plenty of videos of the final shot: GOOGLE

JUDGES?

Surprisingly, It was a draw between Bing and Google in this matchup. Bing has some interesting features when it comes to searches on things like recipes, airfare and movie times bing becomes their slogan: “A decision engine.” Google, however is the old standard, guaranteed to give you search results you know and trust.

Personally, I’m going to stick with Google, maybe because its part of my routine, or because everything from my school email to my calendar is integrated with it. I know that I can trust Google’s results and that they are constantly at work making their search better. But the jury’s still out: what do you think? Bing? or Google?

Links to some of my research:

• People Chose Bing Web Search Results Over Google Nearly 2:1 in Blind Comparison Tests – Really??
• A Search Engine Match-Up: How Different Are Google and Bing?

Even if you don’t have a history with the (sometimes) slimy businesses that usually specialize in the field, the term just sounds cold. Inhuman.

In some ways, that makes since, because straight SEO isn’t catering to customer needs, it’s catering to the needs of Google’s search algorithm, affectionately named “Penguin.”  This algorithm sends little programs around the web weeding out good websites from bad websites based on links and keywords.

FatCat recently took a dive into the SEO world, and what we have come to realize is that while slimy link building tactics may improve your search rankings, they don’t really drive people to the site. The main focus of your website shouldn’t be to drive search engine spiders to your website, it should be to drive PEOPLE to your site. Then keep them there. Robots, after all, don’t by products and services… Yet.

Lee Odden focuses on placement of content in relation to gaining more link traffic through your site (and therefore better search rankings) in “SEO Mindshift: Link Building As Online PR & Social Promotion.”

The emerging thought is an “if you build it they will come” mentality for your site. If you work to build something that your customers want to read, encourage them to participate in the conversation (aka discussion posts and links back to your content) then you will get more traffic to your site… without ever even thinking about your SEO. Optimizing page performance for search engines is a very small part of your web development.

Crafting Good Content

Good content is about two things: keywords, and building relationships.

1.    Keywords

You shouldn’t have to work to put keywords into your content. Theoretically, the keywords you want people to search for will naturally be part of your posts because you are writing about what you know. All the same, when you do draft posts be sure to tag them with keywords you think your customers will be looking for, and try to throw a couple into the title whenever possible.

2.    Building Relationships

Having other websites link back to your page will improve your search engine rankings. PEOPLE link back to your pages. They link back to your pages because they find what you have written interesting and want to share it with their own audience.

Try referencing thought leaders in your industry. This will encourage them to read your work, and it makes your posts look more credible.

Above all try to be interesting! When you write, think about your customers, not about search engines.

If you build a network of people and keywords you will naturally build a link structure that improves your search rankings. No slime necessary.

Photo Courtesy: Danard Vincente

One underutilized tool in blogging and email marketing is the correct use of links.  The way you use links in your blog articles and on your email blasts can effect the number of people who click on them.

The article “Why You Links Should Never Say ‘Click Here’” gives a really good explanation of why you shouldn’t use that phrase.  And even more helpful, it gives several good examples of how to improve your linking.

(I don’t totally agree with the “Link to Noun” part, I prefer to link to the action… But read for yourself, and tell me what you think in the comments!)

There are some benefits that this article left out…

Links can help with SEO

Google likes for you to be as relevant as possible, so if you link applicable words to corresponding pages, Google will credit you with trying to give your reader the best information possible (although don’t go too crazy, or you could be crossing the line into link scheming).

Benefits in Email Marketing

Using more relevant words for links help with email reporting too.  When you’re looking at the stats and checking which links got the highest number of clicks, it doesn’t really help if all the links are named “Click here”.  Using words that are related to the link will help you get more useful information in your reports.

Photo credit: RobotSkirts

How will your search results change?

I experienced the new personal search targeting just this week as I researched several locally-owned Raleigh businesses.

Most business have unique names and a quick search on the name produces the company’s website.  But, the business I was researching was named White Dahlia, which happens to also be the name of a flower.

I typed “white dahlia” into the Google search bar, expecting to see images of white flower dahlias, a Wikipedia page for dahlia flowers, and so on. I thought I would have to redo the search and add Raleigh, NC as I often do. But to my surprise and delight, the very first item on my search results was the exact business I was looking for.

If someone else in California, or even Asheville, NC had typed in “white dahlia” the first search result would not have been the same that I saw. Google knew that I was in Raleigh, and also knew I had been searching for local small businesses that same day.

What does this mean for Search Engine Optimization?

SEO firms work hard to make sure their clients’ websites appear first when a potential customer searches for certain keywords. But Google’s new personalized searches may dramatically change the world of SEO.

It may no longer be possible to optimize your site for a specific keyword, regardless of who’s searching for it. Why? Because each person who is logged in to their Google account will likely get a different set of search results than someone else searching the exact same keywords and phrases.

While some companies may worry that their potential search audience will be more limited, I think it’s is awesome.  As a Google user, I get what I want, and I get it faster without having to comb through results I don’t care about.

A British SEO firm called SEO Consult says in an article titled, Google’s Privacy Policy—What You Need to Know, “if you are opted-in to these privacy settings, you will see 12% fewer ads than users who are opted out, and users who are opted-in are 35% more likely to click on the ads due to their increased relevancy.”

As a business owner, that means your ads or your site may be shown to fewer people per day, but the people who do see your ads and search results are more likely to be interested in your product or service.

What about all those “Optimized” Sites?

There’s been much chatter online in the marketing and SEO communities about what this all means, especially for companies that have paid lots of money to optimize their sites.

The bottom line is that, according to Google, the best policy is to say something interesting that your audience wants to read.

If you try to stuff your site with keywords, or trick web users to coming to your page, you may be doing your business more harm than good.

Good content trumps SEO

Before you rush to make changes on your site, stop and ask yourself what kind of content you have.  Because all the tricks in the book will only work in the short term.  In the long term, the best way to promote your business online is to post articles that are interesting to your customers and your prospects.

It can’t be repeated enough, good web content is the way to go.  Don’t believe us?  Listen to what Google has to say about it in this video.

But wait… now you actually have to start a blog… What do you do first?

At the bottom of the page, there is an excellent webinar from Vertical Response (an email marketing tool) called Getting Started With Blogging.  It’s Blogging 101 in about 42 minutes.

Here are a few highlights from that webinar (sprinkled with a few opinions based on my own experience):

First you have to choose a blogging platform.  Our favorite is WordPress.  We have built several websites and blogs on WordPress, and it’s very user friendly.  (If you interested in a custom website design, check out our Web Design Package.)

Your biggest concern is probably “What the heck am I going to write about?”  The webinar below gives a long list of ideas for coming up with content, which included:

• Give advice/expertise
• Provide comprehensive “how-to” articles
• Lists: Top 10, Best/Worst, Dos & Don’ts
• Re-purpose content while adding your own perspective
• Case studies (include a problem, solution & results)
• among others (watch webinar for full list)

As I said before in 3 Reasons to Start a Blog, one way to determine content is to go through old emails and find questions that you seem to be answering over and over again, and turn those answers into a blog post that you can reference later.

And don’t be afraid to throw a few anecdotal thoughts in there, even if they don’t have anything to do with your business (See Catvertising).  If you see something that’s funny, chances are other people will think its funny.  And they might appreciate a break from the more serious content they read the rest of the day.

Also, if you’re like me, you probably troll the internet for news throughout the day, from Yahoo, CNN, Twitter, Mashable, and other blogs.  Anytime I read something that makes me stop and automatically form an opinion about the topic based on my prior experience, I try to write down that thought.  If it’s interesting enough to get me thinking quickly, it is usually interesting enough for me to spout off a few quick sentences.   And the more you do it, the more often those sentences will turn into a blog post.

So take a look at the webinar, and if you have any other questions about getting started, give us a call!

1. It helps with SEO – If you have a website, then undoubtedly you have heard about Search Engine Optimization.  While there are tons of services out there telling you that you have to spend money with them to improve you search engine ranking, the truth is this: the best thing you can do for your website is consistently and regularly update it with relevant content, which is pretty much the definition of a blog.
2. It lends to your credibility and expertise – When prospects are researching your company, having a up-to-date blog will show them that you know what you’re talking about.  It will show you’re an expert in your field, and that you’re keeping up with trends in your industry.
3. You can use all that content again! – Do you ever feel like you get asked the same question all the time?  (Maybe a question like “Should I start a blog?…” )  Do you feel like your typing the same response into your email over and over again?  Next time, write a blog post that addresses the frequently asked question.  Then, the next time someone asks you, you can say “That’s a great question, check out this blog post that addresses it.”

Have I convinced you?  Great!  But I’ll bet your next question is… How do I start a blog?  Check out the next post in the series: How to Start a Blog.

Photo credit: moxliukas

“How to make social media work for you!”

“5 tips to improve you social media skills!”

“The social media secrets they don’t want you to know!”

So I was somewhat stopped in my tracks this morning when I saw a tweet that said “6 Reasons Social Media Doesn’t Work.”  This articles goes on to explain that the real reason social media doesn’t work for certain companies is because people can’t / won’t put in the necessary effort it takes to build a social media presence.

Often, we’ll have clients ask us to make them a Facebook page or a Twitter page, because they want to “get in on the social media game.”  We can set it up for them, but the only way to really effectively use social media is to constantly update your pages with new content that is interesting and relevant to your prospects.

Click the link to read “6 Reasons Social Media Doesn’t Work.”  If you’re making excuses similar to those in the article, take some time to stop and think about the obstacles you’re creating that are keeping you from “getting in on the social media game,” and how to overcome them.

That’s what a good content marketing strategy can do.

People don’t trust advertising because it shouts at them. Look at the advertisers that top the viral video charts week after week. They don’t shout — they amuse, entertain, and inspire.

Content marketing follows the same pattern.  It doesn’t shout…it educates and informs.  And if you’re good, maybe it’s a little entertaining, too!

What would happen if your company looked at every piece of outgoing communication through one simple lens and asked the question: “Why would someone want to pass this on?”

You Can’t Connect Without Great Content

Companies send us information all the time – it’s just that most of the time it’s not relevant or valuable.

That’s what makes content marketing so intriguing in today’s environment of thousands of marketing messages per person per day. Good content marketing makes a person stop… read… think… behave… differently.

What do we mean by great content? Let’s look at some examples:

Example 1: Since the beginning of the Great Recession, one of our clients, Financial Symmetry, has mailed Special Market Commentaries to all of its clients.  These publications include original in-depth analysis of current economic conditions and how they might impact clients’ investment portfolio. This is analysis that readers can’t get anywhere else.  And guess what, they pass it along to their friends, family and neighbors.

Example 2: Road Scholars Restorations, another one of our clients, restores classic and rare Porsches.  The company’s website includes blog updates and videos of individual cars as they go through the restoration process.  For a Porsche restoration buff, you can’t get better content than this.  Since implementing this content strategy, the company has see its web hits quadruple.

Example 3: Our final example comes from yet another client – Computer Service Partners.  This Raleigh, NC-based IT service provider is in the process of developing a series of case studies. The catch is that the case studies are not weighed down with “techy” language.  They show how our client helps solve real problems for real businesses.   Early feedback from the sales team indicates that these “problem solving stories” are significantly more impactful than other marketing materials.

22 Ideas to use Content to Connect with Customers & Prospects

1. A Blog: Ok, so it’s not a new idea, but it’s still a good one…that’s why there are so many of them.  And, there may be no better way to deliver consistently valuable information to your targeted buyers.  Plus, each blog post is another page that search engines can index.
2. White Paper Series: The key here is not just to create a white paper, but a white paper series. Start with research on your customers’ informational needs (as they relate to your services or your industry). Then, create an ongoing program of content that helps them answer their most difficult questions.
3. eBooks: The hipper version of the white paper, the eBook is generally a self-contained 20 – 50 page document with larger copy, graphics and charts.
4. Case Studies: Always powerful, case studies give your customers an idea of what you can do and real life examples of where and how you’ve done it.  Add visuals whenever possible.
5. Content Microsites/Content Portal: Create a website devoted to a particular topic or industry focus area, and then invite your customers to read it and comment on it.
6. Community Forums: Develop a forum for your customers to talk about your product, services, or even about key industry issues.  When done well, your site can be the online place where your customers and prospects “gather” to share information.
7. eNewsletters: An eNewsletter is generally a collection of 5 to 7 article excerpts, which drive users back to your corporate website or microsite. If you decide to do one, make sure it’s at least monthly.
8. Podcasts: A podcast is an audio program with a subscription component. This means that your audio program will be delivered to subscribers via email or RSS feed to download into their MP3 player or iPod. Surf through iTunes for tons examples of business-based podcasts.
9. Website RSS Feeds: A bit basic, but if you have regular, quality content on your website in the form of news or articles, be sure to include an RSS component.
10. Webcasts/Webinars: Generally, a 45-minute PowerPoint type presentation accompanied by audio (and sometimes video). Although the technology has been around for a while, lots of companies still use them and it’s a more interactive way to tell your story to a captive audience.
11. Print Custom Magazines: Generally, a 24+ page document in magazine form that houses a collection of expert articles.
12. Print Newsletters: 16 pages or less, digest or standard size. Contains more news-oriented information, or shorter abstracts with links or sources to access more about a particular topic.
13. White Paper Series: Same rationale as the online papers, but delivered to customers via mail or in-person. Can sometimes make a difference on a sales call. I’m more in favor of electronic white papers…but why not do both?
14. Books: Yes, businesses can write books as well. Show off your expertise about a certain topic and self-publish a book. Truthfully, it’s not much different than technical guides many companies put out to their customers…just with a different feel.  Plus digital printing and self-publishing makes it affordable to do small print runs to test the concept.
15. Annual Reports: Annual reports are where the most improvement could take place from a communications perspective. Most companies focus on flashy graphics with little substance. Use the opportunity of an annual report to position yourself as a true industry expert (along with your financial results).
16. Event Show Dailies/Event Companion Pieces: We’ve all seen show dailies before. When you go to a trade show, usually the organizer or a sponsoring magazine produces a daily printed magazine of the previous day’s events, as well as what’s to come. Well, what if you did? How much would it do for your visibility at the event to have a run down of the important conference events coming with.
17. Executive Roundtable: Usually a day to day-and-a-half event where you gather your current customers and prospects around a key issue. The best ones involve a little dinner and golf, with a full day discussing key industry challenges. Try having about 6 good customers, 4 good prospects, an editor and an industry expert to help your discussions along. Be sure to transcribe and record the event to create additional content products for your larger customer base.
18. “Lunch & Learn” : For the price of a boxed lunch for 20 or so people, and the time it takes to prepare a your presentation materials, you can position your company as the expert on any given topic.  Plus, you can show off your facility, a new product or anything else you have to brag about.
19. Customer Contests: This all depends on what you sell and what your expertise is, but online games or contest can be a great way to entertain and involve your customer base.  We recently helped our client Peppers Market — a local sandwich shop — launch and promote a “Sandwich Design Contest.”  The customers loved it. It boosted visibility on social networking sites, the local press wrote about it…and it sold more sandwiches.

Thinking Internal

Nothing keeps customers better than a strong internal marketing campaign. Keep your employees singing the same tune with:

1. Online “How To” site for Employees:  These days, it’s relatively simple and inexpensive to set up a password-protected site for employees only.  Use the site as a place to post product or service updates so all your employees are speaking from the same script.
2. Social Networking Site: Tens of thousands of companies already have their social networking page up on Facebook. If you are a company of over 30 employees, you probably have a page and don’t even know it. Whether Facebook or some other application, find a community site that employees can socialize around via the web. Or put it this way…your employees will whether you are involved or not.

To be fair, it’s a big, broad, and ever changing topic.  So, in an effort to demystify things, we’ve collected several links to help you understand how page ranking works:

• Top 5 Positive & Negative Ranking Factors in 2009 - From SEOMoz.org
• Ranking Overview- From Google
• PageRank Definition - From WikiPedia
• How to improve your website’s Google ranking – from About.com

And here’s a list of things NOT to do:

• 10 Google Don’ts — Things you should never do for Search Engine Optimization – from About.com

Even a year ago, “SEO” (Search Engine Optimization) was a somewhat foreign term to many small local businesses.  Boy, how things have changed.  While the term & the concept are no longer foreign, the mechanics still leave many of our clients overwhelmed and a little confused.

So, we thought a series of blog posts on some basic terminology and concepts might help.

What is Search Engine Optimization (SEO), anyway?

Well, that can take a while to answer….but let’s try….

Search engines, like Google, use an algorithm to crawl the web and rank websites to present the most relevant results to any search term or phrase.

For example, if you go to Google and search on “best plant food for azaleas”, Google will crawl the web and present a list of sites that it has ranked as the best match for your search.

The trick to improving your rank is all about trying to understand how Google, Yahoo, and Bing are ranking their sites, and then “optimize” your site for a specific search term, hence the name “Search Engine Optimization.”

There is an ongoing, raging debate about the best way to improve ranking, and lots of conflicting information available online.  Part of the issue is that Google, Yahoo, and Bing don’t publish the specifics of their search algorithm and it’s frequently changing.

The search engines are forced into changing & tweaking the formula to prevent people from “rigging” the results.   So, there’s a daily, shifting battle between competing legitimate sites, ever more sophisticated SEO techniques, and the search engines’ efforts to present truly relevant information.

Right now there are some generally accepted methods of optimization and they roughly fall into two categories:

1. On-Page Optimization
2. Off-Page Optimization

We’ll cover these two terms in much more detail in posts to come. For now, let’s stick with on-page techniques.  Basically, this refers to things you do to the pages and the files on your site, including, but not limited to:

• page titles
• edits to anchor text
• page descriptions
• keywords in meta tags
• and keyword density

What is keyword density?

Keyword density is a combination of the number of times a keyword or a keyword phrase (like “best plant food for azaleas”), in proportion with other words, appears on a web page. The more times the keyword appears in relation to the total number of  words on that page, the greater the overall keyword density. The more times that other words appear, the lower the proportion of keywords, resulting in a lighter keyword density.  It’s just a simple ratio.

Does keyword density make a difference?

The various search engines, including Google, Yahoo, and MSN Search consider keyword density as part of their search algorithm.  Each search engine has a different mathematical equation regarding the density of keywords that is rewarded with higher search ranking placement. There is also a different level of tolerance between the different search engines as to the degree of density permitted before a penalty is imposed.

Okay, so what are keywords anyway?

Keywords are the terms that searchers enter into the search engine’s search interface when seeking information, products, or services. The keyword is entered into the search engine algorithm as a mathematical calculation, to determine relevance of the many billions of pages to that particular search. The pages the algorithm deems most relevant to the search for those keywords are ranked accordingly.

How are keywords different from keyword phrases?

A keyword can be one single word or a phrase including that word. Searchers use both types of entries when seeking information. As a general rule, the longer the phrase, the more specific the returned information will be from the search engine index.