Yesterday, I mentioned to my staff that I think it was a great day for our business, the search engine industry and for those companies who truly understand all aspects of search. From an industry point of view, the two-horse race is now on, and it will push both companies to stay innovative in the search arena. I often felt that if Microsoft didn’t fully get behind search marketing, it would be only a matter of time before Google was the only player in the space. And we always see a lack of innovation when this happens. Most companies feel are reliant on Google for the vast bulk of their ad spend, but that’s not the most ideal situation to be in. It works, but when you have another larger player like MicroHoo, you potentially have another large entity to rely on.
~AndrewAfter 18 longs months of negotiation, Microsoft and Yahoo! have come to an agreement and are now search partners. As we stated on Monday, it is not a complete buyout. Instead, Yahoo! will be powered by Microsoft’s Bing technology and will received 88% of revenue that Microsoft earns from searches on Yahoo!’s sites. Microsoft may also integrate parts of Yahoo!’s technology into Bing if it so chooses.
~AndrewMost people utilize the funnel setup to analyze the steps in shopping cart abandonment, but it’s not just beneficial for e-commerce businesses. For this Tip of the Week, I’ll show you how to use a similar tactic to analyze user flow through lead forms.
~SammieAnnieToday, AdAge reported that the deal between Microsoft and Yahoo! is very near; the announcement is expected later this week. Merger, partnership, whatever it ends up being called–the deal will ultimately mean that Yahoo! results are powered by Bing’s search technology and allow the two companies to better compete wtih Google (although at a combined 30% share, they still have a way to go to reach Google’s 65%).
~AndrewOne key component of search engine optimization is obtaining links from relevant, authoritative sites such as highly ranked blogs and new sources. A working relationship with news sources that cover your industry can lead to great exposure and links from trusted media web sites. So how does one go about optimizing and distributing these press releases?
~Crystal