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.
~AndrewToday, 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%).
~AndrewWith paid search, performance has a lot to do with the ad copy and getting your message across to the consumer as they decide which search listing they want to click on for more information or to purchase a product. Meta descriptions are essentially the same for organic search; if your “snippet” for your organic listing doesn’t have a compelling message, the consumer will choose other listings to get their information from. That is why the meta description is so important to SEO efforts, as the search engines display this description on their result pages.
~AndrewThe final touches on my presentation are now put in place for day one. My session, PPC 101, takes place on Tuesday at 11:35, and my focus will be “Tools for the Search Engine Marketer.” If you’re spending the money on cost per click-modeled programs then you might as well track and understand your return from that investment on various search marketing programs. I have never met my fellow panelists Christine Churchill and Mona Elesseily before, but they are highly regarded in the industry and I look forward to learn from their experiences.
~Andrew