Bing replaced Live as MSN’s search technology earlier this month. So far, the new search engine has yet to make much of a dent in the marketshare of it’s biggest competitors Google and Yahoo.  StatCounter reported the following on the 11th of June -

StatCounter analyzed search engine market share two weeks before and after the formal launch of Bing on May 28th (14th May to the 27th May and the 28th May to 10th June). For the US market it found:
Google decreased from 78.68% to 77.94% (-0.74%)
Yahoo decreased from 11.46% to 10.76% (-0.7%)
Microsoft (Bing, MSN Search and Live Search) increased from 7.4% to 9% (+1.6%)

This prompted me to see if visitors to our industrial sites were showing similar numbers. I looked at the referrers for 3 weeks prior to and after Bing’s launch for five of our industrial clients.  Here’s what I found –

It looks like Bing is making only a very small impact on Google’s market share, 1% as of now. MSN’s share has increased just over 1%.  We’ll be keeping a close eye on the traffic from Bing and how the new search engine is affecting our industrial clients.  For now it appears to be business as usual.

For many industrial companies, relationships with distributors are very important. You may provide a product that is exclusively resold through distributors. You realize that distributors are highly essential to your bottom line, as they move your product into the hands of your consumers. You might not realize that you can earn valuable SEO benefits from your distributors as well. Here are two ideas for gaining links back to your site, via your distributors.

Press Releases

If your reseller distributes press releases, encourage them to announce that they carry your product. This way, the distributor will be promoting their company, but will be promoting your products as well. Your vendor can provide a link back to your website within the press release.

Website Link

Encourage resellers to place a link to your website on their own site. A banner link would be a great high impact link, but a text link is just as valuable.

The Search Engine Round Table posted about a Q&A they participated in with Matt Cutts. The discussion was about the effectiveness of using of no-follows in the comments in a blog. This was Matt’s response -

Q: Okay, but doesn’t this encourage me to link out less? Should I turn off comments on my blog?
A: I wouldn’t recommend closing comments in an attempt to “hoard” your PageRank. In the same way that Google trusts sites less when they link to spammy sites or bad neighborhoods, parts of our system encourage links to good sites.

Matt does not elaborate on what “parts of our system encourage links to good sites” means, but I interpret it as this:  system = algorithm and encourage = reward with better rankings.  If this is the case, then this lends some weight to a theory I posted about a while back – Can you Improve your Rankings through Outgoing Links?

Google gives preference to sites they consider an authority on subjects. One way they determine if a site is an authority is by outgoing links. If Google sees a site linking out to many related sites, they see that site a reference or authority on whatever that site (or page) is about. Now there are many other factors that come in to play, but outgoing links is one of them. So, if you link out to other sites, isn’t reasonable to believe Google will give your site a little credit as an authority?

Matt also wrote an in depth post called PageRank Sculpting. I haven’t had a chance to read it, but I’ll check it out next week and see if there’s anything more to learn about the benefits of outgoing links on your site.

 Inspired by my team member’s post about Eleanor Roosevelt as ‘blogger’, I did some digging and found a great blog post by Dawud Miracle, in which he explores the possibility that Benjamin Franklin was also ”a blogger – without a doubt”.  A prolific writer who printed regular installments of Poor Richard’s Almanack, he was also a satirist, political theorist, politician, scientist, inventor, civic activist, statesman, and diplomat. 

With his values and character rooted in morality, community and communication, he was well-placed to make regular and highly-observant commentary on the events leading up to and beyond America’s fight for independence, on international and local politics, and as a scientist, to create some of the world’s must useful and enduring inventions.  Ever social, he also had his finger on the pulse of the common man, and his writings were full of well-known adages, opinions and advice that appealed to everyday society. 

He was truly “plugged in” and by exploring his words, we get a glimpse of one of the forefathers of social media!  Read more at:  What Benjamin Franklin Knew About Social Media

Social media, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn…You can’t escape these words. They’re in the news, in the papers, and your online experience is drenched in social media. The reason its so popular is because its “new” and evolving so rapidly. But I stumbled across an article that made me realize: social media is not new - it has just found new means of expression.

Eleanor Roosevelt wrote a weekly newspaper column from 1936 to 1962 called “My Day”. The column was read by nearly the whole country and Eleanor received over 300,000 response letters to that column. The topic of her columns were daily activities that were written to relate to the trials and tribulations of the recession of that time. Just like a blog, she outlined her daily activities. Just like a blog, she received comments from readers. The column she wrote is an example of an interactive and social outlet way back in the 1930’s.

I am not a social media skeptic, because I believe that social media will always be around. The reincarnations that it will have are yet to be seen. From a newspaper column to a blog to a vlog to who knows what. Social media will continue to evolve, and I’m excited to participate throughout that evolution.

Check out our new social media glossary, and keep up with the pace of the social sphere.

When considering the success of your industrial or commercial website, you should keep in mind that search engine optimization and ‘good looks’ are only part of the picture.  Making sure that your site is not just attractive to the eye and the search engines, but that it is actually usable to your visitors is key to having a well-rounded website that brings in the visitors and conversions you’re looking for.

Usability is serious business, yet there are some interesting tools out there that make checking the usability of your website fun!  

Feng-GUI

Feng-GUI allows web designers, advertisers and photographers to analyze ‘Attention’ and ‘Attraction’ in visual images. You can find out how people ’see’ your website and which areas are getting most of the attention.  This service is free and uses artificial intelligence that simulates human vision to produce a heat map on your website.  This can reveal how people are viewing your images, calls to action, navigation, etc.  (Note:  Feng-GUI is only revealing one facet of your website based on algorithms, and does not take the place of a thorough usability study by a trained professional!)

Five Second Test

Five Second Test is a simple online usability test that helps you identify the most prominent elements of your user interfaces.  You can submit a screenshot of your website, which other users of the service evaluate for the top five most memorable areas that they can remeber from viewing the image for five seconds.  You can also perform this test on other people’s websites, thus becoming part of a community that helps website owners and designers evealuate the strong visual points of their websites.  I evaluated a few sites and found this to be fun and addictive!

MIT Usability Guidelines

The Usability Guidelines offered by MIT’s Information Services and Technology Department are a little more serious, but who doesn’t love a checklist?  I know detail-oriented people like me do (just call me ‘Monica’)!  These guidelines include most factors to consider during a usability evaluation of a web site.  And…it’s MIT!  You can’t go wrong.

By ensuring that you’ve created a usable and well-organized website, you can help lower bounce rates and increase conversions on your site.  Have fun checking out these tools, and if you come across any others, please post them here!

Thank you Ann Smarty for the great ideas!

Nielsen Announced U.S. Search Share Rankings yesterday for May. Total U.S. searches increased over 20% from 7.8 billion in May 2008 to 9.4 billion. Wow. MSN was the only major search engine to lose a share of search, dropping 14.6%.  Can Bing revive MSN?  They’re in the middle of a major media blitz; I’ve had a few clients ask about it within the last week.

See full press release from Nielsen >

Join us tomorrow for our June Internet Marketing Webinar!

Where: Ecreativeworks WebEx Webinar

Register Now, online!

When: June 17, 2009 | 11:45 a.m. CST

Learn more about International SEO tactics and how to utilize your International audience.

For those of you managing PPC campaigns, you know the importance of landing page relevance. The content should match the keywords of the ad. For organic traffic being directed to a landing page, this concept is also key, the content on the page should mirror the title and description of the page. There’s nothing more frustrating that arriving at a page that was so attractively titled in the search results, you were sure it was the one, only to find out that what you’re looking for is either buried or not there.

Often, landing  page optimization includes only adding content with the right keywords. Yes, this is a great way to up your PPC quality score and increase your ranking in Google, but where the real visitor is concerned, adding content is not enough. You’ve got to give your landing pages love. Make them a place you would want to arrive.

Things site visitors love:

• Bullet points - less reading, faster understanding of the content
• Photos - appealing and aids in comprehension of the page
• Headings/Bolded Content - draws the eye to important paragraphs, helps for skimming
• Resources sidebar - if possible create a small right hand sidebar with links to informational articles, and news about your topic, this will help increase repeat visits

The wonderful thing about enhancing your pages for the visitor, is that it automatically enhances your SEO efforts. Bold content, photos with alt tags, bullet points and hyperlinks are great SEO tactics. So sometimes thinking of the user first, will help you rise to the top of the search engine results.

Happy Friday All!

For the last couple of weeks, I’ve been down and dirty in the directories on wild link building campaigns for a couple of my clients.  Today, spent and sore, I stopped, raised my hands and head to the sky and cried “NO MORE!”  Now, I know that directory submissions are FAR from the end-all, be-all of link building strategies, but in this instance, there were quite a few relevant directories that my clients would benefit from. 

Still…scratched, dirty and torn, I vowed to eschew directory submissions for at least six months. My challenge to myself is this:  having already found the few truly relevant directoies for a client, how can I move beyond the tried and true “directories, articles, press releases oh my!’ formula that’s so easy to stick to when one is pressed for a link building suggestion?  A little creativity is warranted!

I did some digging and found some truly ‘outside the box’ ideas for gaining links and traffic to your site!  Some are relatively easy to accomplish while others require a bit of forethought and footwork.

For instance, here’s an easy one:

Look for where you already are! This is one of the easiest link building tricks you can have up your sleeve.  Search for websites that mention your company and review the information that’s served up.  You may find that the site mentions your name but lacks a link to your website.  It’s a simple matter to phone or email them and ask nicely for a link, and perhaps some descriptive anchor text, to boot.  You might also find that your information is out of date or otherwise in need of correction or updating, and this allows you the opportunity to ensure that your info is on the up and up. 

Here’s a more creative strategy:

Let Monster.com work for YOU!

If you work for a mid to large sized company, you can put job postings to work for you in a strong link building campaign.  The amount of links from job ads can be very high, and though the links disappear over time, they often accumulate high PageRank.  What you want to do is ensure that you include links to your products or services pages (the ‘money’ pages!) within the ad in order to pass on the link juice to these important pages.

Here’s a link to where I found these and many more ideas in one of the most thoughtful A-Z lists I’ve seen in a while: Link Building from A to Z

I challenge you to cry DOWN WITH DIRECTORIES and find out just how far you can take your link building campaign!