Heard of Bing? It’s a new search engine by Microsoft that’s been getting a ton of attention since its recent launch, likely thanks to a huge marketing budget.

Author Seth Godin is skeptical. He pointed out that Bing is trying to be the next Google, and the problem is that the next Google is Google. “Google is not seen as broken by many people, and a hundred million dollars trying to persuade us that it is, is money poorly spent,” writes Godin in a recent blog post. “In times of change, the rule is this: Don’t try to be the ‘next’. Instead, try to be the other, the changer, the new.”

Satirical newspaper The Onion even commented on Bing — they did an American Voices feature about it, where three (fake) people were asked what they thought about Bing. “Search engines are for lazy computer users who don’t have the fortitude to type random URLs until they find what they’re looking for,” was one answer. Another was, “Bing? Interesting. I’ll have to Google that when I get home.” Great stuff.

It’s a huge risk to challenge Google, a search engine so big and powerful and a part of our everyday lives that we’ve adopted it as a synonym for “search.” I need to find a dry cleaner near my house. I’ll just Google it. So why try to compete with Google? Well, why not? Competition is a good thing. Plus, Google didn’t achieve overnight success.

Rob Pegoraro of The Washington Post wrote about the good and bad aspects of Bing in an article titled “With Bing, Microsoft Finds Some Good Web Search Ideas“:

Bing suffers from some handicaps, starting with one whose initials happen to spell out: “But It’s Not Google.” Yet it works fairly well as a general-purpose search engine, outperforms competitors in a couple of areas and makes a major contribution to mobile Web searching. There’s something to see here, and it’s not just the hype that $100 million or so of marketing can buy.

Pegoraro also reported that when searching for generic terms, Bing can seem “confused.” But when searching for a well-known topic, “Bing can present more relevant details than Google,” he says, using the example of a search for “Washington Nationals” that turned up the team schedule for the week, links to ballpark info and tickets, and the team’s record and standings. Google results, on the other hand, “offered little more than the score of the Nats’ last game.”

Today reports came out that after just a week, Bing has become the number-two most used search, beating out Yahoo. Google holds a 71% market share, and Bing now holds a 16% share. BNET warns that this could be due to the hype and marketing around the site launch, so we could see the traffic go down pretty soon if users go back to the search engine they were previously using. If traffic holds, though, that means Google potentially has a serious competitor.

Some experts say that whatever new, cool feature Bing implements, Google will come right back with something better. If that’s true, we could possibly have two search engines that are constantly one-upping each other and improving. Even if Bing winds up failing at “beating” Google, it’s a win for everyone if we’ll be getting better results for what we’re looking for.

Regardless, it’ll be interesting to watch what happens in the next few weeks.

Last week, MAGNA, Mediabrands’ global media forecasting and investment strategy unit, put out a social media “forecast.” After exploring the question “What IS social media?”, they delivered their definition by socializing in public as well as on the Wikipedia page for Social Media. They also posted a Facebook note with the information.

So why deliver the information this way? Advantages of social media, they said, were that “anyone can add to the conversation,” while its limitations are that “most people still consume most social media content in a passive manner — which begs the question of whether or not our social media content was in fact social in nature, or more akin to traditional media.”

The other definitions of social media MAGNA collected were quite interesting. “The facilitation of word of mouth with technology,” “trackable conversational content about brands, products or anything,” “consumer generated content that influences perceptions” — these are just a few, but it’s easy to see a theme with these specific examples.

What MAGNA deemed their preferred definition is what they wound up adding to the Wikipedia page on Social Media: “a set of technologies, tools and platforms facilitating the discovery, participation and sharing of content.” They make a point to say at the end of their forecast that the definition of social media will change as the industry evolves, and they’re still refining their own definition of it.

If you want to add your thoughts to MAGNA’s forecast, they welcome input at their Facebook discussion.

When taking your first steps towards using Twitter as an online marketing tool, it’s important to have good Twitter etiquette. The bottom line is that Twitter is all about interacting with other users and building trust. If you use your account to do nothing but talk about and link to your business, you will be seen as a spammer. But if you engage in conversations and use the service as a real person — the voice of your company — you will build trust and earn respect.

How to Use Twitter: DON’T…

• Don’t just post links to your website. You’ll sound like a robot and people will think you’re a spammer.
• Don’t only talk about your company.
• Don’t tell every detail of your day or give too much information.
• Don’t use foul language or insult competitors or Twitter users who have said something negative about you or to you.
• Don’t post links to anything NSFW (not suitable for work).
• Don’t ignore people who @reply to you.
• Don’t ignore @replies.
• Don’t forget to use search.twitter.com to look for mentions of your company or name
• Don’t use search.twitter.com to look for people talking about your industry and spam them with an @reply.
• Don’t follow many more people than are following you — keep a good ratio. Use friendorfollow.com to find out who isn’t following you back. (If you’re following lots of people and not many are following you, this makes your account look spammy.)
• Don’t use a tool to send new followers an automated Direct Message.
• Don’t follow a bunch of people at once, especially right when you sign up. Build up your profile slowly. It takes time and patience.
• Don’t get political unless it’s a major part of who you are or who your company is. Potential customers or clients could make the decision not to use your services based on any political statements you make.

How to Use Twitter: DO…

• Make sure you have an avatar.
• Use search.twitter.com or Twitterhawk to look for mentions of your company or name.
• Add people who have mentioned your company or name on Twitter, then send them an @reply that says something like “Thanks for the mention!”
• Post links to your new blog posts and other news, but keep it to a minimum.
• Post at least once per day. Space your posts out — don’t just post one after the other.
• Interact with people who are following you. Build up a rapport.
• Keep your posts to under 140 characters — don’t post twice in a row because you have so much to say about one thing.
• Use your Bio to let people know who you are and why you’re here.
• Fill out the homepage URL field in your profile with your website.
• Retweet (RT) links and Tweets you find interesting and relevant to your industry. The user you RT’d will appreciate it — this is the highest form of Twitter flattery.
• Think before you Tweet. If you mess up, many of your followers will have software that automatically downloads posts, and they will still be able to read your deleted post.
• Use Direct Messages when you need to send someone a private message.
• Use tinyurl.com or is.gd to shorten long links.
• Be interesting.
• Most importantly–Have fun with it!

Happy Tweeting!

Blogging Best Practices from an SEO perspective

It’s important to remember that we blog for many reasons, not just for SEO. The following best practices are only regarding the Search Engine Optimization reasons for blogging. You may need to weigh these against other reasons you may have for blogging such as user interaction, conversion, etc.

Choose One Keyphrase

Each blog post should be targeting one main keyphrase. Use tools such as the Google keyword tool or Wordtracker’s free keyword service to determine the target keyphrase.

Use the Keyphrase as the Title

Title your blog post with the keyphrase and only the keyphrase. If you need additional information, use a sub-head. The title will be read by Google, and will also become the article’s url, two important factors in determining relevance.

Create and Use Relevant Categories

Your blog should be set up to include the category of a post in the url. Creating and using a relevant category will boost the relevancy of a post. Categories should be fairly broad, as you want many posts under each category. Example of a relevant categories would be “Auto Loans”, “Auto Finance”, etc. Each post should only exist under one category.

Pay Attention to Keyphrase Placement

1. Begin the article with the keyphrase if possible. If not, then make sure to include the keyphrase in the first sentence
2. Use sub-heads that use the keyphrase or a subset of the keyphrase
3. Use keyphrase or subset of the keyphrase once per paragraph as a general rule
4. Bold the first instance of the keyphrase
5. Link one instance of the keyphrase to a relevant page on your website
6. Read over article to make sure keyphrase placement isn’t so high as to sound “spammy”

Create and Follow a Linking Strategy

Your should determine the top 5-10 keyphrases that your site addresses and naturally work those links into your blog posts. Each of these phrases should have a consistent landing page. Go easy, these need to look natural and should be relevant to the blog topic. Remember, you are linking naturally, so you’re not saying “for great auto loans click here”. An example would be “I remember when my mom was looking for an (link to home page)auto loan(end link) with a low interest rate.”

Create Unique Meta Information

Each post should have unique meta description and meta keywords tags. We suggest a 50/50 rule: 50% of meta information should be pre-existing material related to the website in general, 50% should be specific to the post. Be sure to begin with specific information and work down to pre-existing information.

Create Unique Tags

As with the meta information, the first half of tags should be unique to the post, second half should be general tags developed for the site.

Submit Blog Posts to Digg

Submit each blog post to Digg. As with the blog post, the title of the Digg should be the keyphase. If more words are necessary to prevent looking like spam, then begin the Digg with the keyphrase. Include the keyphrase in the description of the Digg.

Submit Digg to Google

Submit each Digg to Google’s Add Url page (go ahead and also submit the blog post while you’re there). Again, use the keyphrase as the title of the submission.

Create Companion Press Release

If publishing a companion press release, target a keyphrase that is addressed in the blog as well as on the website, link to both the blog and the web page from the press release with relevant text.

Good luck with your SEO blog post!

The Video Marketing Expo (VMX) is going on today in Austin at the Hilton Downtown. Jam-packed with helpful and interesting sessions about all things online video — including innovative methods for producing online videos for blogging, marketing, lead generation and social media — VMX makes it so attendees will walk away with useful tips and tools given by industry leaders.

And among those industry leaders speaking at VMX is Get Page One’s very own Brian Rutledge. He’ll be giving a presentation about search engine optimization and video metrics, and how new media and video are seen by search engines. This is a great time to learn about the best tools for tracking video viewership and abandonment as well as how to make sure your videos are seen correctly by the emerging networks of online video syndicators.

Can’t make it to VMX? Feel free to download Brian’s presentation: SEO + Video + Metrics.

We came across a great article at MediaPost titled “SEO Investments Expected To Grow More Than 20%.” A report from eMarketer concluded that search engine optimization growth will jump from 17.7% in 2009 to 20.3% in 2013, as paid search growth will actually decline from 15.9% to 11.3%. Basically, with marketers beginning to see how SEO fits into campaigns, investments in SEO will grow at a higher rate every year.

David Hallerman, senior analyst for eMarketer, said that search is the best tool for customer acquisition. The article goes on to say that people “generally find organic listings more relevant than paid search ads,” which means they’re likely to click on search engine results more than they’d click on PPC ads. However, Hallerman noted that marketing campaigns should combine search engine optimization and PPC.

When this is done successfully, it could result in higher rankings. Both have benefits, says the article: While the effects of PPC campaigns are immediate, marketers must spend money consistently. On the other end, SEO takes time and requires maintenance to keep high rankings once they’re achieved. Hallerman explained that the amount of time it takes to deliver a ROI (return on investments) all depends on conversions.

So how do SEO and PPC fit into your marketing campaign? Contact us — we’ll be happy to discuss it with you.

Software engineer Matt Cutts, who is head of the webspam team at Google, recently posted a video response to the question “Will SEO still exist in five years?” The answer? Yes, says Matt. Take a look:

Google Me lets users fill out their very own profile, and it was released just a few days ago. Fill out enough information on it, and it’ll likely show up at the bottom of the first page of results when someone searches for your name at Google.com.

Another online profile? Yawn. Well, hang on a second. Google Me is useful for online reputation management.

If you do a Google search for your name, what comes up on the first page? Maybe it’s a mix of results for several people who share your name, maybe it’s all about you, or maybe nothing useful comes up. If you’ve never thought much about what shows up when someone searches for you, we strongly suggest that you start paying close attention to this. Whether you’re applying for a job or you’re an established professional, people will search for your name on Google. And you can bet that they’ll look at everything that comes up on the first page and will judge you accordingly.

For this reason we can’t stress enough just how important online reputation management is. The best thing you can do is start working on your online reputation right now, making sure that what comes up for your name on that first page (and, even better, the next couple of pages) of results is positive and factual. A false, inaccurate and/or harmful piece of information someone posts online about you, your product or your company can seriously damage your reputation. Don’t wait around to make sure your first page of Google results is factual and positive.

So take the time to make a Google profile. It takes only a few minutes, and it’s certainly an easy way to get that last spot on Page One filled out with good information about yourself.

Just don’t forget about the other first-page results.

Global Internet information provider comScore released some fascinating data at the end of February regarding America’s search behavior and the financial crisis. The survey research showed an increase in people searching for terms related to the economic crisis over the past year.

The search term “unemployment” was up 206 percent to 8.2 million searches during the past year, along with “unemployment benefits,” up 247 percent to 748,000 searches. Other terms related to the economic crisis that were up:

• “Mortgage”: Up 72 percent; 7.8 million searches
• “Bankruptcy”: Up 156 percent; 2.6 million searches
• “Foreclosure”: Up 67 percent; 1.4 million searches
• “Coupons”: Up 161 percent; 19.9 million searches
• “Discount”: Up 26 percent; 7.9 million searches

Something else comScore’s research showed was that those who were searching for “unemployment” were generally younger, with the head of the household being 35 years old or younger and the household earning less than $50,000 per year. ComScore also found that these searchers were much more likely to use Ask.com, MSN and Yahoo! rather than Google or AOL Search.

ComScore’s research shows that, obviously, what people are searching for reflects Americans’ concerns and interests. Though the effects of the current financial crisis are apparent without looking at data like this, it’s interesting to see how clearly a nation’s worries are illustrated just by looking at general keywords in search trends.

What can we learn from looking at the search trends of large groups of people and taking into consideration their concerns and interests? If trends show that certain general keywords are being searched for a lot more now than they were just a year ago, that says a lot. Paying attention to trends like this can certainly be an essential part of successful search marketing as well as marketing in general.

April Fool’s Days of the past were all about classic pranks, like gluing a quarter to the ground on a busy street corner.

But April Fool’s Day seems to have become less about physical gags and more about Internet gags. It can be  pretty easy to pull off a prank online — especially since so many of us spend about every waking moment in front of a computer. Plus, pulling a prank online means you could get a ton of people at once to fall for your trick. For example, tweeting something like, “CRAZY video of me meeting Kanye West last night!” with a link to this video. Hilarious, I know. Feel free to use that one next year.

So what about company websites that take today to let loose and show everybody their wacky, fun side? Maybe you read about Google’s CADIE today, or maybe you excitedly clicked on the ad for the $99 pink leather Eames lounger in today’s Apartment Therapy email.

There’s also the extremely well-done (and daring!) Whole Foods homepage, which features a prominent ad for Organic Air that costs $6.99 for .02 oz (get it?), along with a bunch of recipes for dishes like Deep-Fried Pork Eclairs, Arugula Compost Surprise and… Toast. Mmmm.

The question is, if you’ve seen something April Foolsy today on a business’ website, how’d you find it? I’m willing to bet one or more of these things happened:

• You saw the link on your Twitter feed
• You saw the link on your Facebook feed
• Someone IMed/G-chatted it to you
• You saw the link on one of your favorite blogs (this one, obviously)
• A co-worker mentioned it during a lighthearted conversation at the watercooler

Next question: Did you tell someone about what you saw? Of course you did. That’s exactly what they wanted you to do. The April Fool’s Day joke was all about social media marketing, and by it getting passed from person to person via Twitter, Facebook, blogs, etc., it was successful.

What’s more is that successful viral marketing like this means lots of inbound links to your website. That’s excellent for search engine optimization.

Maybe we won’t see as many classic pranks on future April Fool’s Days, but let me drop a pretty intense analogy on you here: By pulling off a well-done joke on a company website like Google.com or WholeFoodsMarket.com, isn’t that just the modern-day version of gluing a quarter to the ground on a busy street corner? People who first notice that quarter will pause to look closer, some bending down to try to grab it, which causes passersby to look and see what all the fuss is about. No matter what, everyone walks away knowing that there is a quarter glued to the ground.

(Whoa.)