We expect Bing to increase its global market share over coming next few years. Hence, it is very much essential to target your business on Bing, to gain that 15% traffic. As Bing powers Yahoo, who has another 15 % market share, there is a possibility to attract 30% visitors.

One can easily track their site performance through Bing webmasters tool. Some of their main features are:

Traffic Summary

Traffic summary displays 6 month history of traffic and search query performance. It provides great insight into top performing keywords for your site. The data is drilled down into impressions, clicks, CTR’s. Average Search Position & Average Click Position. Bing has also included Yahoo traffic stats, into this.

Page Traffic Report

The Page Traffic report shows the same charts as the Traffic Summary page with the exception of the bottom chart, which shows page level metrics.

Index Explorer

There is a great feature called Index Explorer, where we can block specific pages or directories from the Bing index. You can block the cache of pages or entire directories with ease.

Submit URLS:

This feature allows webmasters to submit url’s previously not indexed. However, there is a limit of 50 URL’s submission per month.

Inbound links:

This section displays inbound links to your website. It details inbound links for specific page along with their anchor text. This is one of the most important tools to check site authority and see how your keywords are linked. They also provide an export functionality to download the data.

Deep Links:

These Deep Links are assigned to websites which are seen by Bing to be “authoritative” on the topic which they target. They are similar to Google site links.

URL Normalization:

It allows you to specify query parameters for Bing to ignore. This is useful when urls encounter parameter issues, which can lead to duplicate content issues.

Crawl Summary:

It shows total number of pages crawled, along with crawl error of the landing page for this category. You can review data for past 6 months.

Sitemap:

This is where you’d submit your sitemap to Bing. This is very useful to inform Bing about your site’s structure and discover pages not indexed.

User Management:

It allows webmasters to grant admin, read/write or read only access to other users for their site.

Wrong!

But before I go into why your business should be including search optimisation as part of your marketing budget, let’s go back to the basics of exactly what marketing is.

Marketing is essentially any activity that aims to increase awareness about your brand, its products or services and reach potential customers.

What does search engine optimisation do? It aims to increase your business’ appearance in search engines, and reach more users than before, just like more traditional mediums.

To help with the thought process behind this idea, think of a search engine like you would a newspaper, magazine, or some other traditional marketing medium. The aim of placing your ad (at considerable cost) into a newspaper or magazine is to reach consumers who you wouldn’t have reached otherwise. A search engine is no different.

SEO aims to lift your site’s rankings in the search engines, exposing your business to more potential customers than before.

One major stumbling block for SEO in the past has been the reluctance of managers to spend $$$$ per month on what they considered to be web design costs. However, they are more than happy to spend thousands on print media ads that are fast losing their effectiveness.

The challenge for managers is to realise the need to treat SEO as a marketing item and not as some nuisance or web cost.

But how much should a business spend on SEO?

There are many different SEO services available, but how much you spend on SEO should be consistent with your business’ online goals and objectives.

If you currently, or would like to, achieve 40% of your sales or referrals via the online channel, then you should seriously consider spending around 40% of your marketing budget on SEO and SEM (search engine marketing).

Obviously this depends on your industry and business, but far too many businesses are not maximising their website’s earnings potential because they are not giving it a fair weighting in their marketing budgets.

So the question then becomes, can anyone topple Google? In the late 90′s Yahoo! was the number one, but Google looked at Yahoo’s weaknesses and created a cleaner search engine that supposedly delivered better search results. But can anyone do it again?

Google continue to go from strength to strength, and their reach is unrivalled. Their advertising network includes AOL, Ask.com and now Yahoo and their recent acquisitions of DoubleClick and Youtube have only broadened their market.

With the much-hyped Yahoo! and Microsoft deal falling through, and Yahoo’s subsequent search marketing deal with Google, who is left to take on the giant of search? Let’s go through the main competitors:

Yahoo!

Currently sitting in a distant second in terms of both advertising and search query share, many claim that Yahoo’s search algorithm is actually superior to Google’s. Whether this is true or not is irrelevant, as the vast majority of users have spoken with their clicks and head to Google for its clean feel. The big thing that Google has over Yahoo is the way Google is able to separate out each of its products to keep that clean feel. Yahoo pack everything they offer into one homepage, which can make it hard to identify what their primary focus is. As a result, many users wonder whether Yahoo’s search is being given the focus it deserves. Yahoo will certainly remain profitable, as they have a loyal fan base that swear by it, but I just can’t see them storming the Google fortress, particularly now they are relying on their ad network.

MSN/Live

If Yahoo is a distant second, then Microsoft’s Live Search is back an eternity in third place. Again, however, there are those out there who believe Microsoft’s search to be better, but I am a definite sceptic on this one. For Microsoft to really succeed in search they need a massive overhaul, and massive overhauls are not really Microsoft’s style. More than likely Microsoft will just let Live run its course, as it doesn’t really seem to have the desire to be number one in search, or else it probably would have put more emphasis on it’s deal with Yahoo rather than letting it slip by the wayside.

AOL, Ask, etc

The old players in the market. Most of these engines still get a decent run of traffic, but most are also relying on Google advertising deals to keep them profitable. These guys are not real challengers for the crown.

Mahalo

Mahalo is an interesting one. Mahalo is Hawaiian for thank you, and the premise behind this start-up is that it is the web’s only human-powered search engine. That is, its search results are not driven by algorithm’s but by human generated results pages. To me it seems like Wikipedia and Dogpile rolled into one, as the user is able to search all the various other engines if Mahalo does not have a page created. I don’t think the concept of a human-powered search engine can work, particularly when it comes to updating it constantly at the speed of web. Wikipedia works but I don’t see Mahalo taking off. It is useful however, if you want to search all the major search engines (and Wikipedia, Youtube, Flickr) all in one go. Other than that I don’t see it ever matching Google. Google’s algorithm’s refresh daily, which is almost impossible for a human-powered search engine to match.

Clusty

Another meta approach to search. Just like Dogpile, Clusty attempts to rank results by aggregating results from other search engines. Once generated however, Clusty clusters results together into categories of results. This is a useful tool but won’t have Google shaking.

Other Small Start-ups

Quintura, Blinkx, Powerset, Kosmix, the list goes on. All these players however, are only targeting tiny market niches, market niches that Google could quite easily swat away with one extra feature to their own search results. The other problem most of these smaller players have is they lack the resources to operate their own search algorithm’s and many of the newcomers rely on refining a Google search.

The Verdict

Here’s the problem as I see it for the other players attempting to usurp Google; all of them either rely on Google’s search is some way or are targeting niche markets that Google could themselves cover by throwing a few million at a new Google product.

Google have already done this with email. Google took a search-based approach to internet-based email and eroded Microsoft’s Hotmail monopoly in a flash, so these small niche players had better watch their back. If Microsoft can be beaten so easily, where does that leave the little guy?

But all the big players (including Yahoo thanks to this new deal) are relying on Google in some way either for search results or search advertising. All, that is, except Microsoft. Microsoft’s Live is the one major search engine out there not dependent on Google’s algorithms or advertising dollars.

Over the last few years Google has continually stripped away Microsoft’s stranglehold on all things digital, and maybe the time is right for the old dog to get angry and strike back.

Alas, however, it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen…

So why is it then, that as soon as that new store becomes an online one, planning and deliberation take a back seat. Many businesses will simply spend up big on a new website and sit back, waiting for sales to come rolling in.

The downfall of many online stores is that they do not go through the same planning steps that a ‘bricks and mortar’ store would, and this is major downfall because for many businesses, online stores make the same if not more, than their physical stores put together.

For a physical store, businesses spend extensive time and money on choosing the right store location and signage to make sure that potential customers can find their store. Online stores are no different. It is even more important to make sure consumers can find your online store because unlike a physical store in a shopping centre, there’s basically zero chance of a customer accidentally finding your store on the web. For this reason, it becomes essential that you have invested wisely in search engine optimisation (SEO) and search engine marketing (SEM).

Without adequate investment in both these facets of e-commerce, customers won’t be able to find your store and any investment in an expensive, flashy website will be wasted.

The key then becomes utilising the right resources to make SEO and SEM work for your business. Whether this be a do-it-yourself attempt or outsourcing to a professional with industry knowledge (www.reloadconsulting.com), it is essential that you take the first steps towards a successful online business.

For more on why you need SEO: http://searchstrategy.com.au/?p=4

But why then is everyone so sceptical about Microsoft’s prospects? Why is the Microsoft juggernaut all of a sudden vulnerable to this relative rookie company with big dreams? The answer is simple; Google do search better and they have the market in the palm of their hand.

Microsoft’s MSN/Live search and Yahoo’s search are just not making inroads against Google’s tried and tested simple approach. Google has a no-fuss approach to search. Their homepage is simple, results are clearly displayed and most users have faith in the Google algorithm’s ability to deliver relevant search results. Live and Yahoo! have not worked this out or refuse to blatantly copy Google’s premise.

The name Microsoft once struck fear into the hearts of all other digital companies, because it seemed that no matter how well you did something, Microsoft could throw millions at it and take your market.

But Google has changed all that. Microsoft have been trying for years now to replicate Google’s success online, but according to BRW Magazine, have only managed around 5% of US search revenue market share, compared to Google’s whopping 77%. Google has humbled the once un-toppable giant.

The secret to Google’s success is that, out of all the big search engines, they have the most conspicuous ads. Live and Yahoo! both have ads cluttering their homepages whereas Google only display ads in search results and their AdWords quality score algorithm keeps their ads fairly relevant as well. For this reason, a search results page in Google does not “feel” like an advertising billboard, which can be the case in other search engines.

So that brings us to now, where Microsoft is once again claiming that they are ready to take the mantle as the net’s premier search engine. Microsoft are currently working on capturing the display ad market, with development teams working overtime on technology for video and banner ads that display more relevant ads based on a user’s browsing patterns.

Of course Google are not going to sit back and wait for Microsoft to gain ground on them, and their recent acquisitions of DoubleClick and Youtube suggest they are already going on the offensive.

So who’s going to win? Microsoft or Google? From what I’m seing the answer is Google. Google have the market cornered and are not going to give it up without a fight.

One of the reasons I believe that Google will win (this round) is that they have quite remarkably managed to dodge the ‘big bad company’ tag. It is very common for large corporations to become disliked in the court of public opinion because they are greedy or ‘out to get us.’ It seems that no matter how big Google get, they are still liked by the public. This can probably be traced back to the way Google manages its staff, who work in more of a resort than an office. In the search engine wars, Google are the good guys whilst Microsoft are the baddies.

Microsoft will undoubtedly keep trying, they always do. Search engine advertising is too big a market for Microsoft to give in, but if this new display ad platform is once again outperformed by Google, they may have to go crawling back to Yahoo. Microsoft have already hinted that they may revisit the idea by putting the merger decision to a shareholder vote, indicating that even inside their own ranks they have doubts over their own ability to beat Google.

My gut feeling says that Microsoft and Yahoo will be together sooner rather than later. If and when this happens it is critical that they do not try and copy Google, but rather come up with a new kind of search experience, that delivers the most relevant search results (including ads) and offers more for Internet users, but I won’t be holding my breath.

Round One – Google Knockout…