As an SEO Consultant for Reload Media – I have what I refer to as a luxury, of managing many different websites across a broad range of industries and niches. This ‘luxury’ gives me access to an enormous amount of search data – which I’m sure many other SEO’s will agree with.

I love data. I love getting data and I love analysing it. I have often, in the past, spent hours going through the specifics of keyword rankings to give myself better insight with the intention of improving my understanding of search engine trends, changes and algorithm updates.

While I could spend hours writing about search engine changes in general, the purpose of this article is to discuss how similar (or dissimilar) the keyword rankings are in Bing & Yahoo.

On the 18^th of October, Yahoo published a blog post announcing that they had completed their algorithm transition update with Microsoft’s Bing search engine. It had taken 20 months, but they had finally completed it.

As a part of our process and procedures, we keep track of the search engine visibility for our client’s websites in both Yahoo & Bing. The questions we were so eager to find answers for was: “So, exactly how similar are Yahoo & Bing now?” and “Is it now worth us tracking both Yahoo & Bing?”. Sure, for the past few months Yahoo & Bing have always had ‘similar’ results, but were we about to see the keyword rankings in Yahoo & Bing become completely identical?

We wanted to find out. The process began by choosing three clients from three different niches / industries that we believed would be good for this report.  Stretching across a total of 615 different keywords, our initial focus was simply to compare the rankings data in Yahoo & Bing on their last rankings reports – all of which were within a week of writing this report.

The Difference between Yahoo & Bing Rankings

The data for these 615 keywords was recorded on the same day, more or less, at the same time. Rankings in Bing & Yahoo fluctuate so often that sometimes the rankings are absolutely nothing like they were the day before.

The number of keywords that had a rankings difference was 52 – but the number of keywords that had a rankings difference that was more than 1, was only 8. When we thought about the rankings difference being 1, we felt like it was so minimal, that it wasn’t enough to justify a dissimilar result. Any keyword where the difference was more than 1, really grabbed our attention. For the focus of this report though, we’ll include all 51 keywords.

The largest difference in keyword positions we encountered was 68+. This specific keyword is particularly niche to its industry and not overly competitive. Its rank in Bing was 32, yet it was not found within the top 100 in Yahoo.

The second highest keyword difference was 47+. Which, like the first keyword, is particularly niche to its industry and not very competitive and the result was the same. It ranked 53 in Bing, but was nowhere to be found in Yahoo.

Exact Rankings by Search Engine

The blue line represents Bing, while the red line represents Yahoo. For the most part, it’s easy enough to see the resemblance and how identical the rankings were. The two spikes are also represented in the graph below which displays keyword ranking differences.

Rankings Difference – Yahoo VS Bing

The graph above shows the 51 keywords that had at least 1 rankings place difference. The other 8 keywords (that had more than 1 rankings place difference) are easily identifiable.

This implied to us that while the rankings between Yahoo & Bing are essentially identical, there are still minor area’s where the two search engines handle things differently. There is always the possibility that one of these search engines was playing ‘catch up’ to the correct ranking placement though.

Which Keywords Performed Better?

The second step as part of this report was to find out which search engine ranked those 51 keywords in better positions. With 51 keywords, we knew we were going to have a winner, but the difference again was extremely small.

Bing was the winner. Out of the 51 keywords, 26 of them ranked higher in Bing than they did on Yahoo. This, once again proved to us that there really wasn’t much difference between Yahoo & Bing in terms of overall search visibility.

Keyword Performance by Client

We then took this data and thought it’d be good idea to break it down by client – to see if we could find any additional patterns or occurrences.

The first client we used for this report – we’ll refer to them as Client A, accounted for 21 (out of the total 51) of the keywords and Bing was the clear performer, with 14 keywords ranking better than the 7 in Yahoo.

Our second client (Client B) had 12 keyword ranking differences and of those 12, Yahoo performed better with 8 keywords in better ranking positions than Bing’s 4.

Finally, our third client (Client C) saw Yahoo edge out Bing slightly. Out of 18 keywords, 10 ranked better in Yahoo compared to the 8 that ranked better in Bing.

What Does This Data Tell Us?

This data tells us that while Yahoo & Bing more or less provide identical results, it’s quite clear that a website can perform better in one specifically. The difference will be extremely minor, and it could simply be an error with the time in which we recorded this data, but despite how similar they are – there will still be ranking differences and they still perform differently.

How Similar Were the Results Prior to the Transition?

As we keep track of many keywords on a monthly (and in some cases, weekly) basis, we knew it would be a good idea to compare this data over a four month period to see the keyword ranking differences.

We chose four keywords from the ‘differences’ list that we thought would be a good example to display month on month ranking data.

The data compared starts in August and goes through to the time of this report – November, keeping in mind that Yahoo made their announcement on the 18^th of October.

Yahoo & Bing’s Similarity is Inconsistent

The pattern here is that there is no pattern. The major difference in ranking positions for Keyword 1 was in October, for Keyword 2 it was in November, Keyword 3 it was in August and Keyword 4 it was August & September.

The only conclusion we drew from these graphs is that 80% of the time, the results in Yahoo & Bing are identical, the other 20% however – well, not so much. This also provides (for whatever reason) an inconsistency in either Yahoo or Bing. Or possibly even a combination of both.

Stay Tuned for Part 2 where we compare the combined average of Bing & Yahoo with similar data in Google!

It relates to Google saying that from now on, the SSL (secure lock) search on Google will become the default setting for the users that are logged into a Google account. The claim is that Google has done this for privacy reasons to protect a user’s search data.

Google reckon that in the US there isn’t a large percentage of users affected (currently) and it’s in the single digit percentages, however it does mean some things for SEO and analysis of results from organic search traffic.

How does this impact on SEO then? Well I believe in these ways:

1. It takes us “back in SEO time” in terms of assisting the clients to see that after good, white hat SEO, non branded (non business or brand terms) are on the rise due to the efforts of SEO. It will make keyword rankings one of the only indicators and although still a valuable one, this isn’t the whole message that needs to be reported to a client. It also takes us away from being able to report on traffic with 100% accuracy.
2. A lack of data going to a client isn’t good for progress in the digital marketing space. Whilst we will still have 100% data from Google’s paid search in AdWords, basically we are having to reply on Google Webmaster Tools search data which doesn’t give us or our clients a “helicopter view” of the real search pattens and channels that are making the SEO campaign a success.
3. The old “SEO Voodoo Magic” will potentially come back in to play. Will this cause unscrupulous players in the market to cloud the market and leverage the ‘unknowns’? Will it essentially scare clients once again into using poor SEO practices? One to watch here as many of us in the SEO and digital marketing space have spent many years trying to avoid this.

Also, back comes the arguments about the long term future for SEO.  Whilst there is definitely still a massive market and need for SEO as long as Google doesn’t become fully paid (I don’t think they ever will), stripping away core data tracking only on SEO Organic results under the guise of privacy only serves to create confusion to clients about what SEO is and does for a business. This is at a time when clients were building to a good level of understanding and knowledge about how SEO and PPC can assist their businesses.

This is definitely one to watch closely over the next few weeks.

Are you sick of seeing your boss continually deflect potential marketing ideas that are preventing the business from growing?

Here are six tips to help you convince your boss that SEO should form a pivotal chunk of your marketing budget:

1.     Scare Your Boss!

Ask your boss for 5 keywords or phrases that potential customers would use to find your company in a search engine. Then show the boss where your company is actually ranking for these keywords.

If your website is absent for these keywords, you might put forward the question “How are people going to find us then …the Yellow Pages?

If your boss hasn’t thrown you out the front door like a bouncer on a Saturday night after your first sarcastic question, the next step is to grade your website against competitors. Use two of your main competitors (do more than two if you like, generally your boss’s ego will not be able to handle this ass kicking!) and compare where you rank in comparison for your boss’s chosen keywords. If you want an overall SEO score, I suggest using the Reload Media iPhone App or the Website Grader from HubSpot.

Note: I can guarantee that you now have your boss’s attention! Now it’s time to sell him the benefits of SEO…

2.     Quality Leads

Providing you have decided to implement SEO with a reputable company (yes, there are a lot of 2-bit dodgy brothers jobs out there), the strategic selection of keywords is of paramount importance. In layman’s terms, using a good SEO company to help choose the right keywords means that you can attract quality, high converting to your website.

Perfect keyword selection means that people who are searching for your products or services can find you easier in search engines for these keywords. This is why strategic keyword selection by a reputable SEO firm can actually delivery quality leads to your doorstep. It’s that easy!

3.     Brand Perception

When was the last time you utilised the services of a company that you found on page 4 or 5 of Google results?

You’re right! Probably never! Searchers who are surfing the Google tidal wave of information automatically assume that the industry leaders are the firms that appear on the first page of Google. This means that if you and your boss want to be seen as leaders in your field, you’ll need to start thinking about getting some SEO done now!

4.     Maximise Your Website Investment

Your boss more than likely dropped a sweet wad of cash on developing a fancy website. But what good is a website if it’s sitting out there in cyberspace getting no traffic, leads or enquiries? This is where SEO is the bee’s knees. SEO is a cost-effective way of driving traffic to your website. So tell your boss that having a website is step 1, driving traffic to it is step 2, and step 3 is sitting back and watching the leads and sales come in!

5.     SEO is Low Cost

Depending on geographical scope and competition for your desired keywords, SEO is a low-cost investment when compared to other forms of marketing like Print Media and the Yellow Pages. When comparing traditional marketing to modern marketing, SEO gets the thumbs up because of its measurability. Through Google Analytics, you can track what a user has typed in or searched on to find your website. This data is invaluable as you can calculate your ROI (return on investment) from your SEO efforts. Your boss can actually see a ROI figure, meaning they will be less likely to keep turning SEO away!

6.     Integrate Your Marketing

Is your boss pumping a large chunk of your marketing budget into TV, Radio, Magazines or Newspapers, but forgetting to integrate it online?

Studies show that a consumer is likely to go online and search for your product or service after seeing or hearing it through an offline marketing channel. So unless they remember your businesses name, they are going to be searching online for your products and services. If you are not ranking for these relevant search terms, your offline advertising efforts could be wasted! This is why your business must use an IMC (integrated marketing communication) approach for all forms of marketing.

Print this out, take it to the boss, and tell them why he or she needs SEO. If this doesn’t convince them, start your own business!

Add your tips below on how you think a boss can be convinced to implement SEO.

It is imperative that when writing blog articles, you implement a few simple SEO tricks to ensure would-be readers can find your blog through search engines.

Here are a few basics to help you write SEO friendly blog posts and get your company’s blog ranking higher:

1. Blog Post Title

Blogging platforms are built in such a way that search engines prioritise the headline or title of your blog post. Google will generally assume that the words that appear earliest in the title are the most important. That’s why the title is the MOST IMPORTANT SEO part of any blog.

Think about your target audience for your blog post and what they might be searching for when looking for your business’s goods or services, and then include critical words from that hypothetical search in the title. The trick here is to get the most important terms appearing in the title as quickly as they possibly can, without it becoming unreadable or awkward to human readers.

Takeaway Tip # 1 – Be minimalistic! The reality is, you are only likely to rank strongly for one or two search terms, so don’t bite off more than you can chew!

2. Link Important Words to Earlier Blog Posts

Search engines naturally assume that a blog post utilising links to earlier blog posts has more authority than one that does not use these links. They also consider the word or phrase linked to the post. For example, an earlier Search Strategy blog post about Google Instant is going to be more likely to show up in Google searches on the subject if another page links the word ‘Google Instant’ to the post.

The higher the authority of the blog you link to, the higher the rankings boost you will receive.

Takeaway Tip #2 – Ensure you link important keywords to other pages or previous posts on your blog to increase search rank. However, don’t overdo it! Overdone links within a blog make it very difficult to read and Google may penalise you if you go overboard!

3. Hit the Tagging Sweet Spot

Applying tags to your posts is a necessity when it comes to organising your blog so both humans and search engines can find what they’re looking for. Tags are normally terms like ‘AdWords’, ‘SEO’ or ‘marketing’ that reflect the topics and content of the post.

Google will go through your tags and prioritise your site in search rankings for your tagged terms. Your tags can be a mixture of other pages on your blog (usually a backlog of other posts with the same tag), and linked terms to other pages.

Takeaway Tip #3 – Use between five to 10 pertinent tags.  However, don’t try to overdo your tags because Google is wary of sites that try to game the system. Google will penalise you in the search results if they suspect you are trying to associate your content with unrelated topics to score extra traffic.

4. Use Google Insights to find the Best Search Terms

When creating your blog, use Google Insights to find the best search terms to link to or put in your post’s title. Google Insights is a web based tool that compares the popularity of any search terms you want to know about.

For example, if you are a Digital Marketing Firm or Agency and you’re unsure as to whether ‘Digital Marketing Firm’ or ‘Digital Marketing Agency’ is a more popular search term, Insights can tell you!

These tips should get your company’s blog ranking higher in the search engines.

Add your tips on how to write SEO friendly blog posts in the comments below.

Apologies for the acronym soup I’ve served up today. Before we indulge in the main course, here’s the menu in brief:

IMC

IMC stands for Integrated Marketing Communication. According to Wikipedia, IMC is a “holistic approach to marketing” that “aims to ensure consistency of message and the complementary use of media” (IMC, Wikipedia, 2010).

SEM

SEM is short for Search Engine Marketing. In many cases, search marketing includes a wide variety of disciplines but for the sake of this article, when we refer to SEM we will be referring to pay-per-click search advertising. This includes sponsored advertising on the Google, Yahoo and Bing search and display networks.

SEO

If you are an avid reader of this blog, you will likely already have some idea of what SEO is. SEO is short for Search Engine Optimisation (or, for the Americans reading this, Search Engine Optimization!). This involves the process of optimising your website in a bid to improve your search engine rankings on the keywords that are most valuable to you. SEO is achieved through a multitude of visible website changes (on-page SEO) and non-website (off-page SEO) strategies.

SMM

A relatively new acronym in the online marketing field, SMM simply stands for Social Media Marketing. This involves harnessing the communication and viral power of social media platforms in order to achieve a particular marketing objective.

The Main Course

Ok. Now that we know the dishes, it’s now time for the special – a combination of the four!

Consistency. This the main ingredient in a quality IMC campaign. IMC involves creating a consistent tone, character, appearance, personality and message across your entire marketing mix. IMC has been widely accepted as the most effective way to cut through media clutter and deliver a single minded brand proposition to your target market.

You have probably already experienced a quality Integrated Marketing Campaign without realising it. Consider Optus. The way Optus have developed their IMC campaign is through the use of a consistent brand theme throughout all of their visible customer touch points. This theme of course, revolves around the brand colours yellow and turquoise and the use of wild animals in all of their marketing discourse (open a new browser/tab and check out their website now – you’ll see what I mean).

So how can SEM, SEO and SMM be integrated into an IMC campaign? Here are a few tips:

SEM

• Ensure that you develop your PPC advertising campaigns to include keywords that are utlised in your offline marketing efforts (for example brand slogans, tvc messages, etc)
• If your brand has a recognisable and distinctive brand personality, try to incorporate this personality into the writing of your ads.
• If you have a special offer or promotion running offline, replicate and reinforce this offer though your ad copy in the search engines.
• Let users know they have landed in the right place by integrating your landing page/website design with offline marketing themes.

SEO

• Like with SEM, make sure you have optimised your website for keywords and phrases that a potential customer might type in after ingesting your offline marketing material.
• Increase your search engine real estate by dominating the most valuable keyword groups relating to your industry. This will increase your branding and will allow you to reinforce your integrated marketing message every time a user searches for a relevant term in your industry.
• Make sure that, in making on-page SEO changes to your website, that you are able to create a balance between SEO and readability so as to maintain a clear and consistent marketing message.

SMM

• If you have an actual brand character, consider integrating this character across all of your social media channels. Brand characters are very powerful marketing tools and work well to create instant brand recognition and connection.
• Once again, if you have offline promotions running, you can boost the profile of this promotion through a creative social media marketing strategy.
• If you have decided on the brand tone and personality you would like to convey to your audience (are you young with attitude or conservative and corporate?), make sure to convey this personality in your social media interactions. A great example of a brand with a consistent brand personality and theme is Virgin (cheeky, red and white, casual, innovative, slightly (and ironically) anti-corporate)).

Mmm delicious…

I hope you’ve enjoyed this quick taste test on some ways you can incorporate SEO, SEM and SMM into your integrated marketing campaigns.

Please feel free to add a comment below if you:

• Did or didn’t agree on any of the points,
• Know of another good IMC example?
• Or simply have a question about this post!

Interface

The new look and feel of Google bodes a more modern and powerful overall search engine. Apart from the obvious and well publicised logo update, Google have implemented a variety of new search tools and filters on the left which cater to the needs of the evolved, modern day search engine user.  This has been dubbed “Universal Search”.

Users can now more easily filter and customise their searches based on the specific media or service they are looking for. Sure this has been available in a different form in the past but Google is now cementing these advanced search filters as one of the cornerstones of their search interface. The universal search toolbar now also provides a variety of extra search tools such as timeline and context specific searches to name a few.

But universal search has yet another trick up its sleeve. This is the ability of users to sort search results based on how often a website has been updated. This means users can now access the latest fresh content without the hassle of having to trawl through a list of outdated  results. Basically, universal search has made it even easier for users to switch between filters and views of the same search query in order to retrieve search results that are more applicable to their needs.

Finally, another notable new addition to the Google tool belt is Google Squared. This fascinating tool allows users to search for a product, category, service or any other entity and compare the results in a detailed matrix of information (in real time!). It’s just another helpful innovation from the good people at Google. Try it out for yourself here: http://www.google.com/squared.

Algorithm

As most search engine optimisation specialists would be aware, Google’s new search algorithm ‘Caffeine’ has changed the way in which Google looks at your website content. Google is now able to crawl a huge range of internet content (including video, music, news and social media) – faster and more reliably than it ever has before. This has enabled Google to understand the content and deliver a rich experience to the users in an array of new types of relevant and up to date search results.

With Google’s intelligence ever increasing, it has now become more important than ever to use reliable, white hat SEO techniques in order to achieve great search engine rankings as Google is  becoming more and more adept at differentiating between real content and spam/scam SEO work. For more information on how Google Caffeine may affect your business, read Andrew Knight’s article – What is Google Caffeine?

Therefore, employing the services of a trusted and ethical SEO Company is recommended. However there are certain steps which can be initiated before SEO takes place to help make your website SEO ready.

• Website Content: A common and critical issue of today is lack of content (information) on websites. As content enables the creation of authority or “juice”, it helps search engines define what your website is about and ensures correct placement within their indexes. Just as a person will read to learn more, a search engine crawls to gather more information. However, please bear in mind when adding content to your website that it’s unique (not duplicated anywhere else online) and relevant, if not your website may be penalised or removed from the search engine’s index completely. For further information on content and how to maximise its return, please read my previous article on Building Authority.
• Website Pages: A website is generally created to offer a message, to sell products or offer services; therefore it becomes important to structure your website correctly. Nobody wants to read a giant page with information, nor do search engines. Just as we would turn the page of a book or a document, a search engine will crawl a website and its pages and categorise accordingly. Adding additional pages to your website with unique and relevant content will help further improve your chances of ranking higher when SEO is implemented.
• External References: An important factor search engines take into consideration are inbound links to a website, i.e. websites which link to a website. Without these external references, competing for keywords which yield high return is not possible. SEO itself involves extensive link building to help make a website relevant to its target keywords; however there is a line in the sand between quality and quantity. Therefore, contacting other websites which relate to your industry and requesting a link can potentially benefit you, however keep in mind when requesting a link the website is related. For example, if Bobs Tyre Company specialises in selling tyres for vehicles, his industry would be automotive. If Bob requested a link from Jane’s Beauty Parlour, Google may find that to be irrelevant, therefore the quality of that link will be low. However, if Bob requested a link from Smith’s Vehicle Parts, the same industry as Bob, Google will find that to be relevant and the quality will be much higher. For further information, please read my previous article on Link Building.

With these above points in mind and initiated before you enlist the services of an SEO Company, it will most likely save you both time and money whilst increasing the possibility of ranking higher in Google and other search engines faster.

This is great news for users as it means they will be shown real time content based on popular user tweets. As the competition in Search Engine Space becomes more intense, Google and Bing are trying everything to attract users. The big news, however, is this officially makes Twitter the most influential social networking site on the web.

Bing Tweets pulls in trends from Twitter and filters into categories such as “Popular Now”, “People”, “Places” and “Products”, supposedly providing easier navigation to changing trends. When you do a search, you’ll get tweets at the top of the page and shared links at the bottom. The result displayed removes duplicate tweets, and filters out any adult content for better usability. When you do a search, by default new tweets will flow automatically into the tweets section of results.

Google, on the other hand, displays the five most recent tweets for the query the user has searched, giving both real-time Twitter search results and Google results on the same page. So users can not only view the pages indexed by Google but also see relevant Twitter conversations happening for that particular search query.

This will result in companies marketing aggressively in the social media space. It also creates challenges for businesses to ensure that users are updated with latest offerings and ensure customers are satisfied with the products and services they provide, in order to maintain their brand image.

The inclusion of Twitter into the search results will change the internet marketing space, but only time will tell how users respond to those changes.

For example, a site brought to an SEO company that is technically very sound but poorly visually designed won’t convert well, meaning no amount of SEO will be able to increase revenue because users will simply arrive at the site from Google, take one look at it and never come back.

By the same token, a fantastic looking site that is SEO-technically challenged will not look attractive to the search engines when being crawled. This means you’ve got a great looking site that no-one ever sees.

If the SEO industry wants to gain more credibility, then SEO providers need to start acting more like banks that process home loans. In a nutshell, not every home loan is approved.

For SEO companies, we must look at a range of conversion, design, technical and financial factors during the assessment period to ascertain whether the client is serious about SEO, whether they have the right website for SEO and whether they understand that it’s a long term process, and not something that happens overnight by throwing a few bad links around.

When a bank is assessing a loan, they determine whether or not a person is capable of paying back the loan over a period of say 30 years.

With SEO, we need to make sure that the client has the shared vision and commitment to ensure the website is initially designed well to suit their target audience, they are ready to add SEO friendly content when requested and most importantly they are prepared to take the time to read the FAQs and understand how the SEO process works.

Without this shared commitment, sometimes there isn’t any point in doing SEO for a client as it may leave “a bad taste in the mouth” for all parties involved and eventually hurt the industry itself.

For Reload Media’s SEO FAQs, please see: http://www.reloadmedia.com.au/seo-faqs.php

Whereas once the Internet was seen as the realm of IT geeks, it is now common for marketing managers to be heavily involved in the planning and implementation of online marketing activities, even to the point of learning to speak the lingo.

However, one area of online advertising has always struggled to secure its share of the marketing mix; SEO.

SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) has often been classified by businesses as being stuck somewhere between a website maintenance item and a legitimate marketing activity. That was, up until now.

Over the last six months, Reload Media has conducted a SEO Survey for business, and the results make for interesting reading.

79% of Queensland businesses surveyed now see SEO as part of their marketing mix, and only 14% of Queensland businesses have never undertaken any SEO in the past, down from 37% at the same time last year.

About this time last year, around 16% of businesses had no idea how they were positioned in the search engines, with that figure reduced to just 11% in 2009.

So whilst it appears that SEO has now become a legitimate part of the marketing mix, there’s still a way to go before it gets its fair share of the marketing budget, although the recent global economic meltdown may have helped its cause.