An update to Bing’s webmaster tools was announced today. Webmaster tools provides valuable insight into the search engine’s view of your website. Unlike Web Analytics, which shows you what traffic came to your site, webmaster tools tells you what search phrases triggered the Search Engine to display your content in the search results and if that content was clicked or not.
Bing’s new interface does list the search phrases your site is displayed for, which is especially useful when your site is displayed for the wrong things, and what was actually clicked. However, since it doesn’t show the URL that was displayed or your position in the results (you can preform an actual search to figure this out), you don’t have a compete picture of what content is working and what isn’t.
Crawl errors are recorded and graphed, but Bing provides no specifics to guide you as to what the errant links are or what they are linked from. And the tool lacks reports for incoming links, linked phrases, and ranking information.
In summary, Bing’s new interface is slicker looking than the previous product and has some attractive charts. However I am hoping this is just the first pass and that Bing will flow-in additional information to expose the critical details that are currently missing.
SEM Huntsville, Web Analytics bing, Web Analytics, webmaster tools
On July 14, 2010, I will discuss how to maintain Page Rank when you update or launch a new website with the North Alabama Web Developers group.
This issue can arrise when companies or divisions combine; product lines are renamed or when a new face is placed on an exiting website. Money spent on redesign and years of traffic building can be squandered, if this critical step is missed.
In this session we’ll discuss Google webmaster tools, Google analytics, sitemaps, and using redirects to map content with the .htaccess file (emphasis will be on Apache/Linux hosting).
Please visist the meet-up site for details and sign-up.
http://www.meetup.com/web-99/calendar/13878846/
SEM Huntsville SEM Huntsville
I attended a seminar today that discussed the Microsoft (AdCenter) /Yahoo (Panama) transition. I have hit several preliminary discussions on this topic at conferences, but this was the first one that had any real information about the Microhoo transition.
The seminar was lead by representatives from Microsoft and Yahoo and they set forth a time-line that showed the transition starting in August for completion by mid-October. They were careful to point out that this transition only effects search results and paid search campaigns (not other services such as Yahoo/Hotmail mail, Yahoo/Live log-ins etc).
After the transition, all organic and paid search results on Yahoo and Bing displayed will come from Microsoft. Presentation of the results may differ, but rank and ad order will appear the same in search results for both.
Once complete, the plan is to use the AdCenter interface to manage and view the performance of ads running on Yahoo and Bing with a single bid strategy across both engines. There was a good deal of discussion about improvements being made to that AdCenter desktop to provide better support and performance for very large campaigns. The interface will have improved import/export capabilities.
Yahoo users will see new features including.
- Exact, Phrase, and Broad (formerly advanced) match options
- Match types will not apply to negatives (AdCenter is adding ability to have more Negatives)
- Separate bidding for misspellings, plural, and singular terms
- Create custom reports, improved keyword tools
- Content Network support
- 30 character headline drops to 25 (!)
- Microsoft’s Dynamic Keyword Insertion method
- A search query report will be available.
- No decision yet on how Yahoo conversion tracking will be migrated/supported, but it sounded like Microsoft conversion codes will be the norm going forward.
- Bidding/Trademark policies will be merged into a single policy.
The transition sounded somewhat like the transition from Overture to Yahoo Marketing. If you already have campaigns running in Yahoo (Panama), you won’t be forced to migrate (at least not immediately). Once Panama users migrate their accounts to the AdCenter, any accumulated conversion history from old campaigns will be lost.
More information at:
SEM Huntsville adcenter, AdCenter Desktop Beta, bing, microhoo, microsoft, yahoo marketing
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Simple Facebook Connect Makes it easy for your site to use Facebook Connect, in a wholly modular way.
SEM Huntsville facebook
I attended PubCon in Dallas last week. I have attended several Search Engine Strategies (SES) and Search Marketing Expos (SMX) over the years, but this was my first PubCon. PubCon is driven by the folks at WebmasterWorld, which is the leading source of what is happening in search and is a different crowd than either SES or SMX. I went to PubCon to get a fresh perspective on the SEO universe and I have to say, I wasn’t disappointed. I picked up especially good information on reputation management and Black-Hat SEO that I haven’t gotten anywhere else.
Black-Hat techniques are often used to inflate a websites ranking or destroy some one’s reputation. While I don’t advocate or use Black-Hat techniques (if caught you will be banned from search engines), it was good to learn some of the many nefarious techniques that are employed.
I was eager to connect with some of the people associated with WebmasterWorld. I was extremely pleased to meet Ted Ulle (Tedster), a prominent poster on WebmasterWorld. I attended Ted’s session on Information Architecture [take away: limit choices to seven or less]. I also attended sessions with Tim Ash and Bryan Massey on Landing Page Optimization [take away: test, test, test...] and the session on Local Search Marketing by Kate Morris was especially good and uncovered several recent additions to the AdWords interface.
It will take some time to digest all that I learned, but I will discuss key finds with my customers and begin to roll out key changes for their sites in coming weeks.
SEM Huntsville black-hat, Pubcon, SEM Huntsville, SEO Huntsville
I have assisted with a number of product beta’s over the years, but was flattered when Microsoft contacted me to do an interview about my involvement in the AdCenter beta program.
see: Thank You for Helping Improve Microsoft adCenter
SEM Huntsville adcenter, AdCenter Desktop Beta
I am not a designer, but having been in marketing for many years, I always recommend that clients use a designer for anything that touches the customer. Whether it is business cards, brochures, a trade show booth, or a website, you want to convey the proper image.
A professional designer can help you identify with an audience and project an appropriate image for your company. Even small details like font type, font sizes, colors, and ease of navigation all come together to set your company apart from the crowd and can make a huge difference in how your business is perceived on the web.
Remember when you attended trade shows?
This point was really driven home years ago when much of product marketing was done at trade shows. When walking the aisles of a large trade show it was easy to spot the homemade designs. Sure, sometimes the product was so compelling or unique that the homespun booth design didn’t get in the way, but more often than not, it just identified that company as a minor player in a much larger market.
Read more…
SEM Huntsville designing a website, SEM Huntsville, web design
I am attending the search optimization and marketing conference SMX West in Santa Clara next week. If you will be at the conference and would like to get together, drop me a note. For my customers, this is one of the larger industry events. While I follow in the neighborhood of 20 blogs on marketing and optimization all year, this show does a lot to pull all the information together. Confirming trends and many times is the launching point for new techniques and information.
SEM Huntsville SEM Huntsville, SEO Huntsville
