Yahoo and MSN/Bing announced this week that you will now see “Powered by Bing” at the bottom of search results on Yahoo.  What we have been hearing since the initial announcement of the Search Alliance is finally coming to fruition; organic search results in Yahoo are now based on Bing’s index and algorithm.  If you have been hesitant to bid on keywords you already ranked well for in Yahoo, now might be a good time to rethink that strategy.  The fact is, most websites ranked differently in the two engines prior to the partnership and now that difference can directly affect your site’s performance and your company’s bottom line.

One strategy I believe is very relevant today, given the Yahoo-Bing search partnership, is leveraging the keywords from organic traffic and adding those keywords to your PPC campaign.  This approach takes on greater significance if your website historically ranked well in Yahoo, and not so well in MSN/Bing.  If you haven’t seen it yet, you soon will see a major change in traffic to your site based on how well your site is ranked by Bing’s index. You can offset the loss of traffic from Yahoo’s organic rankings by adding the keywords you ranked well for into your PPC campaigns.

Hopefully you employ an analytics tool to analyze and identify sources of traffic and the keywords that drive people to your site.  Google Analytics (GA) is an excellent choice given its wide array of features and cost (it’s free!).  It is imperative you bridge the gap between Yahoo and MSN/Bing for any terms you held strong organic positions in Yahoo, but lack under the Bing index.  The quickest way to accomplish this is to incorporate those terms into your PPC campaign.  In this way, you can maintain a strong presence for search queries in Yahoo even if your organic rankings are buried by Bing’s algorithm, while you work to improve your organic presence.

In today’s economy, consumers are being more price conscious than ever, going the extra mile to research and find a reputable company with the right price for a specific product.

Advertisers want to place their product in front of consumers and have an ad/product that stands out. Shopping feeds, which provide another opportunity for advertisers, fall in the pay-per-click category of advertising.

Advertisers can chose as many or as few of these shopping feeds they would like. Below are a few benefits of using shopping feeds.

1. More Automation– When you upload your products to eCommerce sites, the photos will be adjusted in the feed based on the amount in stock. The cost of shipping calculated and price will be displayed as well.  When you make updates to your product feed, the shopping engine will automatically update the information to display. You can set the frequency of updates to the engine daily or at an interval you decide.
2. More Visibility – Your product will appear next to other products and be more visible, where consumers may have not noticed your product(s) from the others in PPC Results.
3. Targeted Leads – Also, research shows that consumers using, shopping feeds are more educated on the product and are in the final stages of making their decision.

Below are a few features of shopping feeds:

Keyword Bidding: Advertisers are now able to bid on specific keywords for their products.
Product Pricing: Advertisers can have specifications on what products will show. For example, they can omit products under $10 from showing in search results.

Below are two examples of Google searches.  The second image shows a more refined search. You can see how the search results change as the searcher narrows their search query.

Each shopping engine may be manually monitored by you, or there are also vendors that provide one upload portal. Vendors will often format the feeds for each specific search engine.

To learn more about Shopping Feeds, please review our other blog posts.
http://www.morevisibility.com/semblog/articles/shopping-feeds/

A large percentage of websites utilize Search Engine Marketing as a major component of their overall advertising initiatives. Even amidst an economic climate where budgets are stretched ultra thin, paid search is on the rise. According to a recent CNET article, “Paid search is the Web’s latest sector bouncing back from the recession.”

While it is encouraging to see more dollars being spent online, the importance of the message within the ads should certainly not be forgotten. You want to make sure your ads are competitive; Pay per Click Ads are an effective way to drive visitors to your website to (depending on your business model) either buy a product, request a demo, fill out an online form, request a brochure, etc.

Unless your business is uniquely niche, I would bet there are countless others trying to drive the very same visitors to their websites to do the very same thing you are. To complicate matters, the character limitations set forth by the engines can be enough to make you bang your head against a wall! You essentially have to find a way to say what you want to say as creatively as possible, but with very few characters. Trust me, this is no easy task. The key is to make your ad copy eye catching, with incentives to make searchers click on your ad.  This can be accomplished by investing the necessary time to create compelling ad copy that will showcase your positives. Some examples can include:

• The Use Of Coupon Codes
• Free Shipping/Returns
• Fast Delivery
• Free Gift With Purchase
• Low Price Guarantee
• Percentage Off With Coupon Code
• Free Demo
• Free Webinar
• Official Site
• Authentic/Genuine Products

The use of buzz words to create a sense of urgency is also an excellent tool to grab the attention of a searcher. Examples include:

• Now (Shop Now, Buy Now, Click Now, Order Now, etc.)
• Limited Time Offer
• The Use Of An Expiration Date (Valid through 8/31/10)

If you are an Online Retailer it helps to boast components like:

• Huge Inventory/collection
• Full Line of XXXXX in all sizes
• Great Deals

Don’t forget to create a minimum of three (yes three) ads within each ad group and allow your ads to rotate. Eventually you should have *enough data to determine which ad performs the best overall.

*The use of an analytics platform is strongly suggested.