Well as more and more of our clients are seeing and hearing about the “new” Bing search engine from Microsoft I’ve had quite a few questions.  The biggest question is of course that we will include it in our SEO work, which of course we do.

However, from everything I’ve witnessed about Bing after trying it out and after viewing the first SEO ranking reports to come out since Bing’s launch as far as I’m seeing it, it’s the same crap, just a new box.  If it were a product in a grocery store sitting on the shelf they couldn’t even legally call it “new and improved” as nothing essentially has changed except the home page.

The rankign results for all our clients were the same in MSN as they were in the release of Bing.  What does that essentially mean?  Nothing changed, it’s not a new algorithm.  Microsoft as usual just doesn’t get it.  People don’t go to Google because of a nice simple home page and they aren’t going to win people over by calling it a “decision” engine or any other flashy glitz.  People go to Google and stay with Google because they give relavent top ten rankings - plain and simple.  By not changing the algorithm they are not addressing the major reason why they have fallen from 12 % market share to 7% - their results are terrible and people waste valuable time trying to find what they are looking for.

Sure the flash and glitz and multimillion dollar advertising campaign will get visitors to their site, but quickly people will realize that the top ten results are still junk and they will ultimately go back to what works - Google.  Why else would they currently hold 80% market share?

Going into January 2009, I wasn’t 100% sure what to expect.  January is always a web design company’s busy season as companies and retailers have Christmas revenues and are ready to go with all those projects they had been putting off the last 3 months. From everything I’ve seen, business is definitely increasing.  Freelance sites are busier than this time last year, as well industry chat boards and forums are filled with questions.

Businesses should be spending more money on Internet Marketing, which could include SEO, pay per click and online advertising.

Why you ask? The simple answer would be online marketing is much cheaper than traditional print and media marketing and yields far greater exposure.  Instead of paying $2000 for a small newspaper ad or $5000 for a city wide mailer, businesses should opt to spend that money on internet marketing and reach people in the search engines and through online advertising.

A good SEO campaign for 1 year with an ethically priced company would cost less than that one newspaper ad.  How much more exposure would 15 to 30 well ranking keywords in Google yield in a year over one ad in a local newspaper, or one mailer?   Yes, the newspaper or mailer would be seen by far more people but how many of those at that exact moment are interested in what you are offering.  SEO on the other hand, puts your website in front of those looking for exactly what you have to offer.  That is by far the most powerful way any small to medium business can spend their marketing budget in tough economic times.

If you don’t have an SEO company or an internet marketing company, than keep reading below as we’ll give you vital tips on what to look for in a good SEO company.

With the current trend that the search engines have become the new Yellow Pages, Google, Yahoo and MSN have been altering their algorithms (a fancy word for how they determine who ranks for what and how high).   They are altering the algorithms to provide better local results. 

 Just 3 years ago trying to find a shoe store or gift store on a particular street in your town would usually yield maybe, 1 accurate result.  As more people began to search for local stores and businesses the search engines realized they had to improve their local search results and now they are competing to be the best as they know the site that provides the most relevant results could gain a serious edge in the searchers market share that Google dominates.  Google is trying to hold on to it and MSN and Yahoo are trying to capture it.

 Google has implemented the Google map results for local searches.  For instance, search for “carpet cleaning” in any city and you will get a list of results mapped on a mini map before the top 10 natural rankings.  So the question begs, where does your site show up for local searches. 

So how do you help your business to show up for local searches in addition to some good SEO. Make sure you are displaying a full address including zip code on your website along with phone numbers.  The search engines will use this information to map your business. 

Not only does this help but it also increases the “trust factor” for your website.  Search Engines are moving away from companies that hide behind contact forms and no direct address or phone number so having your full address and phone numbers will help to show the search engines that you are a legitimate, reputable business. 

 Home based business may want to consider a box office or an executive rental to ensure you have an address on your site, but don’t include your home address on your site for your own safety.

 In addition to this you need to make sure your site is appropriately optimized for your most related keywords and city name. 

This will help to ensure you are optimized for local searches.  Nothing complex, but you may want to consider having an SEO company optimize your pages if you aren’t comfortable doing this for yourself to ensure that it’s done properly and ethically.