E-graphX Omnimedia

Jan 04, 2011 -

Do you think if you've got Google, you've got search down? Uh uh. A look ahead shows changes in the search landscape that you need to navigate. If you've been coasting along on your search marketing, these changes provide new opportunities to muscle your way to the top of the search heap.

Here are four of the most important trends for 2011:

1. Rise of Bing

Yes, the name Google has become synonymous with search, but it's a mistake to ignore Bing. Thanks to Microsoft's partnership with Yahoo, Bing-powered search received more than 25 percent of all searches in November 2010, according to traffic tracker Experian Hitwise. What's even more important is that the success rate for Bing searches -- the percentage of searchers who click through to a website -- was 81 percent, as opposed to 65 percent for Google.

Your best search engine optimization strategies for Google won't necessarily work for Bing, says Louis Gagnon, chief product and marketing officer for Yodle, a company that helps local businesses connect with consumers online. You need to optimize and test separately.

2. Bing + Facebook = Social Search

Bing, Microsoft's search engine, now includes results from people's Facebook friends. These results are in a special section toward the bottom that says, "Liked by your Facebook friends."

For many folks, these will be seen as higher-quality results (unless you love your friends, hate their taste).

Dr. Horst Joepen, CEO of Searchmetrics, a provider of analytics for search marketing campaigns, says this provides an excellent opportunity for small businesses, which often get crowded out of natural search results and priced out of Google AdWords.

"Here, there's new web real estate that's not overcrowded yet. A small business owner with limited resources can actually occupy some of that real estate if it's early in the game," he says.

You now need to do Facebook optimization, as well as search engine optimization, or SEO. Luckily, it's not as mysterious as Google rankings.

The key is building a strong community on Facebook of people who have "liked" your page. For example, an attorney in Memphis whose website doesn't show up in the first page of search results for "attorney Memphis" could get onto that coveted first page if some of the searcher's Facebook friends had liked the page.

"It's who has the largest network and who has the most likes, subjects and topics," according to Joepen. "Picture titles help, too. And have cool stuff that other bloggers repost."

Joepen thinks that the Bing/Facebook integration could go even further. It's possible (although nothing has been announced) that on Facebook, queries in its search box might someday also return results from Bing.

"This could change searching for information online as we know it," Joepen says.

To read more, click here: http://www.openforum.com/idea-hub/topics/marketing/article/are-you-trying-to-...