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While Google still dominates the Search Engine world, Bing has been making some quiet noise ever since its introduction, slowly increasing market share each month.  Some Internet experts feel Google’s soon to be released “Caffeine” search engine is in part a response to Bing.  If you search the net you’ll find some SEO professionals who have been able to test the impact of Caffeine are using Bing results as comparison benchmarks.  Let’s look at another significant, and perhaps more meaningful, Bing versus Google comparison.

Chitka Research:  July 2009

Online advertising network, Chitka, thought it might be interesting to compare click through rates (CTR) of Bing users versus Google users.  Bing was introduced with a massive media advertising campaign touting Bing as the “world’s first decision engine.”  What they found was stunning and surprising.  Users who arrive at a site via Bing click the ads placed on the site a full 50% per cent more than users arriving at the page via Google.   These numbers do not reflect the entire Internet, only sites serviced by Chitka.  Researchers attributed the results to the ad campaign which, with its extensive use of television ads, was reaching huge numbers of existing frequent Internet visitors, as well as less active Internet visitors.

Chitka Research:  December 2009

As all good researchers should do, the folks at Chitka decided to follow up and see how Bing was doing after the initial excitement of a new kid on the search engine block had faded away a bit.  Surprise, surprise; Bing users showing up at Chitka serviced sites are now clicking through the ads on those pages 75%more than Google users!  Some look at these numbers with a high degree of skepticism since there are so many more Google users than Bing users to start with.  Others are not so sure.  One could interpret these numbers to mean that, in terms of getting users to actually see your ads, aBing user may actually be more beneficial to you than a Google user.

Marketing Implications

Go to the Chitka web site and see the results of this study and you’ll find some more surprising results.  Both Ask users and AOL users actually click through more frequently than Bing users.  AOL users apparently click through at the highest rate — 2.5% versus Google’s .98%.  But again, AOL only has 1% of the overall search market.  So why bother with Bing and AOL when Google has 84% of the market?  One way to look at is that for every 100 Google driven visitors to your site, only one is going to click the ads while two and a half users out of 100 coming from AOL will click through.  The point of placing those ads is for people to click on them.  Wouldn’t it make sense to invest a little effort into driving more AOL and Ask and Bing visitors to your sites?  In today’s Internet world Search Engine Optimization (SEO) has really evolved to Google Engine Optimization.

If you’re involved in SEO in any way you probably know about long tail keyword research.  In a classic bell curve distribution of keywords, the shorter generic phrases dominate the middle but in the “long tail” of the distribution there are many combinations of keywords which, while entered less frequently, yield a user much more likely to click through and convert.  Researchers estimate click through from long tail searches as high as 200%!  Many SEO professionals are getting into optimizing sites for long tail keywords since that kind of conversion leads to better overall return on investment.  Wouldn’t it also make sense to optimize for search engines like AOL, ASK, and Bing since their users have higher conversion rates as well?

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About the Author:
For more information on search engine optimization in Toronto contact Wolf21.com, a leading internet marketing company in Toronto
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Popularity: 1% [?]

SEO (search engine optimisation) is the method of improving the quality or amount of traffic to a website through unpaid means as opposed to paid advertising such as Google AdWords and is much easier to learn than it sounds!

Many people think that you need to have a marketing background or be able to read HTML to succeed in the SEO world – this isn’t true.

SEO is not a dark art or a complicated skill. Once you break it down there is just one important rule to remember – relevance.

Search engine optimisation is often divided into two parts – on page and off page. On page SEO is things that you can change and manipulate on your website, and off page SEO is things you can do the same to away from your website. I don’t think that either is more important than the other but both are necessary to start creeping up the rankings.

Let’s look at on page SEO first. For me, this is the ‘bread and butter’ part of SEO. This is where relevance is at its most important. Imagine looking at a website of a company you had never heard of before, but only being able to see the text that appears on it. You can replicate this by going to http://www.asimplewebsite.co.uk/search-engine/web-page-optimization.htm and typing in your URL. This is how Google views your website.

Because of this, Google can only know what you tell it. Your on page SEO needs to tell the search engines about your website and what you sell or offer. Your keywords should appear on your website several times, in the page title, description and header tags – but remember not to keyword stuff, keep the user in mind. If lots of people find your website but all of them are put off by poor copy and design, there will be no one left to buy your product or service.

As for off page SEO; it is the part that shouts your website out to the world. Off page SEO is mostly concerned with building backlinks to your website. Backlinks are like votes, the more you get, the more your website is considered to be good or important.

It is not just quantity that determines your website rankings however, but quality as well. Backlinks from sites that search engines consider to be important are more valuable. How do you tell which are more important? Download the Google Toolbar at http://www.google.com/intl/en_uk/toolbar/ff/index.html. This gives you a Google Page Rank Tool. Google ranks each page it indexes out of 10; 10 being the most important. The Google Page Rank tool shows you the Page Rank (PR) of the page you are looking at, enabling you to see which pages are deemed to be more important.

The best backlinks to get are those that are from relevant blogs, websites and forums – places where potential customers are likely to look. So not only will your website be deemed more important by Google but relevant users will find you as well.

On page and off page SEO together, make sure that your website is relevant to the search terms you want to be found under, and then get the relevant people hearing about it.

There are of course many more ways of optimising your website, but these things I have touched upon are the basics. Once these are sorted, the rest becomes much easier.

If you think I have missed anything or have any other tips, feel free to comment on this article or contact me using the links below.

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About the Author:
Laura Jennings is a SEO Consultant based in Norwich, Norfolk. She has developed SEO Road Map – a SEO report that teaches SMEs to do their own SEO while keeping it relevant to their website. * SEO Norwich * LinkedIn Profile * Article Source

Popularity: 2% [?]

Johns Wu, a 22 year old entrepreneur from San Marino, CA, USA has created blogging history. He has managed to sell his blog, which he worked on for only two year for a staggering US$ 15 Million.

His blog was powered by WordPress, which has become the blogging software choice for many new bloggers.

Wu’s blog was a financial blog located at the domain: www.Bankaholic.com . He blogged related to personal finance: credit cards, bank rates, loans…

Google trends showed that he was getting approx. 8000 unique visitors to his blog daily. His blog Bankaholics had an Alexa Ranking of 41,904.

The Bankaholics blog was managed as a one man operation by Jons Wu. The man revenue stream were from Google Adsense and other finance related affiliate programs.

A financial information site called BankRate purchased his blog for a massive US$ 15 Million. BankRate negotiated to pay $12.4 million up front, with the remaining sum to be paid over the next 12 months, based on performance. Johns was offered to stay on and assist with the transition for an unspecified time.

This goes to show that finance is a really popular blogging topic. With hardwork and determination most bloggers can start to earn a full-time income from their blogging. You will need to spend time one producing blogs that are of the highest quality.

The income generated from your blog will be determined by the quality of traffic to your blog, the number of posts, and subject of the blogs. The other crucial element is the interaction between your visitors.

If the visitors to your blog like the content, they will keep on coming back and also bring their friends. As your blog starts to grow it will attract more and more visitors and create a buzz on the internet, this can lead to exponential growth in traffic and revenue for you.

Popularity: 3% [?]

Beginning in the year 2002, blogs moulded the online marketing world.

While most people at that time started with various blogging systems, eventually most of them shifted to WordPress. WordPress has become so much more since a powerful website CMS that emerged from the need for a better blogging systems.

If you read any popular blogging tips online, WordPress is often positioned as a tool that well,  -creates a blog. But an increasing number of marketers are finding that you can also use it as the most important tool to upon which you can grow a profitable business empire.

The most powerful function of WordPress itself lies in its ability to manage large amounts of text, audio and video content. After a dozen pages it becomes difficult to manage a static HTML site. Although you can use template-driven software as well like SBI or DreamWeaver, nothing beats the ease of WordPress.

Using premium blogging tools you can easily transform create a static website, an article directory, a WordPress based membership site system, a complete e-commerce site, an auction sites, a portfolio site and so much more. As a matter of fact you can also just about use it for anything.

Besides that, Search Engine Optimization is another important element. By default, WordPress is pretty good at optimizing and creating SEO friendly content. However you can also get more serious and utilize simple WordPress plugins to further increase your SEO rankings and get better Yahoo or Google rankings.

However the best thing about WordPress is its flexibility. You can easily switch between WordPress themes, and improve its functions by using plugins and even some custom programming. It’s free and have I mentioned before?

If you aren’t using WordPress you should. The learning curve has reduced substantially in the past 3 years. At the moment it’s so easy to use even a six-year old kid can figure it out. To power your online business, go ahead and use WordPress!

To discover more about WordPress, I strongly recommend that you signup for my website:

http://www.buildinganonline.com/presents/WordPressWizard

As a member you’ll get tons of step-by-step video tutorials on how to use WordPress, web 2.0 technology, search engine optimization, making money from Google AdSense and affiliate marketing, and so much more. Get more information here:

http://www.buildinganonline.com/presents/WordPressWizard

Popularity: 2% [?]

Almost every time you read an article on how to make money from a blog, one of the first word your eye will catch is the word ‘AdSense’.

Most authors almost immediately tell you just to sign up with Google AdSense, copy and paste some code to your site and start making money.

What they do not tell you is, that it is no way that easy.

First of all; no matter how many different kind of advertises, no matter how good they might be, they will make you no money if you can’t get visitors to your site. Without traffic – No money! From AdSense or any other kind of advertising.

And then AdSense:
Do not believe for one second, that you can just set up a quick blog with one of the default themes on blogger.com or the like. Not even if set up with your own domain name on a cheap hosting account.

Google is a very serious company, making tons of money from advertising. To be able to do so, they have to protect their paying customers from their advertises being displayed (and clicked on) at completely useless places such as a meaningless blog, or on what is really just a sales letter.

Don’t get me wrong though: There is nothing wrong with a free blog or with a cheap hosting. But do not try to apply for AdSense and expect to be accepted, without doing your homework first, or it will be rejected for sure.

To get accepted into Goggles AdSense program:

1. Do not apply with a site or blog that is still under construction.
2. Do not set up just a pure sells site.
3. Offer the readers some valuable content.
4. Set up a presentable site, with not too many flashing banners, animations, pictures, etc.
5. Avoid pop-ups. If you want to make use of pop-up, limit it to a single or two.
6. Be certain that your site has no broken links.
7. Create about 10 – 15 pages before applying.

10 – 15 pages may sound a lot, but if you are out of ideas what to write, you might be able to pick up some inspiration visiting some article directories.

Once you have a nice looking blog or site, with plenty of interesting content, and you are sure there’s no broken links, then you can apply for a web publisher account with Google and hope to get approved.

If you are in need of ideas of content to your website or blog, you can try at places like:

http://www.ezinearticles.com
http://buildinganonline.biz/presents/affsphere
http://www.goarticles.com
http://www.submityourarticle.com
http://www.ideamarketers.com

If you want more options, just make a Yahoo or Google search on ‘article directories’ and plenty possibilities will show up.

Popularity: 61% [?]

Blogging seems to become more popular day by day, as people discover it to be fun writing about their life or interests, and being able to share the information with others from all over the world by posting it to a blog.

What is not obvious to many, is the potential to earn some money at the same time. A real easy way to do so is to integrate advertises delivered by search engines as Google(TM) or Yahoo(TM).

Google’s advertising program is named AdSense and is a contextual system, that makes you able to position ads on your website or blog which is relevant to the content of your own content.

This short article is on how to integrate Google’s advertising to a blog hosted by Blogger.

Assuming you have already signed up for an AdSense account integrating AdSense to your blog hosted by blogger.com is really simple.

Log in to your blogger.com account.

At the blog you want the advertising to show on.

• Click on “layout”.
• Click on “Page Elements” (if not already there).

Now you should see a page with the template of your blog. You are able to integrate AdSense to your sidebar, your blog post area, and to the footer.

To ad AdSense to your sidebar click on “Ad a Gadget” and a new window will pop up. From the new window, find and choose AdSense on the list and click the image.

An AdSense block is now present in your sidebar. You can move it to a position of your choice by click and hold right mouse button. Do make some tests to make the adverting block show at a nice position.

Follow the same procedure if you like AdSense to appear in your footer.

The blog post area is a little more complicated, but the build in guide is really self explanationary. Just be aware that there is a limit to the appearances of the same type of a AdSense advertise.

Make sure that you read and understand the terms of service for use of AdSense, to be sure that you do comply to the rules.

Good luck earning from your blog.

Popularity: 63% [?]