Today two of those companies combined their results.  Yahoo! now is supplied search results from Bing and low and behold…when searching “Web Design Greenville” in both Bing and Yahoo! we finally cracked #1.  Persistence pays off (along with a helpful merger)!

It will be a couple of weeks until we get a real handle on how Yahoo and Bing are going to handle search results, but this shows that if you design a website with good clean code, a strong SEO based content management system and you get yourself established, it will all pay off.

But notice the screenshot of Google below. By announcing the new site launch in our blog, within two hours after the announcement, we were able to get the announcement indexed by Google under a search for “Gianni Panini, Biltmore.”

Of course, our ultimate goal is to get the Gianni Panini site winning under searches for Biltmore and Asheville. But it is unrealistic to expect instant Google results, without a lot of money and work.  Results in 2 hours is even more unrealistic…but now the company can get some recognition and there is a better chance someone can stumble into the site.

So keep on coming up with things to talk about and get those keywords out there.  Your blog can be an extra lifeline to product launches, events, and other timely updates.

Reid and Reid Pediatric Dentistry and Orthodontics in Hendersonville, NC was just one such client.  They had just launched their website in mid-June and they weren’t showing up at all in searches.

The first thing we have to do is educate the customer on how search engines like Google penalize new websites to protect the quality of their search results.  The expectation is, for the first six months to a year, your website will only have its home page (and maybe a couple extra pages) spidered by the search engines.  This greatly lowers your chance of being stumbled upon. In addition, because you don’t have many, if any relative links coming to your site from reputable sources, Google still doesn’t know if you are a real website or a spamming website.

Then once the expectation has been set, we then look at the variety of solutions that will get the customer’s site in front of the public the fastest (without using blackhat techniques) via the search engines.

With Reid and Reid it took a little review of the code of the website, looking at who would be searching for them and what they would be searching for, and then building their strength in both organic and local searches.

We are in the early days, but we already have the site moving quickly up the ladder.  For searches in Hendersonville, NC they come up in the Local Business Center at #1 or #2 and in many organic searches Reid and Reid can be found on page two of searches, where they weren’t found at all before we began our campaign.  There are ways to gain quicker results, but in this case, the client wanted to stay within budget.  They can expect results in 2-3 months rather than 6-12 months through this lower cost solution.

If you have a new website or are planning a new site, talk to us about how we can help you get listed in the search engines faster and Search Engine Marketing plans that could have you beating your competition in a fraction of the time.

When you write an article, you place it in a category.  A category is a general concept that the post fits, such as healthcare or IT.  A tag is more specific and helps people find hot or popular topics…such as Apple iPad, hospital care, influenza…etc.  In programs like WordPress your tags will actually create pages titled with this tag keyword…and showing only stories related to that keyword…great for search engines and for giving people a way to scout hot topics.

Check out the tags I used on this article and see how this could be useful for you and your readers.

First, today Dan Rampton of Yahoo! Search announced on the Yahoo! Search Blog  that a web reindexing was occurring at the #2 search engine and you should prepare to see new rankings in the next few days.   In addition, a couple weeks ago Google introduced “Caffeine” a redesigned search engine that will become the new Google engine once beta testing is complete.

So what changes are afoot for business owners who count on results from these two engines?

Well, thankfully there isn’t a major mystery with Google.  By providing a public beta test, Google again shows that it is concerned with making sure the public positively receives the new search engine.  In fact, they offer a link at the bottom of the test engine to ask viewers to let them know if you disapprove of anything about the new search.

From our testing, search results are changing slightly in Google but there doesn’t seem to be a major shift.  In addition, right now there is little or no media (YouTube videos, etc.) in the results. Our guess is, they just haven’t added those in yet.  That is the only problem…if Google is truly listening to complaints about the new search, it may still change from where it is now.

We do know that Google is concentrating on improving the speed of the engine and the speed in which social media is being indexed (a response to Twitter’s lightning fast response to news stories).  There is also discussion that the new search engine will be stronger in indexing news, which could mean hot stories may step in front of static web pages.  Our advice for now is, don’t make any major changes…always concentrate on the most important aspects of SEO, including good targeted keywords, critical structure elements optimized, and clean design.

As for Yahoo! and Bing…we will watch and learn.  Unfortunately we will need to wait until we see the changes before we can make suggestions.  It is important to note though that Bing seems to be working in opposition to Google’s methods.  A quantity of elements over quality seems to rule Bing and optimizing for Bing at this moment could have adverse affects on your Google rankings.  So, this fall many search engine strategies will be adjusted.

If search results are critical to your business, keep close contact with your web designer or Internet Marketing professional.

So, how do we adjust our strategies?  And is Bing worth paying attention to?

Well, I wouldn’t revise my whole SEO strategy just yet.  It will be good to make some subtle changes, but you don’t want to throw out good Google practices for 15% to 30% of the search market.  And remember, Yahoo! was given some control of the display of Bing results on their site…plus Bing has the right to start integrating Yahoo search techniques into their own search, so many things could change.  (A good reason to have some money put in next year’s budget for SEO)

In the meantime, some things to consider to pump up your search results in Bing.

• Think domain name and subdomain names.  Google is not as concerned with subdomains, but Bing likes the keywords that are provided in these.  Maybe add a couple targeted subdomains.
• Ads, ads, ads…with Yahoo!’s need to sell and Microsoft’s sneaky way of putting ad results in the middle of real results, Bing CPC campaigns may soon challenge Google AdWords, if only for the fact the links will look less like ads.
• Get your business into Bing’s Local Business directory.  Google cornered the market in business searches for a long time, but Bing’s advertising blitz may create a buzz that sticks.  Even if it doesn’t its more exposure for your business and that is a good thing.

We’ll keep watching the trends.  Keep Bing on your radar…it could do your business good.