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.

What if you are provider of daily news updates?  How do you get your site featured on Google News, Yahoo! News and Bing News where people are seeing this breaking content?

One search engine has this down to a science, the other two are still a bit in the stone age…

Leave it to Google to make the process easy.  Just like submitting a website to the general search engine, submitting to Google News is as simple as just filling out a form for your website.  One entry…then just like the old directory days of Yahoo! site submission, you just wait for a human to approve your site.  Then Google takes over and adds your stories automatically.

Not so easy with Yahoo!  For them, the best answer I can find is to submit every story individually.  If you are legitimate news source with a team of reporters, this could become a full time job.

Bing is even worse…they tell you to just email bns@microsoft.com and tell them you have a link you’d like included.  Then wait for a confirmation email from someone telling you it was included.

Really?

If anyone knows a better way, place a comment on this thread with information or a better source…I can’t imaging this is still how they are doing it, but according to both the Microsoft and Yahoo official sites, this is the case.

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.

Its time to start looking at some of the elements of your website that are critical to search engine success.

Next to the website’s URL, the site’s title tag ranks very high on the mythical search engine favorability chart.  Title tags show up in two very important places.  First, if you bookmark a page or look at the top of your browser, you’ll see the title tag prominently displayed.  But the other place a title tag is used is in your organic listing in Google, Yahoo! or Bing.  If you have the right stuff in your title tag, including those juicy keyword phrases you just spent that money on…it can make your organic listing as eye-catching as your AdWord advertisement.

So what should you put into your title tag?  How should you format it?  Here are a few tips for those wishing to use this powerful element.

• First off, don’t go overboard
  Google, Yahoo! and Bing on average only show 60-70 characters.  The other words will still get some power, but your tag will be cut off in search engine results.
• Use keyword phrases
  Okay, pick one or  two keyword phrases that are related to your page content (especially the main title of your page…the <h1> tag to you coders).  Make sure you use these keywords in your page and meta description tag also.
• Divide your content for easy viewing
  When I used to work in radio, I would cut my ads up with hashes so I knew where to breathe and how to see where things stopped and started. Having your phrases | separated | makes them easier | to read.
• Feed what they are looking for
  If they are wanting to buy, use keywords like “shop” “purchase” etc.  If your page is a catalog or information, provide more keywords related to the content.
• Put your company name last
  The beginning of a title tag is more powerful than the end of it.  Make your keywords show up first and then use your meta description tag your company identifier.
• Choose a format and stick with it
  Nothing gets more annoying than going to a site where things change drastically from page to page.  Same with your title tag…make sure it uses the same format throughout your site.

If you use a content management tool, make sure it allows you to customize your title tags or ask your developer how to affect them.  In our content management system (CMS), when you type in a title to your page, it is automatically distributed to the title tag and to other critical parts of the page for SEO.

It is also critical to make sure you are using the right keywords.  Just because they seem powerful to you, doesn’t mean they are going to get results.  There are plenty of great secondary keywords and keyphrases that can be just as powerful as the main ones.  A good keyword analysis will get you off to a good start with your title tags.

Happy editing!

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.

Quite a few years ago, Yahoo! gave away their search power to Google, using them as a major part of their search results.  Then management decided to break from Google and do it on their own.

They had some success but could never touch the 60%+ market share that Google has enjoyed in the search engine race.

For the last year or so, Microsoft has made serious bids to buy the search feature, but Yahoo! wouldn’t sell.  Then Microsoft introduced Bing and the power dynamic changed.  Soon Bing was passing Yahoo! by.   The ultimate result…Yahoo! cuts their losses and doesn’t really get anything out of the agreement other than 88% of ad revenue from its ads placed on Bing.

Microsoft becomes the undisputed #2 in the search market with approximately 28% share (this of course will adjust depending on how the change is implemented and how much Yahoo! users like the idea or decide to jump ship for giant Google.

So for us in the web design and SEO market, its time to take a deep long look at our search engine strategies and make a bigger place for Bing…its not just another marketing play by Microsoft, this looks serious.

We will follow this story and will move our focus in discussions from Yahoo! to Bing and Google in the future.  Stay Tuned.  Meanwhile, check out latest articles on the merger.

• Yahoo Gives In to Microsoft, Gives Up on Search (Business Week)
• With Yahoo Search Gone, Content Becomes King (CNet)

What is so exciting about the new Bing.com you ask?

Well, for  you…probably not a whole lot.  Yes, it does use a slightly different indexing method and algorithm, but in reality, regular searches don’t seem to deliver anything very different than its “Live” predecessor.  For shopping, it does seem to be branching into reviews and pricing searches (like mysimon.com is).  For maps it actually has my business location (which Google hasn’t gotten to yet).  The Bird’s Eye shots are really clean and crisp…  But again, searches don’t seem very advanced and not any more advanced than Google from my initial views.  Time will tell.

For Microsoft, they are going to go on a brand blitz, with millions of dollars going into pushing Bing.com as the hot new competition to Google.com.

You see, Microsoft’s Live search was no unnoteworthy that less than 1% of people actually typed in Live.com to do searches on the site…the other 99% came from MSN.com.  Google has no master website feeding it searches…it uses a combination of toolbar searches and direct access searches, which keeps Google’s name in the forefront.  So it seems Microsoft thinks its way to beat Google is to get a new brand developed again and just heavily promote it.

But this strategy hasn’t done Vista any favors.  Even though it really is a decent and stable operating system, it still has a bad name…no matter how much Microsoft promotes it.  They have started promoting “Windows” now more than “Vista” because the next operating system will be called “Windows 7.”  And maybe that is the key for Microsoft…stop coming up with cute names and different brands…and just call their search Windows Search or Microsoft Search…and then just make a product that doesn’t change every 6 months.