• Results
• Relevancy
• Spam

In my opinion the true “Google Killer” will be a hybrid of both real-time and standard “cached” search results. Searching for a current topic like “Swine Flu” you want the most recent results to see what is going on at that very moment and content offering in-depth / credible information.Creating a hybrid search engine offers the best of both worlds and limitless possibilities. Take for example a standard e-commerce query -  a user searches for a product  and the results that comes back are for sites that are not only  selling /  reviewing that product but also real-time results for active coupons that have just been posted. Same thing for news or anything related to current events - real-time results for what is going on at that very moment and standard results for more in-depth information. Now all of a sudden real-time search results are creating more value in the SERP, which is true game changer.

So is the future of search real-time? Yes. But with some modifications…

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Today, we’re announcing our plans to roll out a new advertising platform — Digg Ads. Digg Ads will give you more control over which advertisements are displayed on Digg. The more an ad is Dugg, the less the advertiser will have to pay. Conversely the more an ad is buried, the more the advertiser is charged, pricing it out of the system.

You can see what Digg Ads might look like here.

From a users perspective I like the concept of Digg Ads, of course having no ads would be ideal but Digg has a right to make money. However, having the ability to control what I want and don’t want to see makes the idea of integrated ads somewhat bearable. From an advertisers perspective I absolutely hate Digg Ads. First I cant imagine many ads will actually get Dugg very often, the majority of people will choose to bury ads - especially in the beginning. On top of that, not having a clear understanding of end cost isn’t appealing at all.

The concept of Digg Ads will surely  interest some advertisers enough to run a few tests. But, since there is no shortage of  high-traffic sites that target the same demographic , don’t expect Digg Ads to stay up for very long if it doesn’t catch on.

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So now what?

Well if you play around with Bing long enough you will start to realize that aside from the results being similar to what you saw from Live.com (I am assuming the  new algorithm is slowly being phased in) the new Bing is actually a good search engine. Along with relevant web, image and video results; Bing brings cool (and useful) new search features that aim to enhance the searching experience for users.

Better search engine, cool new useful features and a $100 million ad campaign…so what does this mean for the Search Engine Wars? Easy. Microsoft will gain a percentage of users, Yahoo will lose market share  and Google will still dominate. Looking at the data from Compete.com below, it is obvious that  Microsoft isn’t going to catch Google anytime soon, but if everything goes according to plan they should see the gap close.

The best case scenario for Bing and Microsoft entails a successful massive media campaign that draws a good amount of people to Bing to try it out for themselves. Of those people who visit and actually perform a search, a percentage of them become so impressed by the results / UX  that they either no longer go to Google as their first choice or use Bing as their secondary search engine.

Want another prediction? Bing will become the e-commerce / shopping search engine of choice for millions of people . This is where Bing has the opportunity to be a leader…

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The software giant (Microsoft) is set to launch an $80 million to $100 million campaign for Bing, the search engine it hopes will help it grab a bigger slice of the online ad market. That’s a big campaign — big compared with consumer-product launches ($50 million is considered a sizable budget for a national rollout) and very big when you consider that Google spent about $25 million on all its advertising last year, according to TNS Media Intelligence, with about $11.6 million of that focused on recruiting. Microsoft, by comparison, spent $361 million. Certainly Google has never faced an ad assault of anything like this magnitude.

I love the name Bing for an online brand but hate it for the name of a search engine, how soon before we start seeing ads with “Bing! Your search is done” everywhere? Putting the name aside will Microsoft’s Bing be a better search engine? Possibly. Will the average user actually stop using Google because Bing is better? Probably not. Google is firmly entrenched as being synonymous with searching online and that won’t go away anytime soon. Google has the brand association that can not be bought …as long as people continue to  “Google it”, no other search engine stands a chance.

So what should Microsoft do? They should focus their ad campaign on being #2. Admit defeat, crown Google the king and go after Yahoo’s search share. A “We’re #2″ ad campaign will not only be effective but probably save the company millions. But Microsoft has billions in cash so they will have no problem spending whatever they want  - can’t wait to see all those articles talking about how they spent $100 million and upped their market share only 2%.

BING!

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Knowing how much business B&H does online I was very surprised to see that their website was “down” during such a peak time for shopping. I thought this was odd, but not totally out of the ordinary for an e-commerce site. However, after surfing around their website I came across the following message: “Please note that B&H does not process web orders from Friday evening to Saturday evening.” This message linked to the exact times they will be “down” for the next few weeks. Being “down” for this specific time period rang some bells in my head and I knew it had something to do with the Jewish religion (excuse my ignorance). After digging around I quickly realized that one of the most comprehensive and popular destinations in their category wasn’t taking orders for Shabbat. For the uneducated like me, Shabbat is the 7th day of the Jewish week and a day of rest in Judaism.

This completely blew me away. As you can see from the below screenshot, the option to checkout, no matter how many items you put in your shopping cart, was taken away. I attempted every conceivable way to purchase something on their site and it was impossible. I was certain their would be some sort of delayed ordering process in place…but nothing that I could find. During the Shabbat you could browse their website all you wanted but if you wanted to order something you had to wait.

The amount of money lost during the 24 hour +/- time period of Shabbat  is significant, however it is obvious the owners of the business could care less about the lost revenue and focus more on their core religious beliefs and principals. You have to admire this no matter where you stand when it comes to religion or business. How many e-commerce executives would be able to make this call? Not many.

This is the first time I have seen or heard of this - I would love to hear about any other examples of e-commerce websites having planned “shut downs” for religious or similar reasons.

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So what does this mean for search behavior? Not much. How many general web searchers do you think will actually take the time or care to refine their search results? I would guess a tiny fraction of the millions of people who come to Google.com to do a search. Google’s success is based on its simplicity - other search engines have been giving visitors options for years and none of them caught on. People want instant gratification and are used to trusting the results Google puts forth. Why do you think the vast majority of people barely scroll below the fold or click to another search page? Hint: it isn’t because they found the most relevant search result.

From an SEO perspective this doesn’t change anything either. A good SEO strategy should already include Videos, Forums and Product Reviews, so if anything this just reinforces the importance of how SEO goes beyond just on-page optimization and linking.

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I have heard plenty of positive stories and have had my own success using Twitter from a business perspective. Whether for pure traffic generation, customer service, revenue or just general communication - it is clear Twitter is a powerful took every company should be taking advantage of.

Below is a quick list I put together of  ways companies can utilize Twitter (in no particular order).

• Coupon Promotion. Have a coupon or discount code? Why not put it on Twitter and let your fans become your marketers by retweeting and posting. An even better idea is to generate a Twitter exclusive coupon.
• Promote limited time offers. “Only 3 hours left to save an extra 25% off our top products!”
• Online Reputation Management. By using Twitter Search you can monitor mentions of your brand and address any potential issues.
• Customer feedback / reviews.
• Out of stock alerts. Have a hot product that is selling well? Let your followers know there is only a limited quantity left.
• Job recruiting.
• New product alerts
• Shopping advice. Who doesn’t love a good “Here some of our favorite  summer shoes” type links?
• Be the expert. Proactively engage the Twitter audience through Twitter Search. If you are a sock company and someone is asking about socks - answer their question! Not only will you gain a follower you might gain a customer as  well.
• General company news and announcements
• Message testing. Before launching an advertising campaign why not get instant feedback / reaction from your followers first?
• Company fun / random facts.
• Tips and advice related to your companies business.
• Links to new content / blog posts.
• Question & Answer sessions.
• Company stock quotes.
• Market research
• Customer Service
• Promote email
• Promote profiles on other social media services.
• Direct communication from company executives.
• Interesting news and articles not from your company but related to your business.

Should a company take on everything listed above? Of Course not. But, every company who has a Twitter presence should at least be doing a few.

What are some of the other ways companies can use Twitter?

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There are many ways to gain great inbound SEO links, but I have found over the years that nothing is more important than building relationships with the top website / blog owners who are relevant to specific categories I am targeting. What does this mean exactly? Everyone in SEO talks about how to get links, who to go after and how to contact them (form email anyone?). But, most people leave out a component that can work in your favor for the long run - building direct relationships.

Why is building relationships so important? The answer is simple - it saves you time & effort while giving you the results you need. For example, lets say you are building an SEO strategy for an e-commerce company and you are looking for some quality inbound links for specific keywords. You reach out to top related blogs and get a few to write posts about your products - great. But, what if through building that direct relationship you can go back to that  blog every time you have a new product you want to feature or a new keyword you are going after? If you have an existing relationship you can reach out to them directly and start building those quality links right away.

So, the question becomes how do you build these SEO linking relationships? Below is the method I have used with great success.

• As with any SEO link building campaign - identify the top websites / blogs in the specific keyword category you are going after.
• Of the chosen websites, target the ones that not only drive traffic and have a good PageRank / SERP presence, but also have either a clear personal voice or have built existing relationships.
• Send a personalized email outlining not only what you are looking for but why you are reaching out to them specifically. Template based email requests might work some of the time but all of the top site owners I talk to usually ignore them.
• Offer something. The best blogs and websites focus on giving their readers something of value - you need to do the same.
• Once link is live  send a personalized thank you email.
• Follow-up with the site owner on a regular basis with updates on how things are going - meaning, referral traffic from their site, impact on rankings, etc.
• Wine and Dine them. Now you don’t have to go all out but offer to buy them dinner and / or drinks when they are in town.  Even if the site owner never takes you up on the offer the invitation was still given and it instantly creates a bond.
• Lastly, make them feel special. By this I mean send them “exclusive” information, products, coupons, feature them on your website - whatever you can do. It doesn’t matter what you offer them, people (bloggers especially) love to feel they have something no one else has. Give them this in any form and they will be your friends for life.

There you have my steps to building a SEO linking relationship - I guarantee that the time and effort you spend building relationships willpayy-off greatly in the long run.

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Here are some of the new / improved features at Compete.com:

• Enhanced UI
• User Generated Tagging
• Improved Graphing
• Daily Digest Emails

Whether you previously used Compete or not, they are definitely worth taking another look at as web analytics should be a core piece of any digital strategy.

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