Look out Google, here comes Bing
As far as online PR and SEO goes, Google has so far been king (64% market share, according to Comscore). But Microsoft may topple the reigning search engine off the hill today with the unveiling of its “more intuitive and user-friendly” search engine, Bing.
This new Microsoft-born search engine could throw your Google-based website analytics for a loop. Here’s what we know about Bing so far:
* It does have a powerful news section that will pick up both press releases sent over the wire and those printed at news organizations.
* It has an “extras” section with listed blogs and a powerful keyword search incorporated to help you find the blog category you are interested in.
* It incorporates Bing411, a search friendly phone database for business numbers (kinda like Google business listings but it also incorporates SMS, make sure you are in it).
* Bing also has a cashback rewards program. Users are rewarded for buying products that they search for (this WILL make a difference with search engine use and could definitely put Bing at number one, though numbers don’t seem to show that yet)
So, how do you make Bing work for you? Bing works by pulling content from indexed websites and displaying the navigation path and variations on the search query off to the side of the page. Searchers click on the new keyword to find information quicker. Problem - it’s going to be a bit trickier to track where searchers are originally coming from this way.
Marketers are going to have to pay closer attention to related keywords and searches to attract new visitors with Bing. Pay close attention to the related keywords and url’s you use in online press releases. The search engine so far has about 9.9% of the market and Microsoft doesn’t seem to be satisfied with that. The software company has poured 80 million into a marketing campaign to give it a real go. Most of us will just have to wait and see how to advance our online message with this new search engine.
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