[MultiChannel Merchant] Bing, Microsoft’s latest search engine iteration, had 6% of the worldwide search engine market share upon its launch in May 2009. Six months later, Bing had just over 9.3% of the worldwide search engine market. While Bing is far from being a Google killer, its ability to attract new users is not going unnoticed.

So how do you gain top positioning in Bing?

For starters, you have to understand Bing’s innovative, sleek new user interface (UI), which includes features such as quick tabs, related searches, and hover displays of document previews. Perhaps most significant is Bing’s ability to organize search results into different categories. Read the rest of the article: Optimizing Your Site for Bing by PJ Fusco

Netconcepts is officially Covario. As of 7 a.m. CST today, my fellow Netconcepts search geeks and I are now official Covarians. We’ve been acquired by Covario Inc., the leader in enterprise class search advertising software and services, headquartered in San Diego, CA.

“With the acquisition of Netconcepts and the GravityStream technology, Covario is bringing a unique solution to advertisers to help them accelerate their ability to present their brands on all the major search engines globally,” said Russ Mann, Chief Executive Officer of Covario.  “By coupling the predictive analytics in Covario’s Organic Search Insight with easy execution capabilities of Netconcepts’ GravityStream technology, advertisers will be able to identify the SEO actions that drive better rankings, and then deploy those strategies quickly, and in a highly scalable way to achieve their ROI goals.”

I’m looking forward to being part of Covario’s world class SEO team for four reasons:

1. Data Driven Decisions for SEO: I Love the focus on D3 for SEO because SEO theory and planning without implementation is a waste of time and money. This acquisition combines a solution that drives intelligent SEO decisions by way of Covario’s Organic Search Insight and efficient implementations by way of  Netconcepts’ GravityStream technology.
2. Big Brand Focus: Netconcepts’ client base has traditionally been ecommerce-oriented. Covario is embedded in tech the tech space. The ability to service high-tech and ecommerce clients will be refreshing, and enable us to apply our skill sets on new industries and architectures.
3. SEO Services Team: We just doubled our SEO team. Who couldn’t want to double down on working with  a team twice the size with two technology based solutions? I’m really looking forward to leaping into the data.
4. Proximity to the Beach: In San Diego, CA or Madison, WI, the beach is never too far away. Just a little frozen in Wisconsin at the moment.

Here’s to a new era in ROI based SEO with the new Madison Covario team joining forces with our new sunny San Diego team. Go Covario!

While working at SparkNet I had managed to pick up some very basic technical skills. Little did I know at the time that learning how to code in HTML and understanding the basics of database management would be of such great value later on in my career. The more I learned, the more I began to comprehend exactly how search engines worked. SparkNet was growing at a furious rate and its founder, Christopher Knight got into the list making business. An offshoot of forums and bulletin boards, SparkList was born and one of its more successful online conversations included the ISPLists.

I met a lot of wireless entrepreneurs during the heyday of  the ISPLists and moderating the conversations was taking up more of my time than originally anticipated. Soon, it became and advertising venue as well as a great place for ISP operators to share their high-speed tricks of the trade. At its apex of activity, the ISPLists caught the eye of Boardwatch magazine and a burgeoning online entity known as Internet.com, the premier IT news an information publication then held by the enigmatic online publisher Alan Meckler. Eventually, the ISPLists and its members became an integral part of ISPCON, challenging the status of monolithic internet service providers like AOL, EarthLink and the like.

Things were about to get very interesting when the ISPLists were acquired by Meckler. As the editorial iron fist of the ISPLists, I was extended the opportunity to go along with the deal and work for Internet.com. Gus Venditto, then editor-in-chief of Internet.com, didn’t think that managing the ISPLists constituted a full time job. During my interview with Gus, he asked if I could write for the ISP News portion of Internet.com. I had to laugh a bit, because I had majored in Journalism at UW-Madison and I had performed as the fine arts editor and eventual managing editor of the Badger Herald while attending college, so I didn’t think that writing about the industry that was a critical focus of my fascination would be much of a stretch. I said “yes, I think I could do that,” and I unwittingly entered into the second major phase in growing my understanding of search engines and the role that content plays in getting found on the web.

All-in-all 1998 was a very good year. I was working in an industry I loved, learning more about the web that I could possibly explain to my family, and writing about it all was just the icing on the cake. Then I met Danny Sullivan and participated in his first ISP Boot Camp for Internet.com writers and editors. Now things were starting to get really interesting … But more on that later. With some technical skills in my tool box I was about to pack up my kit and move to Connecticut to continue my education in just how content impacts natural search engine optimization.

When moving a Web site to a new domain, the primary objective is to make the transition seamless to users and search engines alike. It’s important that the search engines receive the same quality score signals as the pages shift from old to new domains. Learn how to move your site to a new domain and remain on the search engines’ radar. [Read: SEO Best Practices When Moving a Web Site]

I’ve been busy conversing with some ClickZ readers that are anxious to get started working in the SEO Industry, which has sent me fondly reminiscing about how I got my start in the search engine optimization business … before it was called SEO.

I had made the leap to this Internet thing after a successful retail career with Best Buy. (I was the third female general manager in the history of the company.) In 1996 I started working at SparkNET; a small regional Internet Service Provider (ISP) and website design agency.

Suffice to say, I learned a lot. There were many days when I thought my brain would explode from the rush of new acronyms alone. I was ever so proud when I learned my first Linux command, which as Pico; used for looking up and unlocking network access passwords, of course. I also learned my first HTML code and launched my first website, Recipe-a-Day.com. Times were good — as were the marketing opportunities in this brave new online world.

I was learning something new every day and started to really get into using different search directories. (No, they were not yet called search engines.) The Yahoo Directory, Lycos, AltaVista, Excite, Infoseek, Inktomi, Teoma, Dogpile, and Hot Bot were all the rage and Netscape was the browser of choice. If you wanted to get found on the World Wide Web, your website had to be in these high-profile directories. Naturally, I developed a product that would help do just that for our webhosting clients … And that’s I how got started in this crazy business.

But things were about to change as more and more people flocked to the web, as was my career path, when Internet.com came along.  (To Be Continued … )

Coremetrics had some interesting data on how users behaved on retail Web sites on Black Friday. The average bounce rate rose by nearly 40 percent, and browsing sessions decreased by 5 percent, suggesting that consumers were focused less on “window shopping” and more on specific items and deals. If shoppers couldn’t find them on a specific Web site, they simply left and kept searching.

Next year, you can plan on keeping your bounce rates low if you make your content relevant for search during the design process. [Read] Site Redesign SEO Considerations for 2010.

It’s always interesting to watch some of the broader trends in search engine referrals. One of the more recent, and certainly more interesting developments in search engine usage, has to be that less is the new more. At least that’s what Coremetrics is reporting when comparing early 2009 search data with later results.

2009 U.S. Clicks by Number of Keywords

Use of one-word phrases has increased nearly 16% from Jan. 2009 to Oct. 2009. At first glance, this development would certainly lend credibility to those that contend the long tail of search is in full wain. But it really could be more a reflection in the change is searcher behavior moreover a paradigm shift away from the longtail of search.

For example, think about how we search for brands. Do we Google it to go to the site or do we type the full URL in our browsers? Since Google has focused on producing more relevant branded results in 2009, perhaps the data is a reflection of browser laziness rather than a shift away from using three+ words in a search query. Perhaps the
Coremetrics data has been influenced by iPhone usage for search. After all, who wants to type in all those phrases on a mobile search engine. Of course, it could just be that we’re using the search engines rather than bookmarks to return to the same site time and time again.

2009 Clicks by Number of Keywords Data

It’s important to note that the Coremetrics data is specific to clicks on search results as it relates to the number of words used in successful search queries. Also, I don’t know how suggested search results may have impacted the data. Does a one word query supplemented by search engine suggestion affect the data in any way? Either way, this remains and interesting data set to watch as it evolves over time.

Active listening is a method of paying attention and responding to another person, which improves each person’s mutual understanding of the conversation at hand. Often, when people talk to each other, they don’t really listen attentively to what the other person is saying. They’re often distracted — half listening and half thinking about something else.

Yet, when people are actively engaged in a conversation, they’re frequently responsive to what is being said. Active listening is a structured form of listening and responding, that inherently focuses the attention on the speaker. The listener must take care to attend to the speaker fully, and often must repeat, in the listener’s own words, what she thinks the speaker has said.

This is exactly what happens when someone retweets someone else’s tweet. The listener doesn’t have to agree with the speaker — she simply restates what they think the speaker said — in 140 characters or less. [Read] The Art of Active Listening

The divisiveness of the SEO industry has reared its tenacious, albeit link-baiting head again in recent weeks. Apparently as contentious as politics and religion, SEO tactics should not be discussed in polite company; especially the company you keep includes Web designers, Internet technologists, and failed spammers. [Read] SEO Can’t Fix Stupid

Writing for ClickZ as long as I have, I get a lot of questions. While many involve particular circumstances, some questions land in my inbox more frequently than others. So I thought I’d share of few of them with you today. Questions include buying test links, which SEO tasks are the most time consuming and using the canonical link. [Read] SEO Q&A