Microsoft’s new search engine, Bing, has been live for several weeks and has already made an impact among the search engine community. comScore reported in May that Microsoft had a 8.2% share of search engine volume. Bing’s share of search during the week of June 8-12, however, rose to 12.1%—an increase of 3.9%.

The increase in Bing’s share of search has prompted many in the search engine optimization industry to take a hard look at Bing and how it delivers its search results. In particular, researchers have looked at the primary differences between Bing and Google.

Domain age, for example, is a factor that appears over and over in the research as a main determinate for search in Bing. Bing gives more weight to sites that have a domain that has been registered a longer period of time.

Bing also appears to give weight to keywords in the title tag of the page. Therefore, SEOs should pay particular attention to the keywords they are focusing on and, when appropriate for the page, include those keywords in the title tag.

Inbound anchor text, keyword-rich text that appears in the copy and links to a particular URL, appears to be another major search factor for Bing. Instead of using anchor text that is around the brand name of the website, anchor text should be used around keywords that can drive traffic to the site in search.

Other factors that have been identified to impact search results in Bing include:

• 300+ words of content on a page
• Presence of outbound links
• Bounce rate
• A robot.txt file that directs the MSNBot to search the page
• Keywords in the domain name

In our own internal research study, we compared several clients and their top keywords to their competitors on the first page of Bing. We surveyed the top search engine factors listed above and found that for our clients, inbound anchor text was the primary determinate of Bing search results. The more anchor text that was focused around top keywords, the better the competitors and/or clients performed in the search engines for those keywords.

Continuing our discussion about integrated campaigns with members of LeapFrog Interactive’s Interactive Marketing team (you can read part one here), the team talks about the importance of a good website to an integrated campaign and offers an example what can be achieved as a result of a well-run integrated campaign.

Integration seems to be the key. So if you are not committed to it, should rethink your marketing strategy?

Amberly Stitzel: No, I just think those clients who don’t integrate don’t get the full benefit of an agency approach by doing that.

Stephanie Stokell: You could go out there and do PPC for your site but if you don’t have the content on your site with the integrated SEO you will be paying more for each click and won’t be realizing the conversion rates that you could. And if they wander on to your site, even if it’s great website, if the only way they’re getting there is by happening upon it, then a great conversion rate doesn’t provide enough return because you’re not getting the traffic that you need. Everything works together to not only bring them in but to complete the whole cycle. You really have to have the whole shebang.

Christy Belden: It’s also the design of and copy for the site all integrated into the marketing of it. You have to have good design and relevant copy to drive the sale and support the SEO. It all has to match.

Amberly: So having the copy and the design for an effective website should be put first before you would even start your campaign. We can drive people to your site but if the site isn’t set up to convert then you’ve wasted marketing dollars.

Stephanie: It’s the house metaphor again. You would be sure your house is clean and straight and well-decorated before you invited anyone over.
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We sat down seven members of our Interactive Marketing team—SEO Specialist Christy Belden, Media Coordinator Emily Carroll, Interactive Marketing Coordinator Miranda Mattingly, Interactive Marketing Manager Amberly Stitzel, SEO Copywriter Stephanie Stokell (who chimes in during the second part of this two-part discussion), SEO Assistant Krista Thompson, and Social Media Specialist Emily Van Winkle—and asked them for the lowdown on integrated interactive marketing programs. From how to start one and what to include to why an integrated campaign is better than running separate interactive efforts, they filled in the gaps and offered a new way to consider interactive marketing “real estate.”

If a client wanted to run an integrated program, what should they start with?

Amberly Stitzel: First thing to do would be to ramp up SEO, perform PPC at a high budget, and then crisscross them.

Miranda Mattingly: You would start PPC at a higher budget because it’s an immediate thing, and can get immediate results while SEO might take a while to get your site up to the first results page.

When does social media come into play?

Emily Van Winkle: Social and SEO are very intertwined because a lot of the social efforts have SEO optimization. Social is going to help SEO efforts and vice versa. Often we would recommend social media be engaged when we start SEO. It does involve a lot more research, a lot more time, and a lot more development.

Amberly: Other programs take a while to ramp up. Even with e-mail, you have to build your list before you start to see significant results. With SEO, you’re going to have to get your code set up and start talking at social outlets. It’s also going to take a while for link building because you can’t do a 100 million links at one time.

Emily Carroll: With display advertising, you have to have a brand in place before you can build out your display images and decide how you want that to look, who your target audience is, and where you want to reach those people.
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The growth of social media is incredible, no doubt about it. A news story across the world breaks and within hours several thousand users have tweeted about it. An accomplished magazine editor reaches out to her college roommate from 15 years ago on Facebook in order to get a fresh angle on an old story. The global reach and sheer speed of social media can be explosive at times.

Brands, of course, are no stranger to this platform. New and veteran brands are emerging as major players in the social media community with each passing minute. However, it is important that brands remember the social elements of all their marketing channels, such as e-mail. With several years of experience under its belt, e-mail marketing has established itself as a trusted channel for brands’ transactional communication and promotion offers. Yet, e-mail is also an excellent example of a seasoned marketing tool whose features marketers are still determining how to properly and effectively integrate into social media.

The truth is that e-mail is a social technology. When a friend or co-worker forwards you a “buy one, get one free appetizer” offer, you have received a message via a social contact. In other words, e-mail continues to be a primary way to share information. E-mail marketing, therefore, has great potential to augment the efforts of a recently launched social media campaign and vice versa. (more…)

A social media page can be a great way to meet people and make new friends, but it can also be a great way to make a fool of yourself and even lose your job. When it comes to what you post about yourself on Facebook, MySpace, or anywhere else, keep in mind that too much information (TMI) is never a good thing.

If you’re not sure what qualifies as TMI, ask yourself these questions before posting anything:

• What would my employer think? Would the thought be, “Why is this foolish person working for and representing our organization? Get me Human Resources on the phone right now!”

• What would my mom think?

• What would happen if this got into the wrong person’s hands (e.g., posting when you would be out of town and thus announcing precisely when your home will be left an easy target for a break-in)?

• Is this something I would want everyone to see (as in everyone online, as in billions of people)?

• Is this something that I want to have online forever (because even if you remove it, someone else might have already posted it somewhere out of your control)?

Just because social media gives you the means to share whatever you possibly might want to share about yourself online doesn’t mean that you actually should. Be friendly but be sure to be smart because online embarrassment can last forever.

Over the past weekend, MSN launched Bing, their new search engine tool. Bing replaces MSN Live Search, which consistently lost market share to Google.

Bing’s aim is to answer the question “what am I really looking for” better than any other search engine. Microsoft wants Bing to be known as a decision engine. For example, when searching for “travel” using Google, you are offered up sites such as Expedia, Travelocity, and Orbitz. These same results for “travel” are provided in Bing but results for travel reservation sites also come up in Bing’s main search area.

Bing also provides an enhanced Related Searches section along the left-hand side of the page as well as a recent search history. One of the best features of Bing is that it offers a local search option with the search results. Once you click on the local results page, you are shown a local map that includes businesses that are related for the search term. For example, the “travel” search term produced local results for lodging and travel agencies.

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NOTE: This does not represent the views or opinions of the company, just mine….

The University of Kentucky has one of the most loyal, enthusiastic, and fanatical fan bases of any college around. I should know—I’m one of them.

The devotion of UK fans has made its impact on the online world as well. We’re notorious for causing sites like Rivals.com, Scout.com, Kentuckysportsradio.com, and many other blogs, forums, and chat rooms all sorts of technical difficulties whenever a big newsworthy UK sports story is breaking. It’s not uncommon for 20,000 UK fans to hit a chat room whenever a story goes down. It could be a new recruit signing on to play for the Cats or word that one of our starters is staying with the team for another year. Regardless, whenever these news items start to pop, the traffic UK fans generate to all these sites overloads them to the point where they all crash.

Even our coaching staff is connected. Coach Calipari has a very popular Twitter account. In fact, it’s so popular that it had over 20,000 followers within the first three weeks after it went active. And it didn’t stop there. He has over 100,000 followers now.

Coach Cal keeps the UK fan base up to date on what he is doing and what’s new with the b-ball program. He also provides recommendations for books to read and offers up some life advice as well.

UK’s football coach, Rich Brooks, also has a Twitter account but it isn’t quite the same as Calipari’s. Coach Brooks has tweeted about what he’s growing in his garden and which of his garden’s vegetable crop are his favorites. But he is older than Coach Cal and might not be getting the hang of all this newfangled technology yet.

When it comes to social media, the Internet, and frankly, everything else, nothing can top the Big Blue Nation.

We recently sat down and chatted with Amberly Stitzel, an interactive marketing manager here at LeapFrog. As a result, we now know that, among other things, when she’s not sleeping in she’s watching TV, and she thinks a certain Disney diva’s recent cinema magnum opus was “so cute.”

What is it you do exactly?: I lead our pay-per-click marketing team.

What’s one thing someone needs to know about you to get an idea about who you are?: People should know that I’m very direct. You’ll never have to ask me what I think about something because I’ll probably tell you and what I tell you won’t be a lie. I will speak up when I think it is necessary.

Biggest fear: Honestly, I’m deathly afraid of fire. I could see the smallest fire and lose it. When I was around 13, my mother was cooking Thanksgiving dinner and as she was basting the turkey in the oven, some of it spilled and caught fire. The flames shot up through the vents and caused something that was sitting on top of the oven to catch fire, too. I wasn’t sticking around. I was out the door before anyone else even moved.

Favorite word: My second favorite word is “subsidiary” My favorite word is a little content questionable (but still a funny word to say), so we’ll go with #2, which I think is just fun to say.

Least favorite word: Vomit

Favorite weekend activity: Sleeping in and catching up on my TV shows.

Ideal job (other than working for LFI): A singer, probably locally. I don’t want to do the whole stardom thing. I’d want to play at bookstores, coffee shops, parties…nothing like the bar scene because that’s not me. (more…)

Chances are, if you’re on LeapFrog’s site, you’ve heard of Social Media Marketing. While there is so much buzz about social media, I know that much of the population either doesn’t understand what social media marketing is or doesn’t understand how it can be applied in a marketing setting.

So, here’s the scoop.

People are going to talk about your brand whether you’re there to listen or not. The advantage of social media is that you can see what is being said about your brand and join the conversation if you please.

Basically, it’s a super-powered form of word-of-mouth marketing which takes place on the Internet. We all know you’re going to trust the opinion of someone you know more than you would a stranger, so it makes sense you’re naturally going to share this information online as well. This is the basis of social media marketing. It’s about forming a community where conversation can take place about your brand. And what better place than in your own backyard? (more…)

You might think the process of sorting through campaign performance data and preparing client reports is a relatively dry job to perform, lacking any sort of big adrenaline rush. Well let me tell you something….you’re right. Data crunching isn’t one of the most glamorous parts of interactive marketing. Without analytics and reporting, however, there’s no way to separate the winning campaigns from the flops.

To make sure the reporting I create satisfies our clients by providing them the insight they need, I keep a few key points in mind to steer my efforts in the right direction.

All data points are not created equal. All data is useful but sometimes the data that are gathered are biased, making the gatherers look good, maybe even better that they actually are. We might receive data from a vendor who may spin the data to their own benefit. We always pull data using our own analytics tools. We’ll match our results up with a vendor’s to make sure any unusual data are identified. When this occurs, some extra investigation is needed to explain the differences. (more…)