Search Engine Marketing is the hottest, most efficient marketing and advertising medium today. According to SEMPO study, State of Search Marketing 2009, the spending for Search Engine Marketing is predicted to grow to $26.1 billion by 2013. Frequently referred to as “pull marketing,” Search captures an individual at the moment they view a search engine results, creating profound and immediate opportunities.

Search engines are the #1 way Internet users find websites.  Search engine marketing has proven to deliver the highest pre-qualified audience online, and is one of the most cost effective methods of advertising.

Search engines such as Google boast demographics of adults with an average net income of $75,000+.  See stats below (as stated on the Google website):

Male (52%), female (48%)
High education (61% have at least a BA/BS)
High income (average income is $75,000)
Online experience of 3+ years (79%)
Online everyday (55%)
Online shopping in the last 6 months (91.9%)
Online purchase in the last 6 months (78.3%)

The leading search engines are Google, Yahoo, and Bing.  Do you know where your site is ranked?  We can help you improve your search engine rankings, call us today!  You can contact us via email as well.

According to the reasearch firm ComScore, Bing gained .5% in July 2009.  Currently, Bing has an 8.9% marketshare compared to Google’s 64.7%.  It is noteworthy to point out that Bing had 8% of the marketshare when it was reintroduced to the masses in June.

When(/if) the Yahoo Microsoft Search deal goes through my question is, how much money will Microsoft spend to gain marketshare?  Is there a price?  Once the marger goes through Microsoft won’t be able to hide behind Yahoo any longer, it will be time to play the game.

Here is an article from Tech Crunch:

Bing’s Marketshare Continued To Creep Upwards In July

by Jason Kincaid on August 17, 2009

Another month, another report that Bing is chiming slightly louder. Analytics firm comScore has just released its latest figures on search market share, and once again Microsoft’s search engine has managed to grow while its competitors have seen modest losses.

Bing launched to the public on May 31, when Microsoft held 8.0% search marketshare. Over the course of June and July, the site has gained nearly a full percentage point — it’s up to 8.9%, and growth was actually higher for July than for June, when the site was getting all of its launch attention. Of course, Bing’s marketshare still pales in comparison to Google’s dominant 64.7%, but at least Microsoft is heading in the right direction.

Once again, it looks like Bing’s gain comes at Yahoo’s expense, at least to some extent. Since May, Yahoo has dropped from 20.1% to 19.3%. Google has dropped a more modest .3%, from 65% to 64.7%. We saw a similar pattern last month, when we pointed out that Yahoo was losing marketshare both from below (Bing) and above (Google).

The rest of the story . . .

Microsoft has finally bought their way into the Search Game. Microsoft announced today that they will be partnering with Yahoo to provide a Search product for both companies. Yahoo will effectively be out of the search business but ultimately will handle all of the combined companies’ advertisers.

Based on current market share numbers, assuming the deal passes regulatory inspection, that Microsoft would own 28% of the search business while Google will still own 65%. My hope is that some of the engineers from Yahoo will help refine Bing a little bit. Bing needs a few tweaks (”live” news, search relevancy, etc.), but definitely seems to be on a very sound foundation. We seem to forget that Google had (and still does) relevancy issues. While I don’t expect Bing to transform search overnight but I think in the months and years to come it will be a formidable competitor to Google.

With both Yahoo and Microsoft joining forces to fight Google, that two heads are better than one. They certainly couldn’t chip away at Google’s dominance when they were alone.

TechCrunch has a full coverage on the Microsoft/Yahoo deal.