What About Bing?
Search engines are constantly ranking the work of internet marketing agencies and professional SEO services. It seems only fair that once-in-a-while an internet marketing agency (like Axiom Administrative Services) should repay the favor and rank the search engine providers.
It is no surprise that Google dominates the search engine market. According to the website, SmartInsights.com, during 2017 Google produced between 70% and 80% of all search engine results. These queries came from desktops, laptops, tablets, mobile devices and smart phones. In fact, the noun, ‘Google’ has been verbalized to become a verb meaning to search for. We now “Google a question” meaning, “to seek an answer or information.”
The bridesmaid of search engines is Microsoft’s entry, Bing. Bing may control only about 23% to 25% of the search engine market, but search engine optimization services, internet marketing agencies and professional developers of branding strategies cannot afford to ignore it. In 2017, it is estimated that worldwide, there were 1.2 trillion web searches done. Think about it – 23% of 1.3 trillion is still a huge market, one that all digital marketing solutions must consider.
Bing is helped by the fact that it comes as the default search engine for Microsoft’s Edge browser (the successor to Microsoft Explorer). All Windows computers come with Edge installed and with Bing set as the default browser for Edge. There are probably millions of Edge users who do not realize they are defaulting to Bing.
If you are trying to produce and maintain your own website, Microsoft is willing to help you optimize for Bing searches. The “Bing Webmaster Help & How-To” site (www.bing.com/webmaster) gives instructions on topics like, page load time (PLT), sitemaps, geo-targeting your website and other technical topics. As with Google’s help site (Google Webmasters), Bing gives some specific advice about things to avoid: duplicate content (plagiarized or cut and pasted text), keyword stuffing, link buying or link spamming.
Digital marketing solutions and branding strategies that make your business stand out are the same for Bing, Yahoo or DuckDuckGo, as well as Google. If you are really into technical subjects like “web crawlability,” XML sitemaps, navigational structure or title and meta-description tags, Bing’s webmaster site is an honest, straight forward attempt to help you. Most of the advice that applies to optimizing for Google’s search engine applies to Bing as well.
Good SEO techniques, strong content that is relevant to the viewer and kept current, branding strategies and digital marketing solutions that address viewers’ needs will work for Bing as well as Google. At Axiom, you will find the small business SEO skills needed to get your web presence the ranking it deserves in Bing as in Google. Our business marketing team can combine traditional marketing tools like direct mail advertising with local SEO services to build your branding strategy. Please visit Axiom’s small business services page or call Axiom at 800-888-6348.
Happy Father’s Day
Axiom Administrative Services would like to wish all the fathers a Happy Father’s Day.
Marketing to Seniors
Most professional SEO services, small business SEO providers and internet marketing agency professionals are relatively young people. They have grown up with the internet, social media, and mobile devices as constant companions. Because older adults were relatively slow to adopt these innovations, these professionals have concentrated on their peer groups, younger people.
That was yesterday. Today, the use of social media and internet services has grown among all demographic classes, but some of the most significant increases have been seen in older age groups. This is especially true of the “Boomers,” aged 55 to 75. While this audience has evolved, the people who develop internet branding strategies devise SEO techniques and run internet marketing agencies have not. As a result, there is a large hole in the skill sets available to many of these internet marketing agency pros: digital marketing solutions aimed at seniors.
Senior-specific digital marketing solutions can tap into a huge market of underserved buyers and consumers. The Neilson Company, a very well-known name in market research and consumer behavior reported this six years ago in 2012-
- Consumers aged 50+ numbered 100 million people.
- By 2030, the 50+ segment will expand 34%.
Here are two facts that scream, “Opportunity!” Internet marketing agencies and SEO strategy builders have spent their young lives devising branding strategies and digital marketing solutions for people their own age, and they are very good at it. At the same time there is a vast, untapped market right in front of their eyes: seniors! AXIOM Administrative Services sees that opportunity clearly.
Axiom is based in Florida’s Fun Coast, the Volusia-Flagler County area, home to one of the largest senior populations in the United States. As providers of local SEO services and digital marketing solutions, we must be aware of the importance of the senior market to any client. One of our most important clients is the very fine organization, OurSeniors.net, also based in the Fun Coast area. OurSeniors.net has recognized the critical importance of the senior consumer to any marketing effort. From medical and dental practice to home maintenance to auto sales and repairs, penetrating the senior market is essential.
Take a look at this Axiom-produced website, OurSeniors.net. This site is an all-things-senior directory and source of information about senior living, senior challenges, topics of special interest to seniors and providers of services to seniors. This production from Axiom connects business owners, service providers and professionals directly to the senior market. Seniors go to OurSeniors.net because it provides them with engaging, frequently updated content and dependable advice on solving senior-related problems. Both parties win!
Digital marketing solutions aimed specifically at the senior market should be considered a sub-specialty of search engine optimization services. In order to do it right, you must have knowledge of and experience in the senior marketplace. The OurSeniors.net site offers its readers specialized services like the Senior Transition Pro Team, the Approved Vendor Directory, links to senior-related services like Grace Manor Assisted Living and even an online version of its printed magazine, “OurSeniors.net Magazine.” In each of these areas, Axiom played a key role in developing the concept and producing the final product. This is the kind of specialized, professional outcome that cannot result from amateur or cheap web design.
If you are searching for an effective way to put your product or service in front of the senior audience, turn to Axiom. Axiom Administrative Services, has the specialized digital marketing solutions and branding strategies needed to make your business or practice stand out in the senior marketplace. You deserve more than a cheap web design, and Axiom is more than an internet marketing agency. Axiom Administrative Services has the professional skill and small business SEO skills needed to get your web presence the ranking it deserves.
Our business marketing team can combine traditional marketing tools like direct mail advertising with local SEO services to build your branding strategy. Please visit Axiom’s small business services page or call Axiom at 800-888-6348.
Visited by A Bot
If you have a website, even a personal page on Facebook or Google+, you have certainly been visited by a Bot. “Bots,” short for robots, are also known as “crawlers” or “web spiders,” and they are simply software programs that do repetitive tasks over and over. Day and night, every day of the year, millions of bots crawl the internet looking for bits of information, and transmitting it back to their creators. Bot activity is so great that it accounts for about one half of all web traffic.
Many people think that all bots are malevolent invaders looking for passwords, personal data or private messages. Indeed, some are, but bots also perform functions that are essential to the internet. Without them, navigating the billions of webpages on the web would be a hopeless task. They are the explorers, sent to search out information critical to anyone who is trying to find your webpage (or a similar one).
The best-known creator of these web crawlers is Google. ‘Googlebots’ originate in one of numerous locations and thousands of computers all around the world; they use an algorithm (a secret algorithm) to determine what websites to examine, how often, what material to look for and how many pages to look at. Some large websites may contain thousands of pages. This kind of information allows Google, Bing and other indexers to classify and rank the site. That is what is important to the website owner; they want as much favorable attention from these bots and their ranking algorithms as possible.
As the bot examines each website or URL, it looks for information like page titles, location data, graphic image titles, refresh dates and links (or broken links – see our 3/26/18 Blog Article, “Broken Links, Lost Opportunities”). Googlebots, Bing bots and others are like bees, buzzing around the internet and bringing back nectar for the queen bee to process. That queen bee is the ranking algorithm that determines your page ranking.
To extend the buzzing bee analogy, the HTML code elements on a webpage are like flowers trying to attract the attention of friendly bots. They are saying. “Rank me, rank me, please rank me high.” Search engine optimization (SEO) services, the workers in internet marketing agencies and the designers of SEO strategy all devote their talents and efforts to getting that attention. Branding strategies, local SEO services and even entire business plans are built around these efforts.
How active are these bots? If you have a website, even a static, unmaintained site it is likely that a bot from one of the major indexers will visit at least once a day just to see if anything has changed. Some types of websites, like breaking news or financial data pages will be visited literally every few seconds. They must do so in order to keep results from search terms like “Amazon price” current.
For the typical webpage owner, the world of HTML code, page titles, linking and back-linking are far removed from their core interests. Cheap web design without proper attention to SEO techniques will not get the ranking they want and deserve. A professionally designed SEO strategy implemented by a solid search engine optimization company, and combined with traditional marketing tools like direct mail advertising will achieve the results you need. If you are searching for a digital marketing solution that works and a branding strategy that gets your business to the top, turn to Axiom. Your business deserves more than a cheap web design.
Axiom Administrative Services has the professional small business SEO skills needed to attract the favorable attention of those buzzing bots. Please visit Axiom’s small business services page or call Axiom at 800-888-6348.
