The launching of Microsoft's Bing earlier this year seems to be another attempt to win over search market share from its main competitors, namely Google. Until recently when many people though of SEO they envisioned optimizing for Google. It was pretty much the most important search engine. With the arrival of Bing, that has changed. Research has shown that the Bing algorithms work differently than Google's. Bing brings up different results, in a different order than Google does. Compare the results between Google and Bing when keying in the same word.

Bing has quickly become a popular search engine and its important as a marketer to optimize your site to pave the way for the Bing algorithms. If your website is customized just with Google's search engine in mind it may be time to broaden your horizons to include Bing's too to increase your rank on this new search engine.

It is important to have a good site map. There are indications that Bing's search algorithms might rely more on site maps than Google's do. A site map is a listing of the pages in a website that are accessible to browsers. It helps visitors and the search engine applications locate pages on the site.

There have been many discussions in the SEO world concerning how Bing weighs keywords. It seems that Bing favors sites that have the keyword in the domain or sub-domain. Consider making important pages in your website sub-domains to improve your rank by Bing. Additionally it is possible that sites with poorly composed code are relegated further down on the list in the eyes of Bing. Good code is a biggie to them. If you were contemplating redesigning your site, now is a perfect time!

Competition in this case is beneficial to marketers especially in PPC terms. Earlier on too many advertising dollars were spent as advertisers vied for the Google attention. In addition, price wars were more likely to erupt when everyone was placing their eggs in the same basket. With the addition of Bing we may see an end to this. it is important to stay neutral and benefit from what both Google and Bing have to offer. As a marketer there are advantages from both search engines and why limit yourself and the growth of your business?

So whether or not Bing will be used as a replacement to Google or alongside, it is only beneficial to optimize your site with Bing search algorithms in mind too!

I am often asked why I should spend money on a custom site when I can buy a shopping cart software package. These packages range from a couple to a few hundred dollars and then plan on spending a lot of time trying to configure. I myself am not a fan of these packages because I believe you are boxing yourself into a product in which you have no control. Imagine, for a minute that the company goes out of business or you are told you can't do it because of product limitations. I've had many clients who tried to take that route of using a bought shopping cart only to later give up and doing a customized site. I had recently one client who was so sure about the shopping cart product and he told me he would have it up in a three weeks. So, he went out and spent $1200 dollars on the software. He hired a person to configure it and nothing. It's been almost six months and his site is still not up. His website looks terrible! It looks like a template no design web site that an inexperience person through together. It has no curb appeal. It lacks features he needs and it is problematic for SEO efforts. So, add up that time and you have spent over twenty thousand and he could have had a site built for ten thousand or less dollars. The site would have contained a professional and custom fit look for his business. The code could have been easily manipulated by any programmer. He would have had all the features he needed for his site and he would be up and running. The lesson learned "penny wise pound foolish". A website is a major revenue stream for your business. Do it right and don't cut corners. When you want to build or design a house. Would you rather have a prebuilt model or a custom house designed for the way you live?

If you are considering doing search engine optimization on website you may want to consider your images. Images are very important for your website. A picture after all is worth one thousand words.

One of the things that you want to do for your website is image optimization as part of your over SEO process. Some of the things that you want to consider is setting the proper width and height, utilizing ALT tags within your HTML image code. However, be careful not to stuff or stay within proper ALT limits for your image size.

As an example you can't have 20 words in your ALT tag if your image size is one pixel by one pixel. You also want to think about using keywords within the image name of your graphic file.

I am often asked by clients "how long does it take to get better rankings?". The answer is that no ethical seo company can tell you how long it will take to get ranked. They can neither tell you where your website will rank once it is indexed.

SEO is a very time cosuming and task oriented process. I've seen some websites rank higher in a few months and others over a year. The key is patience and persistence! Don't give up! Just continue doing your due diligence and your website will rank higher in search engines.

You can compare SEO to a mutual fund. Mutual funds are designed for the typical investor to save money. The key is saving small amounts of money over time. Your buying small purchases at highs and lows of the market and your money is compounding interest over time. The same way no one can time the market you can't time the engines.

Search Engines change their algorithims from time to time, other factores affect engines such as your competition. The key is do put that money away each month or in this case practice ethical seo techniques on your webiste. Doing a little bit each day and over time your website will rank higher.

So, don't give up! Invest in your website and in a good solid SEO campaign. As the saying goes "You have to be in it to win it!"

Social networking in general has been around for many years. We all network with each other at different social events. We talk about whatever interests us at our congregations, churches, club gatherings and more.

Social Networking on the web is an extremely powerful tool to help network your business and attract visitors and more traffic to your website. The key is to work the network!

Work it baby! Don't just sit there and link! Be responsive! Didn't your teacher always tell you to interact with your class. The same applies to social networking.

Here are a few examples. Let say your business sells SEO serivces and any potential business executive who owns a small business might be intersted. I would join a few Entrepeneur or Small business groups on say yahoo groups and start networking with people. There are millions of internet users who are joining these groups on a daily basis. so, lets keep to our example and we joined the "Small Business Group" and by chance this group had 3500 members. Wow! You now have the ability to reach 3500 people where you didnt have before..

This is awesome! You can possibly post messages like if anyone is looking for service or you can help other people who've posted questions pertaining to your line of work.

The same concept applies to networking sits liked linked in, and facebook. The key is don't just join the group. Be an active participant and network!

First of all you might ask, what is it, I never heard of that? White hat SEO means that the company that is doing your SEO only works in an ethical manner with the client's best interest. Your Search Engine Professional only has a concern for your ranking. Black hat SEO on the other hand is done in a unethical manner. Which would you prefer? These terms that used on a regular basis just represent the good guys and the bad guys. When you hire an SEO professional to work to get your site ranked, you want only the best practices used and not have them deliberately do things that are deceptive. By using deceptive or prohibitive means for your SEO, they are wearing a black hat. or which they know the search engines prohibit, they're wearing a black hat. Every company should know the boundaries and stay within them.

White Hat SEO professionals do not play with deceptive means or try to play on the edge of white and black, look for a way to get away with what ever goes and makes them a lot of money, so be careful who you hire. A full service computer consulting firm, specializing not only in SEO, but also in web design, ppc internet advertising, graphics, etc.

Be successful on the Internet, make sure you hire a reputable computer consulting firm who only practice white hat methods to improve the ranking of your web design.

You've heard about search engine optimization or s.e.o. for short. But how do you know if you need to do it for your website? Well, let me ask you this question. If you go to Yahoo, Google, or MSN for that matter and do a search for your type of business and your location. Where do you come up in the natural search results? Does your website show at all? Can you even find your website listed? If the answer is no, then chances are you would be a good candidate for SEO. You should not hold off and start optimizing as soon as possible. Just think how many lost opportunities are passing you by. If people can't find you they can't call you. Ask yourself, if you're looking for something where is the 1st place you look? If you answered the web you are correct. Most people search the web first. So, if you know this then why are you still wasting time? The longer you wait the harder it will be to optimize. Optimization is not something that happens overnight. It takes time and patience. It's more of a life style. The same way your business relies on accounts payable and invoices if you have a website optimization should be part of your business and/or marketing process. For a limited time Bitochon is offering a free website S.E.O. analysis. Let us do a quick sanity check and see if you should optimize.