Customer: “How can I get higher placement in search engines?”

“Really pay attention to the words you are using to define your brand. Get creative, I mean you’ll never rank with generic keywords such online marketing or local house painters. Also be sure you include words that give your geographic location and don’t forget to include variations of your words since people are always misspelling their searches.

Customer: “Ok I can do that, anything else?”

“Yes, there are about 4 other things you can do. Is your website spider friendly?”

Customer: “I think so but I’m not exactly clear on what that means.”

“Two things; steer clear of Flash, Java, frames and DHTML and most importantly make your site clearly named, easy to navigate with correct HTML and no broken links. By clearly named I mean fixing the file names that your pages use to represent a searchable keyword like Ferrari.com/F40/racing-history. This will allow spiders to more easily navigate your entire site for proper indexing.”

Customer: “Thank you, that helps a lot. Next?”

“Many people believe, as do I, that your TITTLE tag is one of the most important aspects in ranking higher with a search engine’s algorithms. So instead of a tag that reads Bob’s Boat’s put in something along the lines of Bob’s Boats – #1 Boating Super Store in SoCal.

Customer: Actually a friend told me about this so I have done that.”

“Good. The last two aspects you must address are content and incoming links. Obviously the key here is as much content as you possibly can but remember it must still be very clear, concise, easily searchable and maintain keyword density so don’t write jumbled, incoherent content and think it’s going to help because it won’t. It will actually hurt your rankings. Finally, make sure that every site out there that needs to know about you does. Of course stick with industry specific and relevant directories and do not get involved with any link schemes.

Customer: “Got it.”

“Ok, well these 5 tools should give you a good start with helping you achieve higher rankings so good luck.”

Customer: “Thank you so much.”

So with all the focus on the deteriorating financial markets it seems that the biggest deal in history has slowly but silently fallen off the radar. Microsoft’s play for Yahoo! is still going strong and believe it or not it looks like it very well may happen.

Yahoo has spent the last month trying everything it can to poison the deal, make alliances with other companies or try to get Microsoft to sweeten the pot but to Microsoft’s credit it has yet to blink.

While most articles talk about the synergies or lack thereof that the merger will produce I wanted to quickly highlight some points that will be beneficial to online marketers, publishers, and advertisers.

1. Better click through percentages in Paid Search – Yahoo! generally has better conversion rates than Google does even though Google supplies most of the traffic. I think a combined Yahoo!/Microsoft team in this highly competitive market will give Google a run for its money. Microsoft has spent a lot of resources on developing some really great analytics for its adcenter network and this should pay off
2. More advertising revenue – Yes, I know if you combine both companies this becomes an obvious thing but theres more to it than just the combined revenue that is already there. With better visibility, greater market share, and the ability to reach a much wider audience through both Yahoo!s and Microsoft’s web properties they combined company can stand to earn top dollar for premium placements.
3. Let their be Search – In search Google is obviously king. While Yahoo has been developing a better search component for a long time now there hasn’t been anything of great substance that has come out. With a combined Yahoo!/Microsoft team they can devote better resources to develop on the Live Search system that Microsoft has spent tremendous resources to build. While its still not as good as Google, the potential is their to make it a great alternative.
4. Why its good for Online Marketers- If your currently doing SEO, SEM, or any other type of online optimization and marketing you currently have to optimize first for Google and then worry about the rest. With a combined Yahoo!/Microsoft you may have a little more work ahead of you as you may have to actually optimize for both Search Engines but the pay offs for your clients should be much greater.
5. Video, Social Media, and More – Both Yahoo!& Microsoft have been playing catch up in the world of Social Media, and Multimedia. While both of them have made significant strides they are not the leaders in any of these fields. Google got a break when it bought Youtube. What these companies need to do is take the best of breed from both of them, combine them, and make them better. Yahoo’s Buzz is one example of late to the game but getting it right. Initial stats show impressive traffic to sites that have had articles pop up on the front page.

Every point I have made of course depends on a combined, efficient, culture friendly company forming. While some things will come to fruition very early, as a combined company they will have some real growing pains. If they can overcome these all I have to say is watch out Google.