According to a recent report by Hitwise, searches on the major search engines basically held steady. Google stayed at 71%, Yahoo at 14%, and Microsoft Bing at just under 10%.

This isn't particularly good news for Bing which had been rising steadily since its inception. While the Yahoo/Microsoft search partnership will soon be taking effect - with Microsoft Bing powering Yahoo search results - this will still represent somewhere between 20% and 30% of total searches. Google still gets nearly three times the amount of search that this new partnership will bring to the table.

How Does This Help Me Market My Denver Small Business?

Despite the large difference in the reach within the world of search, it will still be worth it for Denver advertisers to have advertising campaigns established with Microsoft AdCenter. While it won't quite have the reach of Google AdWords, AdCenter does have some benefits that I highlighted in a previous blog post. Denver small businesses should first invest time and effort in AdWords to learn about the Search Engine Marketing process as well as their customer behavior online. Once you have a fairly mature, well optimized campaign - take the AdWords campaign and port it over to Microsoft AdCenter.

Recently, Google has undergone on algorithm change which has made life much more difficult for those who engage in SEO for products associated with popular brands. The good news is that the algorithm change could be beneficial for those search engine marketers who advertise with AdWords.

The official Google webmaster central blog mentions that a change has been made in the ranking algorithm:

That's bad news if it isn't your site - and it probably isn't. The result is a huge shift in rankings. As an example - let's say that someone entered a search for "Microsoft Office". As shown below, Google now shows 8 results from the microsoft.com domain on the home page. 80% of the first page results go to microsoft.com.

If you're a retailer who sells Microsoft Office - and you've spent a lot of time and money to develop content that will get your domain high up in the search engine results - this is a disaster. Even compelling, legitimate content which performs well for SEO purposes can be completely wasted in the blink of an eye when Google makes an algorithm change.

What about PPC with AdWords?

Google is always changing its ranking algorithm for organic search results and sometimes these changes really shuffle the rankings. This algorithm change had no real affect on PPC for the search term. As you can see below, only one of the paid search terms resolves to a Microsoft site. It is built into AdWords that a domain can appear only once for each search engine results page (in the paid results). So, if you're a retailer looking to compete on "Microsoft Office", and you want to appear on the first page of search results, it is time to invest in PPC with Google AdWords.

Advertising with AdWords isn't foolproof, and your ad position within AdWords isn't completely insulated from outside influences. You need to make sure your website is well constructed with a terms of use and privacy policy. You need to make sure that your website has compelling, relevant content. You also need to make sure that your properly construct your ad campaign with solid keywords and good ad copy. Even then, competition can enter the picture and make life more difficult for you.

The really nice thing about AdWords though is that an algorithm change isn't likely to come along and turn your world upside down.  

How Does This Help Me Market My Denver Small Business?

As a Denver small business owner, you need to be exploring advertising online using Google AdWords and Microsoft AdCenter. It provides you with a very quick, usually very effective way to generate leads for your Denver business. It also is much more insulated from algorithm changes than SEO methods.

If you are engaging heavily in SEO practices, be aware that your hard work can be undermined with a single algorithm change. Investigate AdWords as an alternative way of promoting your business rather than leaving all of your eggs in the SEO basket.

Entrepreneur Magazine recently did an article which discusses the pros and cons of investing your marketing dollars in Bing vs. Google. I don't want to ruin the whole article, and I encourage you to read it at the link above. I've highlighted two of the most important reasons to try Bing - as well as one that I have a slight issue with:

• Search traffic is about to grow - With the pending partnership with Yahoo, ad coverage provided by Bing will likely triple. Bing traditionally has covered around 10% of the search market, with Yahoo around 20%. This means that ads served by Microsoft AdCenter will now reach around 30% of all searches.
• You Should Diversify - I absolutely agree with this point. It allows you to show your ads in numerous places - your results on one platform may be slightly better than the other. What you learn in one campaign, you may be able to apply to the other. Now that AdCenter ads will be serving approximately 30% of all searches, it makes it worth your time to diversify.
• You can Import AdWords Campaigns into AdCenter - This is not a compelling reason to move to Bing in my opinion. I've gone through this process numerous times, and it is not easy - to say the least. I come from a database background, so I feel comfortable moving data from one format or system to another. Still - it isn't easy getting Google campaigns into AdCenter. I have it down to a system where time is minimized, but it is by no means a push button process - and Microsoft AdCenter could do a much better job with illustrative exapmles of how to successfully perform this action. A novice PPC marketer would likely have great difficulty porting AdWords campaigns into AdCenter using the AdCenter import process.

Should my Denver Small Business Advertise on Bing?

Absolutely - as long as you've tried AdWords first. Get your campaigns set up on AdWords - get your campaign optimized - and then move on to a search engine like Bing. Local businesses need more volume to learn about their markets - and Google's AdWords is the place where you can learn the most and then apply it to other search engine ad platforms.

How Does This Help Me Market My Denver Small Business?

As a Denver small business owner, you need to be aware of the various online advertising options that are available to you. The overriding factor is to make sure that you're getting a good return on your investment on the search engine ad platform that you choose. I would advise that Denver small business owners start with Google AdWords, learn what you can. Get the campaign optimized to the point that you're getting a good return on investment.

Once you've been able to achieve success with AdWords - port the ad campaigns to Microsoft AdCenter. You'll reach a large audience. My experience with Bing is that search volume has been low, but conversion rates have been good. Surprisingly though, in my experience, ad spend isn't that much less than AdWords for similar keywords.

I'm a Google Qualified AdWords Qualified Individual, and my business appears on Google's partner search. Google has recently revamped the way that they expect their third party AdWords partners to provide information to their clients. The new requirement means that AdWords providers (like me) need to provide the client the following information:

• Ad spend on AdWords advertising
• Number of Impressions
• Number of Clicks

This change will be incorporated into the legal terms and agreements in February 2011

Why the Change in Requirements

Brad Geddes over at Search engine land recently posted an article with his theories as to why Google is forcing partners to become more transparent with their AdWords reporting. His reasoning was essentially that some advertisers may come to the conclusion that advertising with Google AdWords doesn't work if their AdWords manager is taking too much of the management fee and putting it in their own pocket. The theory is that the transparency will allow advertisers to more accurately assess whether a lack of return on investment is due to AdWords or due to the ad agency. An advertiser with failed ad campaigns may be inclined to work with another agency as opposed to abandoning Google AdWords altogether.

My Opinion on the New AdWords Transparency

The way that I do business won't be affected by this change in policy. All of my current clients have access to all of this data required by Google in various formats:

• All advertisers have their own accounts in their name. I manage this account, but they have access to all of the data
• My monthly reports to clients provide a summary on page 1 of the report with all of this newly required data by Google

Even though I already comply with Google's requirements, I don't think that these new transparency rules should be necessary. If an advertiser is getting solid ROI on their advertising investment - then great. If they aren't, they need to find other channels for their ad budgets. Although I supply spend, impression, and click data, at least half of my clients only care about spend - and how much revenue they were able to achieve from the ad spend. My clients are too busy running their businesses to dive deep into the numbers. Many of my clients would find it overwhelming to deal with all of the data - which is why they have outsourced a significant part of their advertising effort to me.

I'm also completely transparent with my fee structure. My fees for AdWords Management start at $750/month and these fees are posted on my website. I should note that the services provided aren't limited strictly to AdWords management. To have an efective AdWords campaign, you need to have effective conversion-oriented landing pages. I construct websites, microsites, and landing pages that are completely in tune with the AdWords advertising campaigns to increase conversion rates and help to assure my clients are achieving a high ROI.

Another reason I don't think that the new rules should be required is that I'm already completely transparent with the data. It serves as a great differentiator for me versus other AdWords providers. My clients have access to all of the data, and I meet with each of them in person monthly to discuss the performance of the advertising campaigns.

Why I Provide Clients Access to All Data

There are large companies out there who conduct online marketing using a "black box" approach. Clients pay for their services but don't really know what their AdWords provider is doing. I have multiple clients who have worked with larger companies for their AdWords needs - become disillusioned with their approach, and are now working with me.

I provide clients access to all AdWords data as well as monthly reports so that they can see the value that I provide. It helps to illustrate for clients my activities, the numbers that reflect the result of my activities in AdWords - along with the associated revenue they have received from my efforts. It just makes sense to be open and show the value that I provide on a monthly basis. The openness, face to face meetings, and monthly reporting affirms each month that my clients made the right choice to work with me. Outsourcing complex tasks like AdWords and landing page management makes sense for small business owners - who need to be focused on the daily operations of their business.

How Does This Help Me Market My Denver Small Business?

If you're looking to hire an Agency to manage your AdWords advertising, you need to be able to measure the value that the agency is providing. Online marketing provides the best method available for marketers to accurately quantitatively measure the results of their advertising campaigns. Most importantly, you need to ensure that you're getting a good return on investment for your advertising dollars. You need to have tracking methods in place to determine the actual value that is provided from your ag agency. At the very least, you need to be sure that you have Google Analytics and Google AdWords conversion tracking implemented on your website.

Less importantly, you need to make sure that the ad agency is complying with Google's requirements. The agency must provide you with ad spend data, along with the amount of clicks and impressions.

A couple of months ago, there was an interesting post on the Microsoft adCenter blog that real estate professionals should find very vaulable. In the post, Tina Kelleher of Microsoft provided tips for real estate professionals as the market was moving into the summer. All good tips of course - but the most valuable resource provided in the post was a list of keywords and ads for online real estate campaigns.

I downloaded the spreasheet - which can be downloaded from here. There are over 900 keywords - some of which are very good from what I've seen. There are also over 20 ads - which I thought were somewhat useful, but not as useful as the great keyword list. If you're a real estate professional participating in online marketing, you'll want to check out these keywords to see if you can add any of them to your campaign.

How Does This Help Me Market My Denver Small Business?

This particular resource will only help your business if you're a Denver real estate agent participating in PPC (or SEO) activities. I guess businesses that support real estate agents may also receive a benefit from this list. Obviously, although this list was provided by the AdCenter blog, the keywords and ads would apply to AdWords as well. Be sure to consider adding location qualifiers to the keywords when you use them (e.g. Denver, 80234, Highlands Ranch, etc.).