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.

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.

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.).

Want prospects to click on your Denver small business ad? Of course you do. Well a recent report by Chitika shows that Bing users are much more likely to click on ads than Google search engine users. Bing users clicked on ads 1.67% of the time - Google users just 1.09% of the time. This percentage puts Bing users higher than both Yahoo and Google users - although lower than users of AOL and ASK.com search engines - who both have much higher click rates (2.48% and 2.92% respectively).

Why are Bing Users More Likely to Click?

Well, this is just one study - from one ad platform provider. It should be taken with a grain of salt. That said, reasons for the higher clicks could be due to Microsoft's intense focus on users who are looking to make purchases - a theory promoted by the article. It could also be that the Bing organic (free) search results aren't as relevant as Google search results. There is also a theory that the users of other search engines are less sophisticated than Google users and are more likely to click on ads.

How Does This Help Me Market My Denver Small Business?

As a Denver small business owner, it is good to be aware of where your marketing dollars are going and how much return you're getting on your ad spend. With Bing search ads getting ready to appear on the Yahoo search engine, it is particularly important to be aware of click trends like this. However, this click data must be put into context.

Assume for a moment that Bing ads are clicked more than Google ads - there are two reasons why this doesn't mean that you should invest your ad budget in Bing first - and Google second. First, Google dominates search. Even if proportionally Bing will bring you more visitors - even with the addition of Yahoo search, ads through Microsoft's adCenter platform will still only reach less than 30% of all searches. Second, clicks are great - you need clicks to have people visit your website so you can promote your products and services. But ultimately, it is all about converting those prospects into clients. You need to look at the ad spend as well as the revenue from each search platform.

My Advice to Denver Small Business Owners

Start with Google AdWords. Get your campaign running efficiently. Get a solid ROI. Then migrate your campaign over to Microsoft adCenter. By starting with Google, you'll learn a lot about your market and your prospects for success quickly. Once you have everything running efficiently, move on to adCenter platform.

Microsoft's Bing search engine is seeing ad impressions go up and clicks go up according to a study by Efficient Frontier that was cited in a recent blog post over at Search Engine Land. The report metnions that ad impressions on Bing are up 56% over the 2nd quarter of last year, and ad clicks are up 34% over the same quarter last year. Impressions and clicks are down at both Google and Yahoo over the same timeframe.

How Does This Help Me Market My Denver Small Business?

Most Denver small business owners should already be advertising on Google AdWords - this is the first place that you should go to determine if you can achieve a good return on investment with online marketing. After you've achieved success with Google AdWords - it is time to move on to other online advertising platforms - like Microsoft AdCenter.

Microsoft AdCenter ads appear next to the Bing search engine results. Bing still has a very small marketshare compared to Google, but AdCenter ads will also be running as part of all Yahoo related searches due to the Microsoft - Yahoo search alliance. With AdCenter ad impressions and clicks growing, along with the Yahoo partnership - it means that advertisers will have more reach with their advertising than they've had in the past. Exploring advertising with Microsoft AdCenter is a must for Denver small business owners.