Since it is New Year, predictions are popping out like mushrooms everywhere. The following are things that should happen in 2012, although there’s a greater chance that it won’t.

Bing Increases Its Search Market Share By 15%

Bing ideally should increase its search market share that will help big companies to be more honest. Apparently, Google is the strongest search engine and will remain without a strong competitor in the years to come.

Social-Assisted Search Crack by Bing and Facebook

The effectiveness of search engines in marketing and advertising has been proven many years ago. Though word of mouth is still the best, a combination of the two can be the most effective means of marketing ever. Facebook and Bing have the potential of cracking this and they would make a good competition over Google.

Yahoo Bounces Back

Yahoo once the Internet pioneer is lacking a CEO and obviously way behind Google. Though it is subject of speculations time after time, a bouncing back Yahoo in 2012 would be great news. After all Yahoo still has amazing services in store for the market.

Specialists Should Deliver Worth Paying and Better Campaigns

Recession along with the cut-throat competition in the business industry has led some clients to settle for a single all-service agency. Even if it means lower quality services in ad exchanges, digital areas like search engine optimization and conversion optimization. Because of cost cutting reasons, many are choosing cheaper deal only to be caught in an unfavorable situation – they are spending less but getting less as well. As Steve Center, Honda CMO once said “If you grind the margin out of your agency you will get a marginal agency.”
Lack of funds to hire the best people or enough people in a certain department becomes the situation most of the time.

Clients tend to spend more by hiring other specialist agencies. And more often than not, they are the ones caught in a situation where they have to start from scratch or to achieve great results in a short span of time.

The Digital Age For CEOs and CMOs

Senior Executives are kind of hard to persuade when it comes to digital changes. They’d rather spend millions of dollars on marketing campaigns than spend for page optimization – although there are concrete benefits for sales improvements. Apparently, there’s a lot more persuasions to take place before top executives get digital and budgets get properly allocated.

Evidently, there are a myriad of SEO tools available that you can instantly find online. In fact, typing the key phrase “SEO tools” on Google will give you over a million search results. This could be a good thing because your options are not limited. All you have to do is to choose which can effectively boost website traffic and revenue. But on the other hand, you’re also bound to get overwhelmed by never ending list of SEO tools. Let’s face the harsh reality that not all SEO tools are a good choice, and this might get you confused.

Want to know the trick here? Simple! Do not use all the SEO tools you can find randomly. It’s best to select only a few tools to be used and leverage them. To help you get started, we have listed 4 basic types of SEO tools that will help you optimize your website. Let’s begin.

Keyword Research Tools – You might have heard that keyword research and analysis is the initial step of search engine optimization. It’s true. Selecting targeted keywords that will keep a fine balance between status or popularity and competitiveness is imperative. As of today, Google is winning the battle in terms of search market share. However, this does not mean you should disregard other search engines. In order to stay in the game, select keyword tools that will provide you with comprehensive data for the 3 major search engines: Google, Yahoo and Bing.

Mega Tags Analyzer Tools – This tool inspects the Meta tags of your web page to ensure search engine compatibility. Does your web page adhere to the basic search engine guidelines? Meta Tags Analyzer Tool will examine this for you. Take for example if the title tag of a web page is more than 65 characters, then the tool will issue a warning. How does it work? Enter your website link in the URL box and this tool will give you results in just a few seconds.

Backlinks Checker Tools – This is often called, link popularity tools. Apparently, SEO is not just about having strategically placed Meta tags and a good content, but also about utilizing high quality backlinks. The idea here is simple. If there are numerous websites that are pointing back to your website or articles, then your site will receive more traffic. This will eventually make your website popular and rank high on major search engines. Backlink Checker tools will help you get detailed information about the backlinks including link authority, PR, follow, no follow, and more.

Web Analytics Tools – This tool will greatly help you power up all the SEO activities of your website. If you want to enhance the page optimization of your web page, then a Web Analytics Tool can help you accomplish this. You can make use of either free or paid analytics tool offered online. Just a heads up, deploy two to three Web Analytics Tool in order to acquire accurate metrics.

To obtain additional functionality and to help your website get high ranking in major search engines, you may also use different SEO toolbars and browser add-ons.

Social networking is more popular than ever. In fact, its popularity is still continuously rising. This is why a social strategy is imperative when it comes to online marketing and search engine optimization (SEO). For example, there are more than 800 million Facebook users from all over the globe. This means millions of potential customers. This is simply too good to pass up for most businesses so a good social networking strategy is a must nowadays.

The trend now is focusing on casual connection. First of all, casual connection is a term used for partially engaged communication. People love to feel connected to others without the load of giving their full attention. There are just too many ways to engage in casual communications today. Some examples are forums, bulletin boards, chat, texting, Facebook and so on. These things are now considered norms or ordinary things in our lives. Can you imagine living without these?

Why Casual Communication Matters
These things have made casual communication change the way we communicate with each other. It’s a new world especially when compared to 10 or 20 years ago. Change is a normal part of life and the only thing we can do is to evolve and adapt. In terms of SEO, it is critical to have a good social network strategy these days. So what is the best weapon in your SEO arsenal for social networking? It’s casual communication.

Just look at the facts: Bing recently released data that indicates that around 90% of people seek advice from family or friends as an important part of the decision making process. In the world of social media, friends are defined very loosely. Just think about the process of liking, sharing and making comments on Facebook and other social networks. These are simply examples of casual communication.

Making it Work for Your Business
The key is to allow people (customers/potential customers) to make a casual connection with you. On their part, this has to be beneficial. For example they should be able to ask about your products/services or give suggestions. Here are some simple suggestions for making casual connections:

1. Be less formal in your communication as formality usually doesn’t do well in social media.
2. You need to show personality. Don’t take this to an extreme. Your customers/potential customers just need to know that you’re human and not a robot.
3. Be responsive! You simply need to answer queries as fast as possible.
4. Support others. You should always give back to others. A good example is sharing other people’s content or giving complements when other people deserve it.

According to Bing, so far 2011 was the year of musical superstars, fascination with celebrities, saving money, new royalty and concern for human tragedy. The scope of searches varies from rising starts and weddings to captivating trials and disasters. Based on billions of search queries, here are the most searched so far of 2011:

Most Searched Person of the Year
Bieber fever ruled in 2011 and Canada’s hottest superstar export is the most searched person on Bing this year. Since Bieber’s YouTube days, he has rocketed into a worldwide phenomenon wherein everyone wants a piece of the Bieber. The latest story is regarding Bieber’s paternity case involving a woman who claims that the superstar is the father of her child. This issue will ensure that Bieber will end the year strong.

Most Searched Person in 2011 vs. 2010
Kim Kardachian was the most searched person in 2010. She’s now in second place with Bieber on the top spot jumping all the way from number 6 last year. In 2011, Jennifer Aniston is in third place from ninth place in 2010. Fourth place in 2011 is occupied by none other than Lindsay Lohan who is on her way back to jail. In fifth place is Jennifer Lopez particularly because of her separation from husband of seven years Marc Anthony. The succeeding spots in 2011 are occupied by Britney Spears, Katy Perry, Megan Fox, Lady Gaga and Miley Cyrus in particular orderorder. Sandra Bullock who was number 2 in 2010 is out of the top 10 along with Barack Obama (#5), Kate Gosselin (#7), Jesse James (#8) and Michael Jackson (#10).

Most Searched News Stories for 2011
In terms of news stories, the Casey Anthony trial is #1 for 2011 with Bin Laden’s death in second place. On the third spot is Hurricane Irene followed by the earthquake and tsunami disaster in Japan. Number 5 is Amy Winehouse’s death followed by the Joplin Tornado, Conrad Murray/Michael Jackson trial and 9/11 10th year anniversary in particular order.

Most Searched Consumer Electronics for 2011
This year, gadgets also captured the interest of the public. The most searched consumer product was the Xbox beating the Nintendo Wii and Sony’s Playstation as the top game console in 2011. Among the most searched consumer electronics for 2011 in fifth place is the iPhone 5 which still doesn’t exist. In second place is Kindle followed by Playstation on third place.

Yes, you’re eyes aren’t deceiving you. MC Hammer really is planning to launch his own search engine which he calls WireDoo. His goal here is to battle with Yahoo, Google, Bing and the other major search engines. Most people are shocked but MC Hammer has actually been in the tech game for several years now.

Stanley K. Burrell who is more popularly known as MC Hammer is a “webpreneur” or web entrepreneur. According to Burrell, his approach is a lot different from search engine giants and claims to address the most common problems the top search engines still haven’t solved for users. WireDoo is still in limited pre-beta after around 2 years but they plan a launch date this December.

Techy Hammer
Burrell was a Twitter adopter and is a devoted investor in start-up tech companies. In 2009, he made a quite interesting speech in front of Harvard Business School students regarding social media. As he shared his knowledge on entrepreneurship and marketing, he told his audience that he is creating his social media ecosystem one peg at a time. He even has a BurrellTime iPhone app which lets users to keep up with his activities in real time, plus a website DanceJam.com which is a fruit of his adept experience in the entertainment industry.

More Details on WireDoo
According to Burrell, WireDoo was born because of his aspiration and passion to get better search results using relationship-driven searches. According to him, search results should provide deeper and more useful information that go beyond mere overviews. With this in mind, he believes that WireDoo search results will significantly improve overall user experience.

Burrell described in a recent interview how his search engine works and he explained that the engine crawls using algorithm that is skillfully designed to obtain all the related information/ searches to the entered query. Additionally, it is packaged constantly in a single environment.
Depending on the initial response to WireDoo, Burrell stated that it may be incorporated into another company’s offering. It could also become an independent platform if the response is very good. However, according to Richard Chavez of PM Digital, the top organic and paid search firm, the best move for WireDoo is a partnership approach. This is primarily because introducing a new brand with today’s competitive market is very difficult.

Conclusion
The top search engines are practically the same. For now, Google owns the biggest slice of the market. Since MC Hammer’s search engine is considerably different from the search engines available today, some people think that WireDoo may just steal enough thunder from the top search engines and change the game. Is it going to be Hammer time again? Who knows? For now, all we can do is wait and root for MC Hammer.

Competition in search engine market is heating up with more number of people using Bing as their preferred search partner on the web. In the last few months, considerable rise has been recorded in the use of Bing by the people in the US. With the rising popularity of Bing, Google has sensed a rival which has the capacity to sweep it off from its search business in the coming time.

In March, 2011, almost 65 percent of people used Google whereas almost 30 percent of the market was captured by Bing, which is gearing up to take over Google’s no. 1 spot in the search market.

From the sheer dominance of Google in the search market, Bing has made its way to reach people who are looking for a better search experience. Its 30 percent share in search signifies its important in the eyes of the audience in the US, at least. Moreover, there are no signs of this growth abating any time soon.

As per the data collected by Experian Hitwise, Google was in complete supremacy in the US search market with no less than 72 percent of market share where are Bing accounted for 24 percent. However, in the past six months; the statistics have changed. Now, Bing has captured 30 percent while Google has come down to 62 percent. Bing.com has gathered audience in March this year with its searches rising from 10 percent to 14.3 percent.

It is still clear that Google has a lot of traffic but if the rising popularity of Bing is considered, it is imperative that the gap is closing between the two search powers. Bing is going stronger by 5 percent rise in searches every month while Google is losing its customers by almost 3 percent.

The tables are turning now. Google is losing its agility and Bing is catch up fast with the consumers demand. If this trend continues, surprising results are not too distant from now. With the current trend in search engine usage by the people, Bing is expected to come on top by 2012. With search engine companies trying to consolidate their search market, the heat is on. Of course, this competition will result in a better experience for a common man while searching on the internet. Let us see who emerges victorious in this head to head fight between two of the most valued companies in the world.

Whenever Steve Ballmer talks, we all know it is Microsoft. The Microsoft CEO, will definitely not count his words while speaking about Microsoft.

So when Steve Ballmer, was questioned by Search Engine Land Editor in Chief,  Danny Sullivan, at the Search Marketing Expo in Santa Clara, California, on March 2, 2010 , let’s see what the CEO, Microsoft talked on Microsoft’s Bing, Windows Phone, Twitter and Google.

Let’s look at what the gentleman, who knows to play his cards right, said.

Bing!

He certainly binged on ‘Bing ‘, the Microsoft’s decision engine.

Ballmer did not deny the possibility of association with apple, just kept it slightly glanced off by mentioning, “A Bing for iPhone search deal is still possible”.

He mentioned that Windows Phone 7 series, unveiled on Feb 15^th in Barcelona, Spain, will definitely use only Bing as the Search engine. It was not made clear whether the smart-phones running windows mobile 6.x would be upgradable to the new operating system.

He also stated that,” Microsoft isn’t interested — at least for now — in releasing a Bing application for Android phones.”

Raw Twitter posts, buried in Bing, will they come up?

On Microsoft’s association with Twitter, he swerved the question by mentioning that though the partnership with Twitter is great, they are not sure about acquiring it. He said that as an independent company, Twitter has lot of value and creditability.” Would they have that same credibility with the user community, if they were captive?” he questioned back.

Has Bing been improving its offerings, in an attempt to eat away at Google’s share?

When queried about what future he sees for Bing against competition, the big wheel said, “There’s no good answer to this question. If you say ‘yes,’ you sound arrogant. If you say ‘no,’ you sound like you are happy with second place.  No one aims to be second, so the answer is ‘yes’”.

When asked whether he believed Microsoft would eventually overthrow Google in search, Mr. Ballmer said, “I don’t know how old I will be when that’ll happen”.

Looks like Mr. Ballmer admits that Google dominates the search engines.

Stirring up trouble for Google in Europe through third parties,

When Danny Sullivian confronted him on the article by the Wall street Journal on Microsoft steering third parties to push against Google in terms of antitrust issues, the suave entrepreneur handled the question with ease. He admitted that Microsoft had been in discussions with antitrust regulators over its search-engine rival being scrutinized by a number of government agencies, ranging from the Federal Trade Commission to the Department of Justice.

The CEO certainly knows to make hay while the sun shines.

Search and advertising, we are a small share….It’s all about Google. They have share, we don’t have share.

These were the words of Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer back in February. He did accept that nobody has any competitive edge in the search and advertising space other than Google. Its a complete monopoly by Google, but now Microsoft has come up with their new search engine – Bing. Here’s the video of Steve Ballmer announcing the debut of Bing from the D7 stage.

So, how much of an impact does the arrival of a new search engine makes to Google? Well only time will tell. But one thing is sure that its gonna take something out of the world to beat Google in their game.