Yahoo isn't the only one looking to rebrand themselves. MSN.com has turned into Bing.com. Claiming that the nation suffers from search overload, Bing.com is the first ever decision engine. I'm sure you've seen their really annoying commercials, but is it so different from standard search?
From what I've seen there isn't much of a difference at all. The results display the same except for a tab with more info that appears when you mouse over the right side of a listing. I was going to take a screenshot of an example of it for you, but it disappears when I'm using my capture tool.
So the search is the same, but there are some features on Bing.com to help you waste your time.
The video page mimics Hulu.com with all the popular television shows. Below the shows, it displays current music videos.
The Image search displays the images related to the image of the day. Once you enter a keyword and search for an image it works the same as Google.
Shopping on Bing.com is relatively the same except for their Cashback program. When you buy items that have a cashback symbol next to it you can get up to a 20% discount. Bing.com will email you each time you earn cashback. You can retrieve your cashback cash 60 days after your purchases. You must have earned at least five dollars. They may have convinced me to do my online shopping on Bing.com.
Bing.com does have a neat feature on their travel search called Farecast. It forecasts your fare so you can plan the cheapest fare. The drawback is that your summer vacation might be in winter, because that's when the cheapest fare is. Likewise, if you must travel on a certain date for business or a wedding or something like that, the Farecaster is not going to help you.
Visual Search is another fun feature to use although it is nothing new. Don't stray outside the predefined categories or you will get normal search results not visual ones.
One last feature I will talk about before I send you to explore on your own is xRank. XRank shows what the popular search terms for the day are. You can look up past days as well. You can also check the popularity of your search terms (Hint to business owners).
I look forward to leveraging the MSN or Bing.com. I believe, although the search is the same, the new shopping features will bring online success to businesses that use MSN as channel to reach customers. WSI Internet Consultants know just how to get your company started, contact us today.
Showing posts with label online storefront. Show all posts
Showing posts with label online storefront. Show all posts
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Main Street 2.0: Local internet Marketing (Part 2)
In part 2, we are going to discuss some more similarities between how a business markets themselves on and offline. Main Street businesses spend lots of money to generate word of mouth. Let's examine the most expensive part of those activities especially for a new business: their storefront.
Main Street is popular because of all the unique storefronts that decorate the sidewalks with entertaining window displays, inviting scents wafting from restaurants, and the colorful characters that make shopping downtown memorable. Companies spend a lot of initial investment creating the right look and feel for their storefront. Every element of their design is meant to attract customers and create word of mouth. It is most effective when foot traffic or window shoppers with no set shopping agenda say,"Ooh that place looks neat. Let's check it out!" And you know, when they get home they tell their friends about this really cool store they found.
Internet Marketing has a similar expense when building online storefront. Although a website is much cheaper than designing a physical store it still needs the same care and attention. Like a window diplay your website needs to be attractive and compelling. Like having good employees your website needs to be able to inform customers to turn traffic into purchases. We call these conversions. Conversion based architecture needs to be included in your website design to make your investment effective.
Businesses want to be located on Main Street because it brings them the most foot traffic. Local internet marketing does the same thing for online traffic. Companies need to invest in IM strategies to have the best location among their competitors. Thus, they will gain the most traffic and the most customers for their type of business. Like Main Street the Internet used to be small and simple to market your business. When malls and big box stores started to compete with Main Steet, it had to up its game. Nowadays the Internet is flooded with comeptition and local businesses once again need to up their game. The best strategy for them is to leverage proven Internet Marketing techniques.
Webdesign is the starting point but you can't stop there. You need to promote it and measure the results. Traditonal media can be hard to measure. The Internet makes it easy with web analytics. Like your accountant can tell you how much ROI you are getting per sqaure foot of store space, your Internet Marketing consultant can tell you your ROI for all the ways you promote your online store. Ask a WSI Internet Consultant to show you how.
Main Street is popular because of all the unique storefronts that decorate the sidewalks with entertaining window displays, inviting scents wafting from restaurants, and the colorful characters that make shopping downtown memorable. Companies spend a lot of initial investment creating the right look and feel for their storefront. Every element of their design is meant to attract customers and create word of mouth. It is most effective when foot traffic or window shoppers with no set shopping agenda say,"Ooh that place looks neat. Let's check it out!" And you know, when they get home they tell their friends about this really cool store they found.
Internet Marketing has a similar expense when building online storefront. Although a website is much cheaper than designing a physical store it still needs the same care and attention. Like a window diplay your website needs to be attractive and compelling. Like having good employees your website needs to be able to inform customers to turn traffic into purchases. We call these conversions. Conversion based architecture needs to be included in your website design to make your investment effective.
Businesses want to be located on Main Street because it brings them the most foot traffic. Local internet marketing does the same thing for online traffic. Companies need to invest in IM strategies to have the best location among their competitors. Thus, they will gain the most traffic and the most customers for their type of business. Like Main Street the Internet used to be small and simple to market your business. When malls and big box stores started to compete with Main Steet, it had to up its game. Nowadays the Internet is flooded with comeptition and local businesses once again need to up their game. The best strategy for them is to leverage proven Internet Marketing techniques.
Webdesign is the starting point but you can't stop there. You need to promote it and measure the results. Traditonal media can be hard to measure. The Internet makes it easy with web analytics. Like your accountant can tell you how much ROI you are getting per sqaure foot of store space, your Internet Marketing consultant can tell you your ROI for all the ways you promote your online store. Ask a WSI Internet Consultant to show you how.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
