Bing has finally figured out a way to pull some traffic for themselves, right under Google’s nose.

With several reports going out confirming the advancement in the relationship between FaceBook and Microsoft’s Bing we can now see their goal to make web searching more social.  This is very interesting as it will give us the opportunity to get advice and opinions from friends and family prior to purchasing a product or service online.  So right off the bat you can see the pros and cons about that ability, depending on your family and friends.

According to Computerworld as of last month in September Google was still standing strong as Yahoo and Bing both took a hit.  So I am sure that Bing is hoping that this upgrade with FaceBook will start to change those statistics.  Suprising as this would be, people seem more surprised by FaceBook turning to an underdog like Bing rather then go for a monopoly with Google.  Google is using this news as a way to push positive PR about pushing the “Google Gods” to strive for even better service for their users.  When Yahoo and Bing merged back in August it didn’t raise a concern simply because, well Zeus Kerravala, an analyst at Yankee Group Research said,

Let’s face it, Bing has been a big disappointment, but this could act as a differentiator, people prefer Google to Microsoft, but they prefer Facebook to Google. If the partnership makes Facebooking better, then it could pull users away from Google.

So, with reputable companies like TechCrunch quoting that Google Me is being “modeled” after FaceBook” it leads me to wonder, is Google Me still be a huge rumor OR could it be the next best thing since FaceBook?

Over the years I have heard complaints about people spending so much money on marketing and not getting any sales.  The traffic is there, the product is great and they even put the time and effort into blogging and article marketing.  Sometimes they even go the extra mile and actually pay an online marketing company to drive more traffic, yet still the same results.  So these site owners continue to rack their brains as to what could possibly be the cause of such results?  Or should I say, lack of results?

Poor site navigation is usually the key!

I was reading this article in the “Search Engine Journal” about how imperative it is to have proper site navigation on your website.  It not only explains the obvious reasons of why it is so important to have navigation on your website that works properly but also why it is so important on the back end ranking with the search engines.  I really like how it breaks down how you wish your pages are given authority to the search engines.  With a simple chart to show an example of the break down you don’t even need to know everything about navigation to understand all of the aspects of this article.

Not only does Alan Bleiweiss break down these important factors of integral site navigation but he goes into immense detail of the huge role the user experience plays in this aspect.  In his section “Navigation As a Means of controlling UX”, UX standing for user experience, he covers some really important tips on how your navigation can find users information as well as being able to dictate where people go on your site. It also mentions what not to do on your landing pages for organic visitors and these are just a few things he covers that can start making a difference in converting your traffic into sales today.

So now you understand the dire need for navigation for your online business to successfully convert traffic.  Unless of course, you would rather just pay a reputable online marketing company to do all of this navigational design work for you.   : )

The problem is, only the top 100 stories a day get any real traffic. This has meant that many of us stopped bothering to submit stories to digg since Twitter and Facebook yield better results.

In the newest redesign being released soon, digg is making changes to make it more beneficial to publishers (companies like us) to post their content to digg.

It is worth looking at – it could be a viable source of traffic in the coming months if it isn’t already working for you now.

McIntosh Marketing is an expert in using Google Buzz, as well as other social media, to help you drive traffic to your web site and thus generate word of mouth, referrals and more sales.