Bing Revamps Its Webmaster Tools, Local SEOs Weigh In On Ranking Factors, Bing Partners With Yelp And Encyclopedia Britannica, & More

Flight Of The Bing Phoenix: Bing Makes Webmaster Tools Pretty Awesome

From a usability standpoint, Bing’s Webmaster Tools have been troublesome for quite a while. However, a recent update entitled “Phoenix,” has improved the interface, infused a ton of useful SEO data into the dashboard, and rejuvenated Bing’s Webmaster Tools actually relevant as a data mine. For a more in-depth look at the re-design, watch the SEOmoz video posted below.

Source: Search Engine Watch

Local SEO Experts Weigh In On Current Google Local Factors

Local and organic SEO are continually drifting apart when it comes to strategies and ranking factors. In an effort to provide guidance in a shifting landscape, David Mihm has published his annual Local Search Ranking Factors list. The report includes opinions from over 40 of the world’s foremost local SEO experts, and covers topics as general as ranking signals and as specific as physical address.

Source: DavidMihm.com

Bing Partners With Encyclopedia Britannica

Bing announced that it will include small Encyclopedia Britannica passages related to users’ queries in its search results.  The small passage will appear directly within the organic search results. The small snippets will include a quick summary of the topic the user searched for, key facts and a thumbnail photo. While the new feature shares similarities with Google’s Knowledge Graph results, it differs in that it doesn’t try to direct users to related searches.

Source: Search Engine Watch

Zagat Is To Google As Yelp Is To Bing

Bing and Yelp have joined together to provide local content to searchers. Branded on Bing’s local pages as “Powered by Yelp,” the new feature will act in a similar fashion to the way Google uses Zagat ratings in its Places pages. This includes integrating Yelp reviews onto local business pages.

Source: Search Engine Land

Google Updates Hot Searches Page

Google has updated its Hot Searches page by adding photographs from news papers, news stories, related searches and other content to go along with the trending search terms. However, it seems that option to lookup popular searches by date has been removed. Instead of providing 20 daily results, the new update introduces a filtering system that ensures only truly “hot” search terms appear.

Source: Search Engine Land

Skype Introduces Conversation Ads

If you’re a frequent Skyper, you’ll likely notice an influx of new advertisements during your phone calls or chats. Conversation Ads will show up on-screen during a one-on-one Skype call, aimed at “sparking” more conversation with relevant brand/content displays.

Source: The Skype Big Blog

Apple’s New Maps Project Outdoing Google-According To Apple

Apple’s new Maps product may be unveiled with more business listing than Google. Apple said it has collected more than 100 million entries from around the world through its various data partnerships. In comparison, Google’s new Google+ Local Pages, which were released a few weeks ago, had only 80 million local business pages.

Source: Search Engine Land

This Tool Gives You Almost Every Email Address In Existence

This is an almost shockingly powerful technique that will probably work better for finding search engine professionals than your average citizen, but it’s still pretty amazing. As with all great power, please use it responsibly, and not at 3 AM to reconnect with a high school flame.

Source: Distilled

Duane Forrester And Rand Fishkin Walkthrough The New Bing Webmaster Tools

I’m sure by sheer coincidence, Bing released their new Webmaster Tools the same week Duane Forrester happened to be in Seattle for SMX. Duane was nice enough to join Rand Fishkin at the whiteboard to offer a tutorial for all the things the new system can do for SEOs and webmasters alike. Although I must warn you: this Whiteboard Friday was neither on a Friday nor the standard 10 minutes in length. Discuss.

Analysis By: Rand Fishkin, SEOmoz

How Page Title, Social Shares Carry A Ton Of Authority

Is it possible to rank on Google’s page one for a broad term, despite no followed backlinks and little self-promotion? Yes, according to a recent SEOmoz article from Philip Petrescu. Obviously it depends on the query, but pairing a piece of “fresh” content with a ton of social shares is sometimes enough to get a page to rank at the top of Google’s search results.

Analysis By: Philip Petrescu, SEOmoz

Directory Submissions In A Post-Pandacalypse And Pengui-cane World

In the early days of SEO, directory submissions were much like the 1950s nuclear arms race: get as many as possible as fast as possible…because they worked. However, those days are long, long gone, and much like nuclear arms, trimming your supply of directory listings to a smart few is the best route to take. Andrew Shotland has some advice for using this still relevant (albeit diminished in significance) link building strategy.

Analysis By: Andrew Shotland, Search Engine Land

New Book Offers Insight On Working As You Travel

Work Your Way Around the World is a new book that offers guidance to those wishing to do just that. Instead of generic advice or tips, the book is continually revised ensuring each edition directs would-be travelers to current and specific job information, including how to apply for visas and necessary paperwork. The two big job opportunities for English-speaking travelers now are working in the service industry in Europe or teaching English in Asia.

Analysis By: Cool Tools, BoingBoing

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