Here are the top three Web Marketing stories of the Summer of 2009:

3. Bing emerges as a major player in the search engine game (or do they?)

Earlier this year, if you mentioned a Microsoft search engine as having the potential to overtake Google or Yahoo! you’d likely have been laughed out of the room. However, ever since Microsoft unveiled their newly-branded search engine, Bing, in May of 2009, the new search engine has been taking the search engine market by storm.

However, the question remains: Does Bing have staying power? Does it really offer search engine results and features that will convince users to make the switch from Google, or is it all just hype generated by Microsoft?

Bing does offer Cashback, a service where they’ve partnered with some of the top online retailers to offer shoppers certain percentages of cash back in exchange for shopping and purchasing on their websites. This has become extremely popular in a less-than-thriving economy where everyone is looking to save a buck. But other than the Cashback feature and claims by independent researchers who claim that study proves that users prefer Bing’s results more than Google’s, it seems as if it’s too early to dub the search engine as a major threat to Google’s steadily-growing success.

However, a certain deal that was worked out of the summer may be enough to take them to the next level:

2. Bing and Yahoo Join Forces

On July 29th 2009, Yahoo! and Microsoft announced a deal that would see Bing power Yahoo! search results.

In June 2009, according to Wikipedia and Complete.com, the search engine market-share was as follows:

Google- 74%

Yahoo!- 17%

Bing- 7%

Yahoo! and Bing’s decision to combine forces and allow Bing to take over Yahoo!’s search engine results may be big news to some, but again, it is still to early to say that Google should be looking in their rear-view mirrors.

Organically, from our research, over 85% of our clients’ traffic (200+ attorneys from all over the country) comes from Google organic search. Bing has been slowly rising the ranks of sources of traffic for our clients (right now it is top 10 for most clients), and is something to keep an eye on, but we still advise our clients that Google is still the top search engine for the foreseeable future.

On the Pay-per-click side, yes, Bing’s paid search has increased over the summer, but it would still be safe to say that Google’s Adwords is  the preferred pay-per-click advertising resource across the board.

So, the conclusion: Bing and Yahoo are trying to catch up and have made up some ground over the summer, but let’s wait and see what develops over the next few months.

So, you would think that Google is just sitting on their hands and waiting to see if the others catch up, right?

Wrong.

1. Google’s response to Bing and real-time search with Google Caffeine

Google seems to have responded to the hype surrounding Bing and the emergence of real-time search with the announcement of Google caffeine, Google’s new search engine.

The news shook up the search engine and web marketing world and has caused many webmasters and search engine marketing professionals to wonder if they’ll need to change their ways to optimize their websites for Google’s new algorithm.

Google’s announcement stated that the new search engine is “the first step in a process that will let us push the envelope on size, indexing speed, accuracy, comprehensiveness and other dimensions.”

But does this mean that they’ll start to value certain optimization factors more than others now? Should everyone freak out and start figuring out how to get ready for Google’s new search engine (which is still in Beta phases and has yet to be implemented into their main search engine)?

Probably not, but here’s what we can tell you:

If you don’t have a way to add content to your website, and if you’re not adding content on a regular (daily/bi-daily) basis, you’re going to have a hard time catching up when Google Caffeine becomes the norm.

Searchenginewatch.com conducted a case study comparing search engine results between the old Google algorithm and the new Google Caffeine algorithm.

The conclusion? Google was, indeed, correct in their announcement that pages will be indexed faster. No more waiting a few weeks to break out of the Google sandbox, and no more hoping that visitors use the Google Blogsearch to find your blog posts. Trusted and high-authority websites with fresh and relative content might even begin appearing in search engine results the same day as the content is published if Google Caffeine accomplishes what Google hopes it will.

This new Google search feature gives them a leg-up on Bing and Yahoo!, and also allows Google to battle Facebook and Twitter in the real-time search competition. Before, Twitter (and, later, Facebook) could convince users that those looking for real-time search results should sue their sites vs traditional search engines because of SE’s long indexing times.

Attorneys and law firms with content management systems that allow attorneys, bloggers and writers employed by the law firm, and other website/blog contributors to log in and post content within the matter of minutes will definitely have the upper hand with Google caffeine and other real-time search engines emerging as preferred search engines.

Our recommendation? If you have a good writer, keep them and give them a raise. If you don’t? Find one and hold on to them, you’ll need them.

Content is king, and this is unlikely to change anytime soon.

There is our recap of the Top 5 Web Marketing News Stories of the Summer. Here are some questions that we hope will be answered by 2010:

• Will Bing actually continue to grow, or fade away after the hype settles?
• Will Twitter users continue to maintain their profiles, or will spammers scare everyone away?
• Who will emerge as the next big thing in social media/social networking?
• How will Google decide what sites are displayed in real-time search engine results?

We welcome your predictions, feel free to post a comment with what you think the answers to any of these questions will be.

I would like to take the time to urge everyone to regularly check out the Google Webmaster blog where Matt Cutts and others at Google share SEO and webmaster tips that range from beginner to advanced. The blog is well organized and very informative.

Matt just posted his video responses to last month’s Q&A. They can be found at the Google Webmaster Help Youtube Channel and have some great answers to some very common questions in the SEO world. The Q&A videos were posted last week and are the videos with the white backgrounds, right now they’re towards the end of page one.

In fact, Matt even answered George Murphy’s (aka Murph) question about the best way for webmasters and website owners to find out what other websites/blogs are linking to them. Check it out:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=bF435s4xRU4

In the most recent Tweet incentive, Squarespace is giving away 30 iPhones in 30 days for anyone that tweets something about #squarespace, a free DIY web design platform.

People are willing to Tweet about promotions like these because 1) it’s easy, thanks to the user friendliness of Twitter, and 2) most people using Twitter on a regular basis have so many followers (including a large majority of people they’ve never met) that the message probably only reaches 1/3 of their audience, meaning they’re more willing to take a risk of seeming a little bit promotional.

The question is, what kind of incentive could you offer as an attorney?

A free case review? No, that’s pretty standard these days

A free Blackberry? Not very original, plus that can be a bit costly.

Well, we’re going to celebrate our new blog renovation (how do you like the new design?) by offering our own incentive.

Anyone in the legal community (lawyer, paralegal, law student, legal marketer, etc.) who Retweets this blog post will receive a free link back to their blog or website with the anchor text of their choice (this blog has a PR of 4/10 so it can really help out with you SEO efforts). Just click on the “retweet” button on the top left, it’s that simple.

In addition, we’re also collecting ideas for a “Retweet incentive for attorneys”. The most creative idea will be announced in a separate blog post on Friday morning, June 12th, and will include another link to your website, blog, Twitter profile, and a short bio of the winning submitter.

If you have an idea you’d like to submit please follow us on Twitter and direct message us with your idea. The deadline for submissions is 5pm EST on Thursday, June 11th.

UPDATE here are the Tweeers in the legal community who Retweeted this post. It’s not too late to be listed here, just Retweet this blog post and we’ll get you listed later in the week. And be sure to RT @tomfosterweb otherwise we won’t be able to track the responses. You’ll also have to have your website listed on your Twitter profile.

@GerryOginski is a Video for attorneys guru, New York Medical Malpractice and New York Accident Lawyer

@mkastrab is a Cleveland attorney concentrating in criminal defense, child custody, bankruptcy/budget planning & litigation.

@pbfriedman is a law professor with his own art and law blog

@BillTilley is a Pioneer of Legal Finance Industry – Improving the Business of Law, President Amicus Capital Services, an attorney loans solution

@WayneOBryan is a Richmond Car and Truck Accident injury lawyer

@paulpartridge is a Direct response copywriter, conversion specialist, online course developer and certified college funding advisor

@jeffcanhelp is a Consumer Advocate/Attorney trying to put a stop to debt collection harassment

@sean1372 is a Virtual marketing director for law firms and medical offices

@SanDiegoInjury is a San Diego personal injury and litigation attorney. Accident lawyer for the Jurewitz Law Group.

@JohnGWatts is an Alabama consumer protection attorney

@robmckinney is a Nashville, Tennessee trial lawyer who loves to represent the underdogs.

@jonpayne is the webmaster for law firm directory website

@Michael_Sherman is Christian, Husband and Father of 4, Alabama family lawyer, Homeschooler, Triathlete

You’re probably hearing more and more about Twitter as the days go by, either on television when they announce the newest celebrity who is “tweeting”, or from your friends and colleagues who already seem to be up on the Twitter lingo.

Well, just because you’re left scratching your head whenever they bring up words like “tweet” and start talking about their “followers” (I thought it was some sort of e-cult or something at first) doesn’t mean that it’s too late for you to join the Twitter revolution.

Tom Foster and George Murphy of Foster Web Marketing just wrote a new free report, “Twitter for Attorneys”, which you can download here.

The report covers a number of topics ranging from how to sign up for an account, what your profile should and shouldn’t include, basic Twitter etiquette, and how you can use this social media powerhouse to improve both your online networking efforts which can lead to referrals, and your lead generation efforts through creative Twitter marketing.

Just because you are new to Twitter or don’t know anything about it yet doesn’t mean that you have to be scared or hesitant to sign up. This report will help you understand what you need to do to catch up with all of the other attorneys already Tweeting and gaining more and more followers as the days go by, so take a few seconds to download it and let us know what you think!

We can show you a number of Foster Web Marketing clients whose traffic and leads have dramatically increased over the past few months because of these standard practices: proper web development (adding content on a DAILY basis) and basic search engine optimization techniques.

But when it comes to the point where your site and every site competing with yours have been optimized online, when they all have thousands of pages of content and features such as blogs and library articles included on their site, how do search engines decide whose site has the more authority and should rank better?

That’s easy, the amount of inbound links it has. The blog post I made a few weeks ago about a FWM client trying to figure out why he or she was being outranked for a specific keyword search is a pretty good case study to prove that building links is VERY IMPORTANT.

So, back to basics. It’s not enough to just write content. You, as an attorney or webmaster, always have to keep that thought in the back of your head: is this a link opportunity?

Google ranks sites and pages with more inbound links to them based on the fact that, if this is useful and informative content, than more people will be linking to it and sharing it.

But does this always come into play as attorneys? You have to remember that the area where you practice is geographically limited (or it SHOULD be! I can’t stress the importance of marketing yourself to one niche market as opposed to trying to conquer the world and rank for the entire east coast with only one website) so the chances of sites and blogs linking to you are as small as the size of your target audience.

You could always take the “link baiting” approach and come up with a story that will bring in readers from around the country or world. But, even though we always stress the importance of increasing your exposure online and that everyone, no matter where or who they are, is a potential client because of referrals and social networking, this usually results in a high bounce rate and a very low ROI.

Sometimes you have to take a more pro-active approach to link building. Some of these were mentioned in our ways to build links as attorneys and should be used regularly, but when it really comes down to it: link building is like everything else, the more personal and grassroots ways you use, the better.

Here are 10 basic and usually overlooked linkbuilding techniques you can use:

1. Posting on Craigslist. Sometimes it’s good for leads, but it also counts as a link. Don’t stress over the fact that the link is “nofollow”, look at your Google Analytics traffic report and see how many visits Craigslist resulted in next time you post. TIP: sometimes the services section postings get flagged or get lost in spam postings, so be creative with it.
2. Register with your local Better Business Bureau and Chamber of Commerce if you’re not already. This almost always leads to a link or two.
3. We’ve mentioned this before, but take a few minutes out of your day to answer questions on Yahoo! Answers , Fluther,  and any law-related message boards you can think of like Injuryboard. Dropping a link back to your site on these kinds of sites, as long as you ADD VALUE TO THE CONVERSATION and answer the question can result in pretty good traffic.
4. Build relationships with local bloggers.
5. You SHOULD, by now, realize that you need to be active on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. But do you have a link to your website or blog on there? No? (smack forehead)
6. You have a blog… is it linking to your website? Is your website linking to your blog? TIP: utilize site-wide footers as well.
7. Sometimes you have to look in the mirror. Is your own site or blog linking internally to other pages? Are you taking the time, when writing a blog post, to link to other blog posts and web pages? These count as links as well. ALWAYS think about how you can link internally, it’s very important.
8. Google local searches. Know those maps and local business results you see for certain searches in your area? You should be concerned about not being ranked number one. Obtaining a number one rank for these isn’t something I’m going to share quite yet.
9. Look for linking opportunities from local government and law-related websites.
10. Create a Squidoo page.
11. Okay I lied, there are 11. ALWAYS DEEP-LINK AND USE DIFFERENT ANCHOR TEXT. You don’t want everything going back to the homepages and you don’t want search engine spiders seeing the same anchor text when crawling for inbound links. Switch it up, you’re constantly adding content to your site for a reason, use those other pages!

Facebook, founded in 2004 as a student site, opened up to non-students in 2006 and now has a network of over 100 million users, making it an important and useful social media tool. It has transformed into a platform for students and professionals alike and helps bridge connections between top professionals who seem out of reach and those just penetrating the industry.

Understanding how Facebook is a useful tool takes understanding the components that can be customized to suit your preferences and utilizing the tools best suited for your needs.

1. Your Profile- You can add as much or as little information as you wish (political views, education, etc.) and showcase your work portfolio and provide links to your Web site, blog, published articles or other spaces. You can start marketing yourself with your profile by finding colleagues and other lawyers to be your friend, which creates an online presence and visibility.

2. Groups- Facebook can serve as an open or private forum by creating groups. Groups can serve as a discussion outlet and allow lawyers, colleagues and others to ask questions and the responses are archived. Posting a discussion as part of a group invites others to comment and share information. This can serve as an alternative to just e-mailing back and forth. Also, joining some relevant groups can be valuable since some allow only members to have access to exclusive content and the ability to gain access to involved professionals.

3. Social Media Networking- Finding colleagues and friends who are using facebook and adding them creates your network. You can stay updated on others’ information by checking their feed that shows up on your homepage or visiting their profiles once in a while.

4. Referrals- Using your facebook wall (where others can leave comments) can generate business leads if clients or colleagues leave positive messages referring to your services. Encourage others to comment by commenting on their walls with positive remarks.

5. Applications- Applications such as what books you read or places you vacationed can be conversation starters and information exchange with your network. These are a little more personal, but can give a sense of your interests and personality traits.

A common concern is drawing the line between personal and professional and how that is managed in a facebook profile. Eventually, our personal and professional profiles will merge, but until then be cautious as to what you share with others via social media. For your facebook profile, you are able to adjust your privacy settings so only the people you want can see certain parts of your profile. The general rule is, if you don’t want the wrong person to see it, don’t post it.

Should you be on facebook? The most useful function of facebook is joining, creating and participating in groups. Since groups on an issue and have the ability for information exchange and starting groups on specific topics help networking within a community of lawyers. Being that the facebook community is huge, your competitors will probably be on there and you should be, too.

Follow Tom Foster on Facebook

Twitter is one of the most effective tools for instant information sharing with your “Twitter associates” (the term used as opposed to followers and coined with credit to @jimconolly) and the entire Twitterverse. It is a tool that, when used effectively, should be updated frequently and provides a sense of “there is someone behind that name,” which is appreciated and valued by those occupying the social space.

The Twitter trend is simple and logical, but can be confusing to the unknowing. The most common question I hear is, “How do I use Twitter for marketing and what is the importance?”

First, let’s tackle the question of using Twitter for marketing. Let’s assume you followed our previous steps and created an account and found some Twitter followers and are building your community. The next step is to be sure your Tweets are 140 characters of either informal and more personal information, or useful information…and an equal combination of both.

As mentioned in our Twitter Webcast, informal information and more personal tweets can be about anything from what you are doing right this minute to a funny joke or thought that your followers might find interesting or entertaining.

Useful information can be a breaking news story or an industry-related blog or site that adds value and credibility to your account and appeals to your followers. For instance, if you come across a blog about green building laws and want to share with others, use a tiny url (to reduce the number of characters) and add a descriptor such as “Oregon New Green Law Regulation: http://tinyurl.com/3rx8c7“ and post. The more information you offer, the more likely someone will retweet your post and you can gain exposure to new followers and expand your network. When a new person shows up in a Twitter feed, Twitter users often check out the unknown person’s Twitter site to read updates, check the amount of followers, click on the posted link, and will decide to follow or not follow. The exposure of your name and site and boost in credibility are your returns on a valuable post.

What is the importance? The very simple answer to this is building brand visibility and awareness through social networking and connecting with your target audience through a different and unique medium. Twitter allows for two-way communication with individuals and/or companies through micro messaging…something no other medium encourages. Because of its simplicity and ability to have a targeted “following”, it is something all companies can find benefit in using.

To optimize Twitter use, there are plenty of tools that can be found on the Internet. They include applications that put Twitter directly on your desktop, separate tweets by categories, feed your blog posts to your twitter account, and more…I will compile a comprehensive list of these tools and include in an upcoming blog post! Stay tuned!