Keeping an eye on the recent goings on within the search marketing world you cannot fail to notice what is currently going on with Yahoo!. With the recent takeover bids from Microsoft, the latest being $44.6 billion, Yahoo! has been trying to find a path away from being enveloped by the software giant. Last week’s announcement that the company had entered into a 2 week experiment with Google to use Google Adsense on 3% of their search results seems to be a stalling tactic and one which is not appreciated by Microsoft. Yahoo! in the meantime are exploring the possibility of merging with AOL, whilst Microsoft are potentially seeking additional partners for the deal (with News Corp, who own MySpace, being rumoured to be joining the bid).

This raises many questions as to what the future holds for Yahoo! and sites such as Flickr and delicious, which they own. If Yahoo! are to merge with any of the options that are being rumoured at the moment then what position does this leave them in? Any merger with Google will be instantly reviewed under monopoly guidelines so it just doesn’t seem likely that this is the right way to go for Yahoo!. However, combining with AOL will hopefully maintain their company identity and allow them to continue business as they are doing, but in a more financially protected position. As for the Microsoft bid, which on the face of it is probably the best option for the Yahoo! shareholders, would Yahoo! just be swallowed up by the software giant or would it be allowed to operate as a partner with both MSN Live and MySpace (if News Corp do join in).

With all the current speculation going on it’s very hard to see which way this is going, the only constant seems to be that Yahoo! is in a precarious position and is going to have to fight hard to maintain it’s identity and brand.

Looking at the news over recent weeks you may have noticed that the recent decline in numbers of people checking on social networks seems to be a popular subject. Now many people are saying that this could be bad news for advertisers and that it spells the end for the likes of Facebook and Myspace. However some people only ever see the bad from a situation without thinking of the advantages that can be gained. With careful thought and application of certain ideas and techniques then you can focus your campaigns and articles to engage readers and increase your number of visitors.

What appears to be happening at the moment is that casual users of the sites are logging on less frequently leading to a downturn in numbers, simply getting bored and moving on to the next big thing. But you should not forget the people who still use the site on a daily basis, these are your core audience and they are not as fickle as some people would like you to believe. Like most products, the majority of people tend to remain devoted to one particular brand and if you can find a way of targeting your campaigns to them then you have a loyal audience for your products and services.

Now the question is, how to make your campaign and related articles stand out compared to the competition. Your first call is to make sure that you have done your background research, consider what your content will be and whether there are associated words and terms to be search on or looked into. The content of your articles are paramount to engaging your audience and is the first step into convincing them to return to you in the future. This is where you can utilise the broad amount of media available for you to use through social media sites. You can bring a visual aspect into your articles, helping people to visualise what you are saying and helping them to associate words with pictures.

When writing your content try to put yourself in the shoes of a person reading your work, try to answer any questions that you would ask in that position. Most importantly you need to make your content engaging and of course should try to use the key terms and phrases you are using in related ad campaigns so that when people choose to search further into a subject your pages will be some of the first they find on the search engines. Once this is up on the web you need to ensure that it can be easily linked to and sourced, a simple paragraph covering the main points of your article at the start is a good way of doing this.