Riding the MSN Live Wave | Demographics for Success

Good morning this is part 1 of user statistics and demographics for the top 4 engines. Excluding AOL as it is powered with Google results. Day 1: MSN / Live (You are here); Day 2: Yahoo.

MSN - Live has really been hammering away at the gap between themselves and Google's prowess. This is the best tool I have ever seen to find out where your site is hitting in user metrics on MSN / Live! Enter a keyword / phrase, or URL for your site and find out the gender split, and the age breakdown of your users on MSN. Why is this valuable?

Because MSN is a rapidly growing index, of tried and true users. Last year, Nov. 2006, MSN's market share reported by Netratings was only 8.8%. This year, June 2007, they came in with 13.3% of the market share. That's a growth rate of 77.4% over the previous year. I'm telling you right now, MSN is NOT dead. They are quietly building their index and plotting their future in a "controlled burn".

So, what type of readers does MSN / Live generally have?
MSN statistically has and user base of 49% males that are 73.4% between the ages of 25 - 54.

35.6% 18-34
73.4% are 25-54
13.8% are 55+

So how about the most important demographic value that MSN has over the other engines?
63.4% of MSN / Live searchers ear over 50,000 a year! Additionally, 39.7% earn over 75,000. Hmmmmmm.....how about that level of expendable income?

Online Shopping
93.3% have shopped online in the past 6 months
80.6% have purchased online in the past 6 months

Now the clincher.......MSN / Live searchers are 48% more likely to buy from you! Now we are getting somewhere.

I know i am going to hear about how MSN delivers low volumes of traffic to web sites. The thing to consider is this, not ALL web sites have low traffic from MSN. If you site falls in the demographic targets of MSN, you will do well. Additionally, even at low traffic they are more likely to buy...Quality not quantity!

Some Tips for MSN / Live Optimizing:

• Watch closely for broken links
• Make sure your code is proper and easy to crawl
• Use a 301 to the new URL is you move one
• Static link for every page you want them to index
• High relevance and page topic concentration
• Sitemap in your robots.txt
• No more than 3 clicks from the main page

I plan to continue this series with the other engines. So stay tuned!

Let me know what your experience with MSN / Live is...Comment below.

Peace SEO

Melanie Prough
"Baby"


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