SEO Wash-up Monday 5th March

Bing has rolled out the Entity Search API

Bing has rolled out their Entity Search API that is now available to US based users and other countries such as Brazil, Australia, France, Spain, Germany, India, Italy, Canada, Mexico and the United Kingdom.

With the new Entity Search API, it allows developers and creators to programmatically pull in Bing Knowledge Graph structured data on topics like places, people, and local businesses into their platforms and tools, which is similar to what you can do with Google’s Knowledge Graph Search API.

The Bing Entity Search API can be used on programs like your mobile, web applications, blogs and also web sites.

This information that the Entity Search API pulls through comes from the Bing Knowledge Graph and is currently used in Microsoft products such as Cortana, Xbox, Bing.com, Skype, Office and more.

When it comes to the pricing, the standard pricing is $3 per 1,000 transactions and you can get 100 transactions per second through the API.

Yelp rolls out custom ads for small businesses

Yelp has rolled out custom ads for small businesses. Where they offer advertisers on the platform the ability to select their preferred review and image to appear in the ads. This feature is very similar to the Trip Advisor’s ad program that allows advertisers to feature a favourite review they like.

So by Yelp giving their advertisers the ability to select which photos and reviews they would like to feature, they are providing a unique tool that leverages the voice of a customer to that can be promoted for their business. Yelp said that with a few tests they have run, business owners and marketers love the increased controls of Custom Ads. Yelp has already seen 30% of new advertisers using this feature.

Yelp has an algorithm set up so if advertisers are uncertain about which photos or reviews to use can then it will do it for them. This can increase the likelihood of user response and clicks for the advertiser. Yelp has also mentioned that it will deploy up to thirty sample ads with varying combinations of photos and reviews that will help to determine which one will perform best on behalf of the advertiser.

For Yelp advertisers they must claim the Yelp business profile in order for them to utilize the new custom ad unit. Once they claim the business, they can select customize ad in the business dashboard and then have the choice to either manually select an image and review or let the Yelp system make those choice.

Yelp last month ran a successful test in Canada using email address matching and guest WiFi to measure foot traffic and offline conversions driven by its online ads.