Modern technology has changed the behavior of internet users over the years, even as more and more companies enter the online market.
You might just be searching for the best technique for search engine optimization as you’re planning to open your business on the Internet, or you already have a store and you want to earn more. How do you go about it?
First of all, you need to optimize your site or online store for search engines. In this guide, we will talk about how to get on the first page of the Bing search engine results; the result after a successful implementation is an increased traffic which in turn guarantees better revenue.
When talking about search engines and the most popular ones in the internet space, Bing is third only to Google and YouTube; Bing’s algorithm is used for approximately 20% of searches made by internet users. Yet, a lot of people I talk to, SEO experts and businesses disregard Bing and don’t even care about their rankings on the Bing search engine platform.
Why should this be the case? While the Bing platform is not the dominant player among its peers, Bing is a search engine that can fetch large traffic to your site.
In this guide that you’re about to read, you’ll discover both how and why you should also invest your time and energy into optimizing your website for Bing SEO. HINT: It’s much easier than Google optimization.
An overview of what you’re about to learn:
- Why you need to invest in Bing
- History of the Bing search engine
- The difference between Bing & Google algorithms
- How your site can be optimized for Bing
Let’s get started!
An Introduction to Bing, Yahoo! & Search:
Bing is a search engine owned by Microsoft, a multinational company that is popular for its Windows operating system platform, its Xbox gaming consoles, all windows mobile devices as well as operating the Bing search engine. Going by January 2016 statistical reports, Bing desktop searches account for 15.8%, compared to (65.44%) of Google and (8.28%) of Yahoo.
Bing mobile searches also account for about 1.43% of searches, in contrast to (94.13%) of Google and Yahoo!’s 3.61%.
Bing also announced in June 2009 that it would not only be responsible for its Bing searches but will also now be responsible for searches on yahoo search engines. It would also entirely provide algorithmic and paid searches to the Yahoo search engine!
It was also announced in July 2015 that Bing will now provide most of the search results on the Yahoo search platform.
Why Should I Care About Bing SEO?
As of August 2014, searches “powered by Bing” was about 29.4% of the total online search query according to the report.
At the beginning of the year 2016, Bing’s algorithm decides the search results of 24.1% of desktop searches. According to a report by Microsoft’s Annual Report 2015, Bing itself (not including its partnership with Yahoo) “exceeds 20% of US market share” in the 2015 financial year.
From February 2014 to February 2016, Bing’s desktop searches have increased from a low of 12% to a higher figure of 24.1%. And, at the same time, Google’s market share reduced from 71.81% to 65.44%.
While the rivalry between Microsoft and Google is on so many sectors, it reports:
- It accounts that Windows operating system accounts for 91.39% of operating systems
- For an equal period, Bing’s mobile searches reduced from 8.03% to 3.61
- the market share is growing yearly
- Bing’s mother company, Microsoft, is home to some very key technology that is entwined with our everyday life: Microsoft Windows, Windows Smartphone and Microsoft Xbox and their various applications
Bing is worth your time and investment because apart from powering the majority of Yahoo searches, Bing searches also account for roughly 20% of online searches.
While I would not recommend optimizing solely for Bing search engines, there are a whole lot of small twists that can be done on your website which will improve both your Bing & Google website authority and search engine ranking results.
Bing SEO Tips
1. Keywords
Find out which keywords your audience uses most often and use them on the most important pages and in the metadata. Write relevant, useful descriptions. When choosing keywords, consider the amount of search in them, their complexity, relevance, and the popularity of each word. Use keyword tools. For a limited budget, you can opt for free tools like the keywordplanner.com.
Keep in mind that targeting all your keywords at once is a waste of time. You’ll drive traffic faster if you use words with lower competition. And the faster you attract traffic, the faster your website will become famous, and your chances of a high position on Bing search results will increase.
Also, pay attention to the keywords of competitors. In most cases, they have already worked on a lot of SEO techniques and the semantic core, so study their sites and keyword strategies, as well as how they present their brand as a whole. Pay attention to their popular products and the main page. Observing competitors, you will imagine which keywords bring the most profit.
2. Long key phrases
See what specific keywords their search bar offers? These are what you will need for your Long keywords implementation.
People searching for long key phrases convert better: They know exactly what they want. Besides, the competition for these phrases is lower, because they are aimed at a niche, not at a mass audience, which means that you have more chances to take a high place in the Bing SERPs.
3. Searchable URLs
Bing search platform has a better preference for the use of simple and clear URLs that both people and search engines will read. Avoid numbers, rare characters, and meaningless letter combinations.
4. Homepage Optimization
Structure of the navigation bar: Add attractive images (with Alt tags) of your product with textual explanations and links to the most popular pages and content. Add a headline containing your top keywords, and be sure to include your location.
5. Engaging Page Optimization
Promotion of pages of your website for proper search engine optimization includes several stages:
Unique descriptions: Work on a meaningful description of no more than 1000 words for each page. It is worth mentioning its size, features, and colors, provides visitors with answers to frequently asked questions. These questions and answers by their nature contain keywords, including long key phrases. Each new question and answer refreshes your content and increases the number of words on the page, and search engines love relevant, long and engaging content.
6. Strategic internal links
Through internal links, visitors get to move from one page of your site to another, and the more clicks a page receives, the higher the link mass and the better for SEO.
7. Navigation Chains (breadcrumbs)
They help robots return to the main page, and people to understand where they are now, so they don’t get lost. A navigation chain is a sequence of pages from the main to the one that the visitor is currently viewing. Usually, the navigation chain is located at the top of the page.
8. Related Page Links
Add a section where you recommend related pages to your website visitors. This method not only helps to get backlinks but also increases viewers. But do not overdo it; there should not be too many links.
9. Visibility
Remember: you are creating an online website for viewers who have a lot of similar websites to choose from and not vice versa. Put your site visitors first and make the site as convenient as possible for them: you don’t want them to open it and close it right away?
10. Site Structure
It should be easy for your visitors to move from one page to the other: Design clear navigation that’s easy to scan. Use the language and behavioral factors of your target audience.
Position the search bar in a prominent place. Enter hints when searching for and correct typos.
Simplify the process of site navigation as much as possible. The fewer the stages, the better!
Finally, post your contact details in a prominent place (usually in a header) to make it easy for visitors to contact you.
11. Page Loading Speed
When ranking on the Bing search engine, it takes into account the speed of the site (just like most search engines): usually, people don’t like to wait. Here are some suggestions:
- Reduce file size. Compress pictures, videos, and other content.
- Use good hosting.
- Use a very good cache plugin
- Use a Content Delivery Network (CDN). It improves your site loading speed as well as the overall site security.
12. Optimization for mobile users
According to surveys, about 70-90% of online users visit websites from mobile devices. Today, most people use Smartphones and tablets to access the internet, so it’s important to have either a responsive website that adjusts to the screen size or a separate mobile version.
They are platforms and plugins that allow you to create web pages that are quite compatible for both desktop and mobile devices, thereby relieving you of the need to use the so-called “adaptability technologies”, which often boil down to a simple script that transforms a web version into a mobile “glass” with a width of 320 pixels.
So, What are the Disparities Between Google & Bing SEO?
Of course, there are many ways more different than the time needed to go into detail, so let’s just explain some quick-fire differences to finish off…
- Bing likes domains registered around a particular keyword, but Google has a better preference for brand-name domains
- Site authority is of paramount importance to Bing – more like editorial content, older domains, and more established organizations!
- PageRank is less significant for Google these days – though it has never been significant for Google anyway
- Bing likes it when content is closely linked to a website’s homepage and it likes breadcrumbs
Another thing you have to learn about Bing is their ‘Spam Filter’. This is how Bing makes its decision if or not to penalize websites that show up on its SERPs, so you have to make sure that you clearly read and observe the rules the Bing platform recommends. This means:
- Being cautious about the outbound links on your site – always link to clean sites
- Avoid the practice of trading links
- Always utilize Bing’s Webmaster Tools to find out whether or not your site has been blocked
How to Do Bing SEO
For most of the part, you won’t be doing anything differently. But you may wish to consider adding a few more keywords in those opening paragraphs of yours.
You might also consider showing a little more love to your legacy content, Or reorganizing your site map… and, you should also think about having a good and catchy title, your meta descriptions and also how these things will determine your CTR.
And in doing all that, you’ll be giving Bing the access to crawl and index your site properly which will help you succeed on the second biggest search engine in the world. This will assist you in tapping into that 30% market share and in the end, increasing your number of visitors.
Bing vs Google SEO: Start Optimizing for Bing Now
Bing SEO, like most other SEO, is a cumulative process i.e. an overtime procedure. The earlier you start, the sooner you start seeing the results.
If you don’t start early enough, you will likely not get the expected results. While the disparities between Bing & Google algorithms are a bit clear, a proficient SEO provider will recognize these differences and modify their campaigns to make sure you see your site ranking at the top across both search engines.
For website owners who are just looking for rank improvements across ALL search engine platforms, I’d strongly suggest you reach out to me for technical advice on SEO best practices, which constantly ensures you see rank improvements in Google, Bing, and Yahoo and many other search engine platforms.
Conclusion
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