Today we’ll be going over how and why to incorporate the Bing Search Engine into your overall marketing strategy, and whether this search site merits attention.
It’s fair to say that as time goes on, more and more channels are made available to marketers. It can be demoralizing seeing the next big site crop up with you comfortable in the knowledge that there’s one more thing to monitor and a to-do list that’s longer than ever!
That said, you can’t play when it comes to your SEO and what areas this covers. Not all search engines are created equal. Therefore, today we’ll take a deeper look at what Bing’s strengths are. Let´s find out if it deserves some of your valuable time.
While Bing is relatively new on the scene, it’s fair to say that it has received a considerable user base right away. This is partially due to the immense branding and presence Microsoft has. Indeed, they have pushed their new search engine as part of their own wider marketing plans and strategy.
So let’s talk Bing and why it should matter to you
Bing search engine is in a battle with Yahoo primarily for its user count. It is however important to keep in mind the scale of its parent company when considering its performance and marketing budget.
Microsoft is dead set on dethroning Google and has been pouring enormous budgets into the marketing of Bing. Moreover, they have made specific efforts to integrate its marketing for the search engine with its different products and channels. This means that the promotion of the search engine isn’t just confined to a PPC budget. It’s part of a wider push to promote Microsoft products and services. This juggernaut power gives its marketing efforts tremendous reach and pervasiveness.
That’s a core thing to consider when you weigh up the current numbers and look to the future. While Google has the top spot currently and has its own gargantuan budget, the established nature of Microsoft and its brand will play a key role in pushing Bing closer to the top.
A further key point to consider is the time of investment. Bing´s upward growth trend in it could be an opportune moment to get involved and establish your websites or clients on it. This is something of a gold rush scenario. Microsoft´s reputation in terms of product quality and promotion gives this belief certain validity.
Why Bing?
For well over fifteen years now Google has dominated and defined SEO with its search algorithms and best practices.
It’s easy to see how a client might show no interest in such a search engine. If you need to persuade yourself or need to convince another of its value then you can think along the lines of what happened with Google.
In the wild west heyday of SEO it was much simpler to rank really high. It was faster and didn’t have the pitfalls and complications of modern SEO.
As time passed Google refined its algorithms and more users flocked to the sites, all requiring SEO work. This narrowing on both sides from increased competition and harder SEO practice means that in the modern climate only the best survive and are up against the stiff competition.
Comparatively, while Bing shows great growth trends it still isn’t quite as flooded as Google is. This means you can pitch Bing to clients and businesses as a method to get a dominant share in a search term of a set of keywords within a search engine that is set to only increase in size and importance.
How is it different?
So let’s go into some detail about how the traffic in Bing is different from other sites such as Google and how it is measured differently.
Research has shown that Bing traffic has some interesting positives to it. Some web owners and SEOs are reporting that they have higher general trends in terms of page visits and bounce rates as well as conversions.
We’ll now list a few key areas that you can review to get the best sense of the differences between Bing search engines.
Keywords
You’ll need to be sure to integrate your keywords into your domain name. Nothing surprising here – just good SEO practice that transfers over.
Integrating your keywords into any anchor text is the next step that you can’t miss out on. Bing tends towards giving higher recognition and value to anchor text than Google. That said, be wary of the pitfall of overworking this aspect of your SEO. This might result in some unfortunate penalties for your site.
Title tags are of key importance when it comes to working with Bing. It’s again a case where certain SEO practices that aren’t heavily recognized by Google are more important and valuable for the Bing search engine. You’ll want to be sure all your title tags include keywords identified in your strategy.
Other Aspects
Page authority with Bing tends to have more to do with backlinks and as a result, the age of your page will have greater importance. Be sure that you register your page with Bing if you have not done already to ensure that you start building this aspect up over time.
Bing also works with a range of technical support and site-related issues in terms of its page ranking. Similar to Google, details of canonical tags, redirects and the performance of your page in terms of load time will impact the page ranking you receive.
Bing will also work in line with Google in terms of its organic content. While SEO is the art of working the system the fact remains that organic links and engagement will be recognized heavily by Bing and rewarded accordingly.
Similar to what we can do with Google, Content with a strong local focus will rank high on Bing. You can make good use of Bing Places as part of your SEO strategy to help rank your sites.
Finally, Bing does rank well with social media integration. As such you’ll want to make sure you stay consistent with all your social media activity in terms of promotion and spreading across the different networks available.
In conclusion
It comes down to a matter of available time and skill. There are huge benefits to working with Bing but can you afford to detract from your Google efforts?
We believe it’s worth doing. It will however come down to the details of your business such as the number of technically capable staff or SEOs and your budget. You might also find yourself working with clients who are more agreeable to using a new search engine for their SEO versus those who think Google is the only way.