It’s Time to Stop Ignoring Bing, Part 2

Bing SEO, introduce your website to an entirely new – and profitable – demographic

In part one of our series, we talked about why Bing should be taken seriously. It may not be as big as Google, but it is utilized by some very valuable target markets. Check out our blog here if you missed it.

If you believe that Bing could help you reach your audience, you're not alone. A thoughtful Bing Search Engine Optimization (SEO) strategy can introduce your website to an entirely new – and profitable – demographic. Don't expect to copy your Google approach, though; Bing is a completely different animal when it comes to SEO. In fact, in many ways, it is much easier to predict than its ever-changing counterpart.

How to Make Bing Happy

There is no perfect formula when it comes to SEO. Your strategy must continually be monitored, tweaked, and reimagined. With that said, though, we do know a few things that Bing likes.

Eight Tips for Bing SEO

1. Focus on your homepage - and the top of each page. Bing only caches somewhere around the first 100k of each webpage. If you don’t have keywords and relevant content in this space, you won’t show up in search results. Bing also prioritizes homepages over internal pages, making your homepage even more critical.
2. Insert backlinks. Quality backlinks are very important with Bing. Backlinks are basically links from another website (or webpage) to your website (or webpage). Bing values them greatly - especially ones from high authority sites.
3. Keep that old content. Bing appreciates older – and often more factual – content. It is seen as being more authoritative.
4. Employ straightforward keywords. Although voice searches are changing the keyword arena, Bing is still relatively old-school when it comes to keywords. Use them in titles, URLs, and meta descriptions.
5. Inject images, audio, and video. Bing enjoys sites that are a little more dynamic and less text-heavy. It can also interpret sites that use flash, unlike Google.
6. Have a prevalent social presence. Social media plays a large role in Bing’s ranking algorithm. Companies who are active on social media and have likes and shares are always ranked higher than those that don’t.
7. Maintain a traditional domain name. Since Bing feels like older content is often more reliable, it rewards domain names that are older and sound more “official” – like those with “.com,” “.gov,” or “.edu” extensions.
8. Think local. While Google is often friendly to large retailers, Bing loves anything local. It is great at showing small businesses; just make sure that it can figure out where you are!

It’s Worth the Effort

While we don’t expect a friend to tell you to “Bing” something in the near future, there’s a good chance that you do it on a daily basis anyway – thanks to Siri, Alexa, and Cortana. Bing isn’t going anywhere. It’s time to stop ignoring it and make your website Bing-friendly.

As always, if you need any assistance creating a stellar SEO strategy that will please both search engines, we can help. At Conveyance, we monitor both tools and stay on top of the latest trends. We can increase the visibility of your site on both platforms, and keep your content fresh and authoritative. If you’re ready to reach a new audience, give us a call today!