Making Google happy is a big part of any professional SEO’s job. But it isn’t the only place that matters.
Have you been presuming that Bing SEO is a waste of your time just because Google is king of the SEO hill?
Although Bing is trailing Google by a ways, it still has a decent chunk of the market; plus, Bing powers Yahoo!’s search.
According to an August 2020 report of search engine market share in the United States, Bing is up to 7.2 percent. That might not sound like a lot, but it represents millions of users.
Table of Contents
Who Uses Bing?
Whether you’re asking inquisitively or sarcastically, the answer is the same: Quite a lot of people!
- Bing processes 13.7 billion monthly PC searches (or roughly 317k every minute).
- Bing services a surprising 60 million searchers who are not reached by Google.
- The typical Bing user in the United States is an educated individual between the ages of 35 to 54 with a household income above $75,000.
- The most popular industries include retail, finances, technology, travel, education, health, auto, and telecom.
Bing on the Rise
Some analysts believe it’s just a matter of time before Bing overtakes Google, as hard as that may be to conceive. The reasoning?
- A growing number of users now prefer Bing over Google for its intuitive features and great search options.
- Bing is getting smarter: It beat Google to a valuable feature called disavowing links by a few months.
- Bing traffic is actually considered by some to be more valuable than Google traffic. Bing users have a lower bounce rate, visit more pages per site, spend longer amounts of time on the site, and actually click more affiliate links.
- Bing is the default search engine for Apple’s Siri, Amazon’s Alexa, and Microsoft’s Cortana. (And the number of voice searches continues to increase exponentially year over year.)
We certainly wouldn’t try to predict what the future holds for the search marketing industry, but if there’s a chance Bing SEO could beat Google down the road, perhaps it’s time to optimize your site for Bing as fully as you can.
Important Ways Google and Bing SEO Differ
Until recently, though, there weren’t any concrete guidelines to follow. No one knew for sure what the secrets were to ranking high on Bing. Now we have a clearer idea of what the search engine’s algorithm looks for.
Duane Forrester brought to the SEO world’s attention the newly released Bing’s Webmaster Guidelines /bing webmaster tools. If you browse through the document and are familiar with Google’s guidelines, then you’ll recognize that they’re actually pretty similar.
They are, however, not the same. There are some distinct differences between Bing SEO strategy and Google, including:
-
Core Ranking Signals: While both search engines prioritize high-quality content, Bing places a stronger emphasis on factors like exact match keywords, meta tags, and keyword-rich URLs. Bing tends to give more weight to traditional SEO elements than Google.
-
Keywords. Google has gone to great lengths to move away from exact keyword matches and to instead rely on semantic search (or a system that interprets contextual cues and infers the searcher’s intent). Bing SEO, on the other hand, still prefers targeted keywords whenever possible. Exact matches, particularly in titles and tags, will help you rank.
- Meta keywords. Google killed meta keywords over a decade ago. Bing still loves them, though! So while they may be irrelevant for Google, they can actually give you a bit of a boost in the Bing rankings.
- Social signals. As you probably know, Google uses nofollow links on social media and denies that social signals play any role in page ranking. Bing SEO, on the other hand, treats social signals with a lot of trust and respect. If you have influence on social media, that will be reflected in your search rankings. Bing is more likely to factor in social signals (likes, shares, comments) from platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter when determining rankings. Google, on the other hand, doesn’t give these signals as much weight.
- Backlinks. Bing loves backlinks just as much as Google. However, they analyze them in a slightly different manner. Whereas Google uses PageRank to determine the authority of a backlink, Bing SEO emphasizes ranking factors like domain age and domain extensions. Link count is also an extremely important ranking factors (whereas Google likes quality over quantity).
- Multimedia content. Whereas Google is still highly reliant on text-based content, Bing has powerful technology that they say can accurately crawl and understand a variety of multimedia content (like videos and podcasts). This gives websites with lots of multimedia content a leg up.
Best SEO Strategies for Optimizing Your Site for Bing
Want to up your website’s rankings within the Bing search engine? Here are a few powerful strategies and tactics we recommend:
Setting Up and Using Bing Webmaster Tools
Bing Webmaster Tools is a powerful platform that can help you monitor and improve your site’s presence in Bing’s search results. Here’s how to make the most of it:
-
Verify Your Website: Start by creating a Bing Webmaster Tools account and verifying your website. This allows Bing to crawl your site, and you’ll get access to valuable data about your site’s performance.
-
Submit Your Sitemap: Submitting a sitemap to Bing makes it easier for the search engine to crawl your site and index its pages. This step ensures that all your content is included in Bing’s search results.
-
Crawl Stats & Errors: Bing Webmaster Tools provides insights into crawl errors, such as broken links or unreachable pages. Monitoring this data helps you keep your site in top shape.
-
SEO Reports & Keyword Research: Bing offers SEO reports that assess the health of your site, highlighting areas for improvement. You can also use the keyword research tool to find keywords that are likely to improve your rankings on Bing.
Content Strategy for Bing
Bing rewards high-quality, keyword-optimized content that is directly relevant to user intent. Here’s how to craft content that ranks on Bing:
-
High-Quality Content: Bing ranks well-written, in-depth articles higher than short, surface-level content. Focus on providing valuable, well-researched information that answers users’ questions comprehensively.
-
Long-Form Content: While Google also favors long-form content, Bing is especially fond of content that thoroughly covers a topic. If you’re writing a guide or blog post, aim for at least 1,000–1,500 words to give Bing enough information to rank your page higher.
-
Avoid Duplicate or Thin Content: Ensure your content is unique and free from plagiarism. Thin content (content with little value) also won’t perform well on Bing, so make sure you add value to your readers.
-
Authoritative Sources: Bing tends to favor content that cites authoritative and credible sources. Use references from well-established sites to build trust with both Bing and your audience.
Oh My … Keywords & Link Building for Bing SEO
Linking is a crucial Search engine optimization (SEO) element. It always will be, whether for Google or Bing.
Try to make a point of always linking from extremely relevant sites. Also, be aware that Bing places value on outbound links more than other search engines do.
Unlike Google & other search engines, Bing says to use keyword-rich content. That leaves me to wonder if the not-so-honest marketers out there will start targeting Bing more. Will they have an easier time getting poor sites that aren’t helpful to rank well on Bing, by stuffing plenty of keywords into their pages?
I don’t see anything certain about that: no warnings or cautions in the “Things to Avoid” area about keyword stuffing or trying to manipulate rankings with content.
While Google basically says they don’t want you out there purposefully trying to build links to your site, Bing says, GO! Sure, they warn about link schemes and link farms. But they’re just fine with you planning out an ethical strategy to obtain the backlinks we all need in order to rank.
Bing seems to prefer that each page of your site should contain no more than two keywords. Follow this rule. Optimize your site for one main keyword and use another one as a secondary keyword.
Here’s how you can build high-quality backlinks that will improve your rankings:
-
Quality Over Quantity: Unlike Google, Bing is more focused on the quality of backlinks rather than the quantity. Focus on getting backlinks from authoritative, relevant sites in your niche.
-
Natural Link Building: Guest posting, digital PR, and partnerships with other websites in your industry can help you earn valuable backlinks. Focus on creating content that naturally earns links over time.
-
Monitor Backlinks: Use Bing Webmaster Tools to monitor your backlinks and check for any toxic links that might harm your site’s SEO performance.
Site Speed (Page Load Time, or PLT)
Another factor they clearly highlight is how fast your site loads when a visitor lands there. They advise you to take the speed into consideration, but not to let it hinder the user’s experience. If someone searches on Bing, clicks through to your site, then immediately leaves, Bing is likely to conclude that they showed a result that wasn’t very good. And if that happens a lot, I’d imagine they’ll lower your ranking for that search term.
Want to measure your site speed and/or find out how to improve it? We’ve published an in-depth guide on how to do just that. I’d recommend reading the full post, but some of the quick strategies are to:
- Get an efficient host
- Reduce images
- Choose an efficient theme
- Clean up plugins
- Zip website files
- Use a caching plugin
- Reorganize your home page
- Make your database more efficient
- Control image loading
- Get rid of pingbacks and trackbacks
- Eliminate unused post drafts
- Use static HTML
- Leverage a content delivery network
- Aggregate CSS and Javascript files
- Disable hotlinking
- Use a lazy loader
- Remove or reduce third party calls
If you take these actions, you’ll see your site speed jump immediately (and a boost in the search rankings shouldn’t fall too far behind).
Properly manage the length of your site’s content
You’re probably used to churning out 500 words for your blog posts. That will serve you well, since Bing prefers content to be longer than 300 words.
Bing algorithms appear to place greater value on content that is no less than 300 words. The longer your content, the better optimized it is for Bing.
Follow on-page optimization for Bing
Use keywords in titles and html tags on every page. Bing prefers each page to be fully optimized with proper keywords. If you properly optimize your pages, you’ll have an easy time ranking on Bing’s search results.
-
Keyword Usage: Bing prefers exact match and partial match keywords, so include your target keywords in key places like page titles, meta descriptions, headers, and throughout your content.
-
Meta Keywords: While Google has devalued meta keywords, Bing still considers them. Including relevant keywords in your meta tags can help improve your site’s visibility.
-
Internal Linking: A well-structured internal linking system helps Bing crawl and understand your website’s content better. Make sure you’re linking to relevant pages within your site to boost overall SEO.
-
Image Optimization: Bing places importance on image optimization. Use descriptive filenames and alt text to help Bing understand the content of your images and rank them accordingly.
Don’t forget meta tags
Meta tags may have slipped into the back seat for many Search engines optimization (SEO) specialists because Google no longer places value on them. Google does encourage the use of meta tags, but not as an Search engine optimization (SEO) factor.
With Bing, however, it is highly recommended to utilize meta tags for every page. If you’re doing it already, good for you; keep it up! It’s likely that most of your traffic comes from bing traffic.
Focus on User Engagement via Social Media
Bing is a firm believer in user engagement as a signal for credibility and authority. They measure it via a method known as “pogo sticking.” This occurs when someone performs a search, clicks on one of the results, and clicks back to the search results.
Bing pays more attention to social signals than Google does. Here’s how to leverage social media to boost your rankings:
-
Social Shares: Encourage users to share your content on platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter. The more engagement your content gets, the higher your chances of ranking on Bing.
-
User Engagement Metrics: Bing monitors metrics like click-through rate (CTR) and time spent on a page. If users engage with your content, it signals to Bing that your site is relevant and valuable.
-
Embedded Social Content: Consider embedding social media posts (tweets, Facebook posts) into your website’s content. This can boost your rankings and increase social signals.
Lots of pogo sticking is a bad sign and will suppress your rankings. Minimal pogo sticking – meaning people aren’t clicking back to the search results – is a strong search signal and will improve your rankings.
Local SEO for Bing
If you have a local business, optimizing for Bing Places for Business is crucial:
-
Claim Your Bing Places Listing: Ensure that your business is listed on Bing Places. This improves your chances of showing up in local search results.
-
Consistent NAP Data: Ensure your Name, Address, and Phone Number (NAP) are consistent across all online directories and listings to improve your local SEO on Bing.
-
Customer Reviews: Encourage satisfied customers to leave reviews on Bing and other trusted platforms. Positive reviews can enhance your local SEO performance.
Optimize Inbound Anchor Text
Bing places an emphasis on anchor text usage. In particular, they like to see specific matches.
So if you’re trying to rank for the search term “My Best product,” you should use “My Best Product” as the anchor text. (Now you obviously don’t want to boost your Bing rankings at the expense of your Google rankings, so you have to use caution. If you’re going to use an exact match, make sure it’s coming from a high authority website. Additionally, make sure you’re mixing in other anchor text from other links.)
Optimize Site Structure & Code
Bing wants to see quality content, but they also want it to be located in the right places. More specifically, they advise webmasters to organize quality content close to the surface – no more than three clicks away from the home page.
Technical SEO for Bing
Bing values websites that are fast, easy to navigate, and mobile-friendly. Here’s a breakdown of the key technical SEO factors that will help you improve your rankings on Bing:
-
Crawlability & Indexability: Ensure your website is crawlable by Bing’s bots. Check your robots.txt file and make sure no important pages are blocked. Additionally, avoid using excessive JavaScript, as it can hinder Bing’s ability to crawl and index your site.
-
Fast Loading Speeds: Bing ranks fast-loading websites higher in search results. Compress images, use browser caching, and minimize your site’s JavaScript to improve load times.
-
Mobile Responsiveness: Bing, like Google, prioritizes mobile-friendly websites. Make sure your site is responsive and easy to navigate on all devices.
-
Schema Markup: Adding structured data (Schema.org markup) to your site can help Bing understand your content better and improve your chances of ranking higher. This is particularly useful for local businesses and e-commerce websites.
Track SEO Performance and Make Adjustments
Once your site is optimized for Bing, it’s important to track performance and make improvements over time:
-
Bing Webmaster Tools Reports: Use Bing’s detailed reporting features to track how well your site is performing. This includes checking impressions, clicks, and average rank.
-
Crawl Control and Indexing: Regularly check your site for crawl errors and indexing issues. Fixing these can help improve your site’s visibility.
-
A/B Testing: Test different versions of your pages to improve CTR and ranking. Bing rewards content that users engage with.
Bing also prefers a broad to specific structure flow. For example:
Search engines optimization (SEO) > Link Building > Best Practices OR Sporting Goods > Baseball > Gloves
If you follow these rules, you’ll be good in Bing’s book.
Common Bing SEO Mistakes to Avoid
To ensure your Bing SEO efforts are successful, avoid these common mistakes:
-
Ignoring Bing-Specific Factors: Don’t focus exclusively on Google. Bing values social signals, exact match keywords, and meta keywords more than Google does.
-
Over-Optimizing for Google: If your SEO efforts are solely geared toward Google, you might be missing out on opportunities to rank on Bing.
-
Not Submitting a Sitemap: If you haven’t submitted a sitemap to Bing, your content might not be indexed properly.
Follow current SEO best practices at all times
Neither Google nor Bing gives us a clear picture of what their algorithm looks like. We can only derive hints from the rules and guidelines they have issued to webmasters. All that can be said is, whatever best practices are out there for Search engines optimization (SEO), follow them religiously.
Pay no attention to the rumors that Bing places greater value on sites that are old or prefers those that are newer. It’s been my personal experience that some of my posts have popped up on Bing’s first page several days after publishing.
As I said, just follow Search engines optimization (SEO) best practices that you’re already following, and Bing will most likely reward you accordingly.
Conclusion
Ranking on Bing doesn’t have to be difficult—by focusing on high-quality content, optimizing your site’s technical aspects, building quality backlinks, and leveraging social signals, you can improve your chances of ranking higher on Bing. Remember that a holistic SEO strategy that includes both Google and Bing will help you maximize your site’s potential for organic traffic.
Maybe you tacked SEO and got decent results on Google only to realize that things changed and you lost rank.
Now you need to integrate, interact with, and monitor social media to stay competitive.
If you need help, just contact us and we’ll work with you to develop a tailored direct or white label SEO and/or marketing plan to do just that. Don’t wait for your competitors to do it first.
Tim holds expertise in building and scaling sales operations, helping companies increase revenue efficiency and drive growth from websites and sales teams.
When he's not working, Tim enjoys playing a few rounds of disc golf, running, and spending time with his wife and family on the beach...preferably in Hawaii.
Over the years he's written for publications like Forbes, Entrepreneur, Marketing Land, Search Engine Journal, ReadWrite and other highly respected online publications. Connect with Tim on Linkedin & Twitter.
