Currently, many companies use the combination of SEO and Google. However, if you want an all-encompassing SEO strategy, then Bing also comes around the corner. Why? Because it's worth optimizing your website for Bing. We'll give you five reasons:
1. In America, Bing has a market share of 25-30%.
This high share is due to the merger of Bing and Yahoo. It is expected that this share, in addition to the organic results, will also continue in an upward trend for paid searches. And in Europe, Bing's share is already starting to rise as well. Search traffic via Bing in the UK, for example, has almost doubled in one year. In 2013 it was still 6.2%, but in 2014 it rose to 11%. Therefore, we expect Bing in the Netherlands to grow as well. It is currently growing by 3% (Source: Searchengineland).
2. Bing's strategic partnerships lead to increased market share
The expectation that Bing's market share will increase in the coming years is also due to the various partnerships it entered into. The merger with Yahoo is one such partnership. But Mozilla Firefox has also chosen Bing as the default search engine in their Web browser. Google's market share will shift to Bing as a result.
3. Windows 10 to be launched soon
Windows 10 will soon be made available cross-device. These devices will then be much more driven by search queries performed by Bing.
4. Visitors from Bing spend more money than visitors from Google
And you don't want to miss out on that, because it amounts to as much as 60% more! That's how research (ComScore September 2014) showed.
5. Right now, you have less competition within Bing, so you can get a good position faster
The last conviction why Bing is worth optimizing your website for: The search market within Bing is not yet very competitive as it is now within Google. This is mainly because companies overlook Bing. So you can make great strides with just a few adjustments.
In general, the guidelines for Google and Bing are largely the same. Only the value can still sometimes differ.
1. Bing prefers branded websites
It seems that, like Google, Bing prefers websites of brands. Different evaluation criteria are applied here. It is considered logical that these brands have more links with branded keywords pointing to websites, while this can be negative for non-branded websites. But Bing gives these websites a greater advantage than Google.
But, Bing does sometimes struggle within search results to distinguish brands from related competitors.
2. With Bing, actually relevant results come before popular results
In addition to the above point, Bing also seems to favor older websites with more formal extensions. Such websites rank easier at Bing than new, commercial or popular websites, while those rank better at Google.
3. Search results in Bing are based more on social signals
Bing places more value on social signals while ranking Web sites. Often, top ranking sites have a high number of likes, shares or tweets. In addition, Bing also displays social information in search results in America. In other words, Bing is further along in integrating social signals than Google.
4. You get a good ranking in Bing if you use exact matching keywords
Even though results in Bing depend more on social signals, backlinks are still important for ranking at the same time. This does not necessarily involve the number of links, but the quality of links is considered important. To estimate the value of a link, Bing has a special tool: Bing link explorer.
We must admit that Google is a bit further ahead than Bing on this point. Exact matching keywords are still of great value for Bing. Whereas here in Google, if you have too many match keywords, you can be fined. But we assume that Bing will quickly develop further and become as smart as google.
5. Not all your pages are indexed by Bing
Bing unfortunately does not index all your content on your website, unlike Google. Bing will remove your pages from search results faster if they don't have enough link value or authority. Therefore, Bing requires you to have at least one external link so that you stay in search results. A proper internal linking strategy can be useful if you want to optimize your website for Bing.
6. Visual content is important to Bing
Relevant and high-quality content is just as important to Bing as it is in Google for good ranking. But Bing does differ from Google in that Bing values videos and images more. Bing reads and ranks Flash-based websites better than Google. Moreover, Bing itself also indicates that quality content is an important factor in ranking. Content is evaluated on three factors:
- Authority; how reliable is the content?
- Usefulness; how useful, useful and detailed is the content?
- Presentation; is the content presented properly and how easy is it to find?
TIP | Place important content at the top of a page. This makes a page more indexable for Bing
Conclusion
Google is no longer the only popular search engine, Bing is getting closer. And although Bing is not yet on par with Google in some areas, Bing is sometimes already a step ahead. We are very curious to see how Bing will continue to develop. One thing is certain, we already can't ignore Bing.
Want to learn more about the differences between Bing & Google or are you convinced after this article that you want to optimize your website for Bing? Then read this article from Frankwatching.
