While Google is considered the king of search engines, there are other avenues that can draw visitors’ attention to your content. One of them is Microsoft’s search engine, Bing, and today we’ll be sharing several search engine optimization (SEO) techniques that can help you get to the top of its search engine results pages. search engine (SERP).
Why should I focus on SEO for Bing?
If you need convincing to invest time and effort in optimizing for Bing, here’s the first reason: Bing is always relevant. According to NetMarketShare, Google controls 82% of the search engine market share on desktop, laptop, mobile and tablet. Who’s in third? Bing, with six percent. But when it comes to desktop and laptop market share, Bing more than doubles to 13%, propelling it to second place among search engines behind Google.
Example of a BING search engine results page
Besides its growing relevance, especially for desktop and laptop users, here’s another reason to do SEO for Bing: it has exclusive viewers. Not everyone is a fan of Google, and depending on your niche, you might strike gold by focusing on Bing. For example, if your brand is about business and finance, you’ll be happy to know that 72% of Bing searches on these topics come from visitors who don’t use other search engines.
Other benefits of SEO for Bing include the fact that it has a lower bounce rate than Google, and its users tend to view more pages. Bing is less harsh than Google when it comes to SEO, as they don’t punish over-optimized pages to the same extent. Some say its image search feature is better than Google’s, so if you have a lot of images on your site, it might give you an advantage via good image SEO.
Bing is also the default search engine for popular apps like Apple’s Siri and Microsoft’s entire line of products. Its paid advertising is less expensive than Google. Finally, you could gain a competitive edge over others in your market who completely ignore Bing if you devote some of your optimization efforts to it.
Read: Best Free Tools for SEO Analysis
Bing SEO Tips
Now that you have plenty of reasons to practice SEO for Bing, here are several methods to help you achieve that goal.
Is including a keyword in your domain helpful?
Since its inception there have been rumors that you can get a good SEO boost from Bing just by having a keyword in your domain name. Some say it’s a myth, but Neil Patel SEO Icon says the request is valid. Either way, having your keyword in your domain certainly won’t hurt and as Neil demonstrates in the post linked above, it seems to help. What Is The fact that Bing seems to weigh more than Google on domain authority (DA) is also helpful in domain terms.
With that in mind, make sure your website (as a whole) is highly relevant to your topic or niche, and focus on your link building strategy to help build your domain authority.
Implement the right on-page SEO techniques
On-page SEO refers to optimizing your website’s pages so that they can move up search engine results in Google, Bing, and other search engines. There are several things you can do to optimize your on-page SEO for Bing, including:
- Use your main keyword in the title tag – The header section of every page has a title tag that gives search bots a clue about the context of your content. For this reason, it is crucial to include your target keyword in the title tag. To get the best results, your keyword should be specific and relevant, and it should fit in with the content of the page.
- Include keywords in your content – While it is essential to include your target keyword in the title tag, remember to include relevant primary and secondary keywords in your content in a natural way . Bing will reward you with a higher ranking if you include these keywords multiple times.
- Include your main keyword in the meta description – A visitor can see what a page is about by reading the meta description which is usually displayed under a page title in search results. Not only should it provide details about the subject of the link, but it should also be attractive to entice the user to click. For on-page SEO purposes, be sure to include your target keyword in the meta description.
- Optimize your images – As mentioned, Bing has a particularly powerful image search.
- Include an ALT tag with your main keyword for each image to get the most out of it.
- Also add multiple images to each post as this can help you increase the ranking.
- Use Header Tags – You can increase your SEO efforts and make it easier for visitors to navigate content with the proper use of header tags (H1-H6). They give order to your content and allow the visitor to see what each page is about so that they can quickly access the information they want. Include relevant keywords in your H2 or H3 subheadings to improve rankings, as long as they flow naturally and match the content.
Read: Essential On-Page SEO Tips
Use the Connected Pages feature
As you can probably tell by the name, this feature of Bing Webmaster Tools allows you to connect social media pages (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.) affiliated with your website. Why is this important? Because Bing uses social signals to rank sites.
By listing all of your social media pages, Bing can get a better idea of who’s behind the content on your page, giving your brand an extra level of cohesion. It can also establish you as an authority on the subject (in theory) to give you an even bigger boost for search engines, provided you have consistent following and engagement in your industry.
Use anchor text
Obviously, Bing rewards anchor text at a higher level than Google, so be sure to implement anchor text on your pages when linking to other relevant pages on your site or on the Internet.
Add new content regularly
In Official Bing Webmaster Guidelines, the search engine revealed that it loves new content. What is considered “fresh”? A page that offers the most up-to-date information.
While some content is still relevant years later, you may need to update yours based on your niche. If your website is new, do your best to regularly produce new content to grow your pages. If it’s already packed with content, update your pages regularly so Bing can reward you with higher rankings. Remember to use the Bing Webmaster Tools URL Submission feature when updating a post. This will ensure that your content will be indexed quickly.
Make your content as relevant as possible
While fresh content is great, it should also be relevant to your general topic in the eyes of Bing. You can define relevance as matching search intent while being useful, entertaining, or informative.
An easy way to find relevant keyword terms is to check out “Related Searches” on Bing. You can then use the list of related searches to create new content, because now you’ll see what people are interested in. Beyond this simple trick, you can also use SEMrush or a similar tool to find relevant keywords that can help you in your content creation. .
Read: Best SEO Software for 2022
Provide a solid user experience
If you’re trying to impress Bing instead of your visitors to improve your search engine rankings, you’ll likely miss the mark. To keep your visitors happy and coming back for more, follow these steps to provide a solid user experience:
- Increase your click-through rate (CTR) – The CTR represents the frequency with which Internet users click on a search result after having consulted it. You can increase your CTR by using descriptive URLs containing your target keyword, writing captivating titles and creating interesting meta descriptions that not only clearly explain your content, but also have a strong impact. call to action.
- Increase your page load speed – To prevent your visitors from leaving due to poor performance and frustration, increase your page load speed by installing a caching plugin like WP Rocket or switch to a faster web host .
Use tools for Bing SEO
Here are some examples of tools that can help optimize your site for Bing:
Read more tutorials, tips and SEO tool reviews on search engine optimization.