While the number of people that primarily use Bing as their go-to search engine pales in comparison to those that prefer to use Google, there is still good reason to allocate some of your search engine optimization efforts to Microsoft’s search engine. According to Statista, Bing held a 7.05% market share of the desktop search engine industry worldwide in April 2023, while Google held a 86.84% market share under the same parameters. Furthermore, in the United States alone, Bing only accounted for 6.44% of the search market in April 2023, while Google held a 88.91% share of the market during the same period. This is all to say that while yes, Google should be your main concern when it comes to your search engine optimization strategy, you should still keep Bing in mind, because at least 3 out of every 50 prospective customers are using Bing to search for your website.
How To Tailor Your Website For Bing SEO
While many search engine optimization strategies that you are currently using for Google should also improve your organic search rankings on Bing, there are some differences in the two search engines’ algorithms that you can focus on when optimizing your website for Microsoft’s search engine!
Quality Backlinks
While both Google and Bing use backlinks as a ranking factor, Bing’s guide on link building puts extra emphasis on the importance of quality over quantity when it comes to backlinks. On their Webmaster tools help & how-to page, Bing states that, “Bing wants to see quality links pointing to your website. A quality link is one that is coming from a website which Bing already knows and trusts. Obtaining links from trusted sites requires hard work, but if you follow a consistent pattern of providing valuable content to your users and share links from your website to others, the trusted links will begin to appear on your website”. In this guide, Bing also talks about what not to do when it comes to link building, like using link farms and buying links.
Exact Match Domains & Keywords
One of the biggest differences between optimizing your website for Google and optimizing your website for Bing is that Bing seems to put much more stock into exact match domains and keywords when it comes to organic search rankings. Exact match domains are domain names that perfectly line up with search terms. For example, if your website’s domain name is “housecleanersinboston.com”, you’re much more likely to rank highly for the query “House Cleaners in Boston” due to your domain name alone on Bing than you are on Google. The same idea goes for exact match keywords. If you have a page with an H1 tag that says “Best Pizza in Boston”, it’s more likely to rank higher for that exact query on Bing than it is on Google.
Bing Webmaster Tools
Bing Webmaster Tools is Bing’s version of Google Search Console, which can be used to perform keyword research that is specific to Bing, monitor your backlinks, and more. If you’re already a Google Search Console user, you can import your website(s) directly from GSC to Bing Webmaster Tools by simply logging into your Google account and clicking “Import”.
Contact Boston Web Marketing!
If you have any questions about Bing optimization, Google optimization, or anything else regarding your website’s search engine optimization, please contact our team at Boston Web Marketing! Our team of experienced SEO specialists help businesses in almost every industry achieve higher search results! Give us a call today at (857) 526-0096 or fill out the contact form on our website, and we’ll get back to you as soon as possible!