BING SEO BEGINNER’S GUIDE 2022
When we think about a search engine Google comes first into our mind. There are other search engines like Bing, DuckDuckgo, and Baidu. Optimizing a Website based on SEO makes a site popular among users based on requirements.
We all use Google as a default search engine. Google holds the major share and Bing ranks second in the Global Search Engine Market. Bing serves millions of people and a recent study shows people using Bing are increasing on a daily basis. So it’s time for us to consider Bing as our secondary option and this may help us to get more website traffic. Before we go through in detail Bing SEO, I will give you a small insight into Microsoft Bing and its features.
MICROSOFT BING
Bing is a search engine that is owned and operated by Microsoft, created in 2006. It was completely redesigned in 2015 followed by updates that enhance local search and a complete ‘NO’ to keyword stuffing. Recently, in October 2020 Bing rebranded as “Microsoft Bing” with a new logo and colour. As a pioneer in the computer industry, Microsoft intended with its search engine to change the way users obtained the information based on their queries.
Now we can go through the guidelines to improve Bing SEO
Bing SEO, is the process of optimizing your website to increase organic ranking in search results. Google and Bing have many similarities in their SEO ranking but to add the extra traffic from Bing, you have to make small changes in your website for Bing Optimization. Bing owns Yahoo, the fourth largest search engine, So small tweaks in optimization will bring traffic to both search engines. Optimizing in Google and Bing will give a high ranking in Google, Bing and Yahoo search results.
Bing On-page SEO
Bing always gives preference to On-Page SEO. There are a few factors that affect On-page SEO.
Quality Content: Bing always gives priority to high-quality relevant content. It should be unique, engaging, and rich with original images. Your content needs quality and credibility. For example, if you are writing an article you must include the citation and references to the data source. This is considered quality content. Address the query in detail and ensure that it helps the user. Up to Date Information with Freshness on your website will help you to yield top ranking.
Exact match Keywords: In Bing, if you use exact match keywords you will get a better ranking. Target your exact keywords in the Heading tags (h1 and h2) which show search crawlers the context. Always use the primary keyword in the title tag. It should be relevant specific and matches the context. But if your content is poor then you will not get higher rankings in any of the search engines.
Images and Videos: Bing likes multimedia-rich content. It’s better to include attractive original images and high-quality videos in your content. You need to add relevant images with “alt text” attribute to your content. This allows the crawlers to understand your content well.
Sitemap: The sitemap tells the crawler which pages and files are important within your site, and provides additional information, such as when the page was last updated. We strongly recommend using an XML sitemap file to help Bing to identify all the relevant URLs and content within your website. Please keep the sitemap as up-to-date as possible, refreshing it at least once a day to remove old URLs and deadlinks once the corresponding content has been removed from your website.
Use Schema Markup: Schema mark-up is a way to help search engines to extract and process microdata from a webpage and use it to provide a rich result to users. Microsoft and Google already announced their alliance to make search listings in detail and rich through structured data.
Page loading time is also an important factor. It should be within 3 sec or that can affect your ranking.
Off-page SEO
Building quality backlinks to your website get a reward. Backlinks are also called inbound links because they represent another website’s traffic coming to your own site. Social Media Marketing, Blogging and review snippet are examples of powerful backlinks. Bing always give importance to quality backlinks like an organic link from trusted websites (.edu,.org,.gov) wins the crown. They considered age to be a sign of trust so it favours links from the old domains as well.
How Social Signals influence Bing SEO
Microsoft officially stated that they use social shares to understand if a page is popular among users. Social signals are also a ranking factor of Bing. If your page has earned more likes and shares then Bing will reward you in the form of a high ranking in SERP. Bing gives you an incentive in the form of ranking boosts for strong social media performance.
Important facts of Bing SEO
• Bing always locates relevant content that fit the need of users.
• Always focus on high-quality content. It always gives preference to established content.
• They rely on conventional methods in understanding your content like Titles, Domain name keyword, Meta description and h1, h2 tags.
• Bing focuses more on anchor text usage. So they always give rankings to the site with matching anchor text for a page title.
• Metadata plays a huge role in Bing SEO. Meta description is one of the main factors of website ranking assessment.
• Use social signals as a ranking factor.
• Exact keyword match.
• Increasing social shares and Good user experience strikes gold.
• Getting quality links from high authority websites.
• Add original images and Image alt tags by mentioning the primary keyword.
• Bing officially recommends website owners to build links through guest blogging.
• Make a reasonable effort to ensure that any paid or advertisement links on your site use rel=”nofollow” or rel=”sponsored” or rel=”ugc” attribute to prevent the links from being followed by a crawler and from potentially impacting search rankings.
Let’s talk about its features that keep Bing in the secondary position.
- Home Page of Bing
Bing home page displays beautiful images on a daily basis that keep its interface fresh. This includes beautiful images from different parts of the world, Information hotspots embedded in the image, popular searches, and links to video, news, shopping, travel, entertainment and maps making your day more beautiful. In addition, the Bing homepage occasionally features rich HTML5-powered videos replacing the daily image, providing people with an even more immersive experience.
2. Data Structuring and Security
Another important highlight of Bing is its security. Bing search logs are disassociated from your identity. For added privacy, Bing ensures all search queries compiles with the Search AI section of the Privacy Statement. Queries that do not fall under Bing restrictions will be moved separately from public traffic. Bing doesn’t provide users with targeted ads based on their identity. Bing also has an additional tool for data structuring. This allows the positioning of web pages through the structured use of data and codes specific to a web page.
3. More Specific Image Search
Bing allows you to put cut out pieces of a photo and search for details separately. This is an exciting part of image search in Bing. For example if we input a picture of jewellery that appears in a magazine and do an advanced search for that specific Jewellery, you will get a series of results matching the exact or similar model of that jewellery. The use of keywords in the image titles can help improve the ranking of your website within search engines. This search pattern is beneficial for SEO tools and content optimization on websites.
4. Social Network Integration
Another notable feature of Bing is the Integration of major social media networks. Bing keeps an established relationship with Facebook and Twitter. This smart relationship allows the Bing search engine to be the one that provides all the data that its users consult through these networks.
5. Bing Places for Business
Bing helps you get your business online for free. If a search query is local, make sure that you well optimized Bing local business listing with correct information using Bing places (https://www.bingplaces.com)
6. Voice Search of Bing
Voice search is a fast-growing method of search. The allure of voice searches is undeniable because it’s fast, hands-free and it allows multitasking. Alexa is powered by Bing. Microsoft digital assistant, Cortana is embedded into Windows devices and into Microsoft’s Edge, browser. Bing’s 2019 Voice report broke down which digital assistant people are choosing when they search via voice.
According to data from an Adobe Survey in July 2019, 48% of people are using voice assistants for their general queries. Voice search represents a big opportunity for SEOs and Digital Marketers generally. Three of the four VPA’s-Apple Siri, Microsoft’s Cortana and Amazon’s Alexa use Bing for their search. So we can assume most of the smart speaker users get answers to their questions from Bing. Please visit for more details about How to Optimize for Voice Search.
ABOUT BING WEBMASTER TOOL
Before you start doing Bing SEO you need to create an account in Bing Webmaster Tool. It is completely free. The Bing Webmaster Tools URL inspection tool is a powerful tool that allows you to check and take necessary actions on URLs under the domain which you have selected, this includes crawling, indexing, SEO and Mark Up details and errors. This tool will not only detect crawling issues, index status, SEO errors Mark Up info to webmasters in detail but also will include appropriate messages in case URL is not shown or can’t be shown in Bing search results and suggestions on required actions to resolve the same.
SEO tools in Bing Webmaster
· Backlinks
· Keyword Research
· SEO Reports
· Site Scan
Please check below the Webmaster Guidelines.
Nowadays people are using mobile phones for their search than desktops or tablets. So it is important to make your website optimized for mobile as well
Factors determining mobile-friendliness are
· Viewport and Zoom control configuration
· Width of page content
· Readability of text on the page
· Spacing of links and other elements on the page
· Use of incompatible plug-ins
For detailed information click here
https://blogs.bing.com/webmaster/2015/11/12/mobile-friendly-test
Is Bing better than Google?
Both algorithms are completely different. If you enter a query in both search engines, we will get entirely different search results. Almost all marketers go behind Google. So Bing has lower competition. And it also has a low bounce rate. Bing search engine is more open about its ranking factors. An algorithm update is crucial because it may affect your website ranking. When compared to Google,Bing.com does not update its algorithm frequently. After Bing was launched “Tiger “was their initial update introduced in 2011. When you search for a phrase in both search engines you will get two different organic Search results. Bing offers more autocomplete suggestions than Google. Video search is more hassle-free in Bing than Google. The primary focus has to be on Google, the industry giant.
Ultimately, it’s all about a good user experience. Most people use tricks or tactics to get faster results. They completely fail to understand the importance of providing a good user experience. So don’t forget one thing ‘Make your website for users not for bots’.
Thanks for Reading
