When anyone talks about SEO, Google immediately comes to mind as the place to focus your main efforts of SEO (Search Engine Optimisation).
However many don’t consider Bing (the second most used search engine) a lucrative resource, but it can be if you optimise your site specifically for Bing SEO.
Bing’s performance vs. Google
Since all marketers go after Google, Bing has lower competition and a market share of 7% for desktop searchers. That does seem low compared to Google’s 86.64 percent, Bing’s desktop search market has grown by 41% since 2019. Over 70% of Bing’s users in 2021 were in the 35+ age group.
Within the online dating industry, we know exactly how lucrative those age groups are in comparison to the 18 – 34 demographic!
This won’t take a lot of work from you to set up. Most search engine optimization techniques remain the same as they are for Google (although the algorithms are different).
What makes Bing unique is the search engine is more open about its ranking factors than Google, meaning you can learn exactly what Bing is looking for and deliver that all tied up in a pretty bundle of code ready for your brand’s SEO presence to build.
Now that you’re aware of the advantages of Bing SEO let’s get started with putting your best foot forward on the search engine.
How to Rank Higher on Bing Search
Use these Bing SEO tips to make sure your content is optimized for the search engine and boost your chances of ranking on the first page and landing the coveted number one spot.
Improve Your SEO with Bing Webmaster Tools
If you haven’t already, set up your site inside webmaster tools. It’s a great resource to find the keywords you rank for, your indexed backlinks, spammy links to disavow, and much more.
Sign up for a free Bing webmaster tool account and add your website.
If you want, you can submit a sitemap and subscribe for alerts about your website.
You’ll be asked to verify your website by:
- Placing an XML file on your web server.
- Copying a meta tag to your website.
- Add a CNAME record to your DNS.
Once verified, you’ll see a dashboard with important details about how Bing sees your website.
Build Quality Backlinks to Your Website
Bing SEO focuses on link quality over quantity. On the search engine’s webmaster tools page, it states, “Often even just a few quality inbound links from trusted websites is enough to help boost your rankings. Just as it is with content, when it comes to links, quality matters most.”
This tells us that you shouldn’t invest time and energy in trying to obtain as many backlinks as possible for Bing SEO (as was previously thought and has been common practice for numerous years).
Instead, focus on gaining links from high authority sites Bing trusts and creating unique, engaging content people want to share.
There are these two types of backlinks that Bing favors:
- Organic links from relevant and trusted websites that drive real users to your site. Particularly, .edu, .org and .gov links strike gold on Bing.
- Bing favors links from old domains, as it considers age to be a sign of trust.
The latter is likely to be more achievable when working to improve your dating brands but this is advice that can be used to your advantage in other ventures you may have.
Like Google, Bing also wants you to stay away from reciprocal links, paid links, link schemes, links from hacked websites, and the like. Otherwise, your website might get delisted from the Bing search engine index.
The best way to understand your backlink profile is to conduct a backlink audit. There are many free-to-use backlink checker tools; Ahrefs, Neil Patel – Backlink Checker & Small SEO Tools
Step 1: Go to the Backlink checker, enter your domain, and click on submit.
Step 2: Analyze your backlink profile.
There’s a lot of valuable information here, but for the sake of this exercise, you’re focused primarily on the backlinks section. This is where you’ll find:
- Source page title and URL: The title that shows in a Google search for the URL.
- Domain score: The overall strength of the website, from 1 (low) to 100 (high).
- Page score: The overall strength of the URL, from 1 (low) to 100 (high).
- Link-type: Whether the link is text or image-based.
- Anchor text: The clickable text in the hyperlink.
- First seen: The first time a search engine identified the backlink.
- Last seen: The last time a search engine confirmed the backlink.
If you find spammy websites linking to your website, then first try to take them down. If the webmaster of the linking website doesn’t honor your request to pull a link, you should disavow the link here.
Pay Attention to On-Page SEO
While Google has developed a pretty sophisticated search algorithm, Bing still relies on some old ranking factors.
Here are the specific, on-page SEO aspects that matter for ranking on Bing.
Exact Keyword Usage
Like the domain, using your exact keywords in the Heading 1 and Heading 2 tags will help you with your Bing SEO rankings. Unlike Google, Bing is about exact word usage rather than the context and semantics.
However, I would still recommend that you use keywords naturally in your content, as much as possible.
You should also sprinkle your keywords naturally in the alt tags and meta description.
While Google has dismissed meta keywords and description as a ranking factor, a compelling title and meta description can help lift your CTR and indirectly affect your Bing search engine rankings.
Social Media Impacts Bing SEO
Bing has officially stated that they use social shares to understand if a page is popular among users. If your content is shared widely by users, it sends positive signals to Bing.
In the long run, your organic rankings might see an uptick due to your social influence.
Bing also advocates against shady social media tactics that allow you to gain too many (fake) followers too fast.
As a rule of thumb, for Bing search results, or any search engine for that matter, buying social media followers will not help you.
Bing SEO Frequently Asked Questions
Is Bing good for SEO?
Yes. Bing is the second biggest search engine in the world. By optimizing for Bing SEO, you can increase organic traffic to your website.
What does Bing check that Google doesn’t when it comes to SEO?
Bing wants you to use exact keyword matches in your title tag, meta descriptions, domain name, and H1 and H2 tag. Bing SEO also uses social signals as a ranking factor. The more people are sharing your content on sites like Facebook and Twitter, the higher you’ll rank in search results.
How do I get traffic on Bing?
Submit your sitemap to Bing. It will help the search engine crawl, index, and rank your website.
How do you rank on Bing?
Focus on on-page SEO, exact keyword matches, user experience, quality content, getting quality backlinks from high authority websites, and increasing social shares on social media.
Bing SEO Conclusion
SEO for Bing is not that different from Google. Both Bing and Google advocate high-quality content on their search engines.
And, now that you know about it let’s optimize your site for Bing and get you more organic traffic.
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