With the launch of Bing earlier this month, Internet marketers have something new to work on. Going by the basic scheme of things, let me keep this blog post extremely simple.

What is Bing?

Bing represents Microsoft’s quest to beat Google in the search engine war. The company is advertising Bing as a “decision engine” and aims at keeping searches simple and organized. It attempts to help people deal with information overload and make decisions faster and with greater ease.

How is Bing Performing?

According to a report published by Web traffic tracking company Statcounter on June 4, Bing accounted for 16.28% of the US search market, surpassing Yahoo’s 10.22%. Of course, Google still had the lion’s share (view graph). Although Bing did receive a large number of hits in the first week of its launch, it is currently behind Yahoo (and of course Google).

Should you SEO for Bing?

Of course! Whether or not Bing will take over Google is yet to be seen. Microsoft has budgeted $80 million for marketing the decision engine, which is sure to draw new visitors.

How is SEO for Bing Different?

Till now, Google dominates more than 70% of the global search market. However, when it comes to the SEO race, no one wants to be left behind. So, here are some tips that will help you SEO for Bing.

Domain Age: Bing is a lot harsher about domain age than Google. The longer your domain has been registered, the more favor it will find with Bing. One may consider acquiring older domains to enhance the chances of being picked up by Bing.

Length of Text: For Bing, size does matter. So, ensure that your webpages have content of at least 300 words. The length of the text is more of a significant factor for Bing than it is for Google.

Link Out: Google alters your page rank based on the relevance of the link out webpages. Often, people are unsure of how a particular link out would impact their webpage and steer clear of this option. However, Bing likes link outs and increases the page ranking of those webpages that have more of them.

Title Tag of your Page: The title tag is of utmost importance for Bing. Without the relevant keyword in this area, your complete SEO efforts could be wasted.

Title Tags of Other Pages: When you link out from your page, ensure that the title tags of the pages you have linked out to have the keyword that is most relevant to your page. Bing simply loves this.

Link Popularity: Google is more fascinated with link popularity than Bing.

 

The author, Priya Nigam, is the Chief Content Development strategist in the organization.