SEO Tips for Bing – Netmediablog

As one of the three major search engines on the Web, Bing is a search service launched by Microsoft in June 2009. With close to 10% of the market share, Bing is the third most used search engine service on the web, behind Google and Yahoo. Most people still reckon that Bing is leap years behind Google Search in terms of quality of service and reliability. But the Bing service is fast incorporating new algorithms and innovations to improve its quality of service. Almost a month after launching the Bing service, Microsoft struck a deal to power Yahoo! Search, the second most used search engine service. Joining hands with Yahoo! Search, Bing commenced its mission to end Google’s monopoly in the search engine space.

Microsoft first entered the search engine space in 1998 with its MSN Search service, which was later revamped and launched as Windows Live Search. In 2009, Bing succeeded Windows Live Search to become Microsoft’s flagship online search service. Post the launch of Bing in 2009, Microsoft’s market share in the search engine space grew steadily to 12.8%. It was also reported that Bing searches had a higher success rates when compared to Google, as more users clicked through the provided links. As of the second quarter of 2011, it was reported that Bing had close to 15% of the global market share.

Search engine optimization tips for Bing:

When it comes to search engine optimization (SEO), most webmasters employ practices that comply with Google policies and algorithms, as it is the prime search engine service. The same applies for online businesses that are on the lookout for publicity and reach. The main priority of search engines is to provide quality and dependable results that match the user’s search query. Automated programs called crawlers index and rank content to provide them in their search results. Search engines also incorporate complex algorithms that throw up data when a query is entered. The structure of search algorithms and process of indexing varies from search engine to search engine. Therefore, it is mandatory for businesses targeting global reach to employ SEO strategies that comply with the policies and guidelines of popular search engines.

Though algorithms and indexing methods are different, the basics of SEO do not change. So, it is obligatory to get these basic practices right to be sustainable in the long run. Once get through the basic phase you move inch closer to attracting the important link and the promotion that so many webmasters long for. Some of the basic SEO strategies include URL structure, keyword research, search-engine friendly design, analytics installation and proper onsite keyword targeting. Moreover it is also important to have an understanding of why SEO is done and what are its consequences. It is vital take into consideration the following facts before laying out SEO strategies.

• Post content that is for people and not for search engine crawlers and robots.
• Understand the fundamentals of your business niche and act accordingly.
• Empathize on your target audience and market.
• Though social media integration is quintessential for SEO, it should be organic.
• Analyze, monitor and test your performance and growth.
• Do not ignore local markets in the process of going global.

So if you comply with these basic facts, you are already half way through the tunnel in terms of an effective search engine optimization campaign. Now to tackle the differences between search engines, you have to vary your SEO strategies. Optimizing your website for Bing is important because you have the opportunity to drive loads of free traffic and become famous as a business by complying with Bing. I have elaborated a few SEO tips that will help your website get ranked highly on Bing search results.

• Utilize Bing’s Webmaster Center tools to monitor and analyze the performance and optimization efforts of your website.
• Implement micro formats in your SEO efforts, as it is being supported by all the major search engines. Moreover micro formats provide additional benefits in the search engine results page (SERP). For more information visit Schema.
• Bing uses an assortment of geo signals to determine the appropriateness of a page for a country. So, it is mandatory that you update the meta geo tags with suitable information during development.
• The probability of your content being indexed by Bing is heavily dependent on user interaction. So please focus on the aspect of Click-Through Rates (CTR) in analytics. CTRs and bounce rates are two of the main factors that Bing takes into consideration when ranking or indexing a website.

Hope these tips will be greatly helpful in framing the SEO strategies for Bing.

This is a guest post by Sharon Thomas. I hope you find it interesting enough to share with your friends. Use the comment form below to ask your questions or drop your comments about this topic. Remember to subscribe to my RSS feeds.