Bing ranks second among search engines the world over making the Microsoft-owned search engine a lucrative option for businesses to showcase their products and services to people nearby and elsewhere. However, like other search engines, Bing too has its own set of algorithms that it uses to rank a website. This is where Bing SEO or search engine optimization plays an important role. Here is the lowdown on how you can stay on top of your SEO game with Bing and boost your page ranking.
1) Bing Webmaster Tools
This is a free service from Microsoft that allows you to monitor your website’s performance after submitting your website to Bing. You can use the data complied by this service for analysis that will help troubleshoot and optimize your website’s performance within Bing’s web search index. Once you have submitted your website to Bing, you can use the following webmaster tools to boost your visibility on the search engine:
Submit Sitemaps:
A sitemap is an excellent way to inform a search engine about the URLs on a website that may otherwise be hard to discover. Bing allows you to submit a sitemap document through its webmaster tools portal for free. This ensures that all pages of your website are visible to every Bing search engine user.
URL Inspection
This is by far Bing webmaster’s most valuable tool. It is designed to inspect and test the accessibility of a webpage. It reports errors that may be hampering the user experience.
Search Performance
This webmaster tool shows the total clicks, impressions, and average click-through-rate that your website has garnered over time. It also shows the website’s ranking for a keyword search.
2) Register Your Business on Bing Places
Marketing your website through local SEO on Bing is an amazing way to get online visibility and acquire quality leads near you. It allows customers and businesses to connect with you when in need of your product or services. By listing your services on Bing Places, you can be sure to appear on the top of the search list whenever anyone searches for products or services like yours. Customers can view your address, contact information, and business description on Bing, encouraging them to contact you for your product or services.
3) Grow Your Social Media Presence
Bing is the second-largest search engine in the US, and growing your social media presence online will only boost your Bing SEO. This will successfully connect you with more customers and allow you to effectively engage with your target audience. Through your social media presence, Bing’s algorithm recognizes your best customers and assists you in building a robust reputation with local listings.
4) Following the Webmaster Tools Blog
Like every other search engine, Bing too has its own set of algorithms that it uses to rank a website. This is vital to offering its customers the best possible results with search for anything on Bing. However, these algorithms are subject to change from time to time. Following the webmaster tools blog is vital for every business that gets referrals from Bing, as it ensures they are up-to-date with any changes to its ranking algorithms.
5) Focus on On-Page SEO
Bing has the lowest bounce rate among search engines and this is mainly because of its exclusive users. This makes on-page SEO a massive advantage for any website owner. It also has a strong affinity for keyword-rich content making on-page SEO very useful for Bing SEO. Using smart and contextual keywords on your website is the right way to go. According to experts, Bing algorithms tend to prioritize content with exact keyword matches in web content including page titles and meta descriptions. In fact incorporating keywords into subheadings, URL slugs, and the first paragraph of your content is great for Bing SEO. Focusing on on-page SEO is a great way to boost your SERP on Bing and take you that much closer to the top spot.
6) Consistently Produce Unique Content
Let’s face it, great content is hard to come by and search engines understand this better than anyone. The more unique content you post, the more valuable your website will be. Bear in mind that this is mainly done by choosing quality over quantity and publishing a decent number of long-form blogs or posts. An article with quality content that thoroughly discusses your product or service will give your website more authority over others. Bing’s ranking algorithms champion websites with good content and even more so those that do this on a regular basis.
Conclusion
Bing is an influential yet underrated search engine that is too good an opportunity for online businesses to ignore. Set your business in the limelight by taking full benefit of the points mentioned above. This Bing SEO guide will certainly help you get your website in front of many potential and genuine online customers.
Tracy is the Design Manager here at Redwood Creative. She’s been designing amazing graphics and web layouts for large and small businesses for upwards of 7 years.
