Google may hold the crown for being the world’s most popular search engine, but that doesn’t mean webmasters should overlook some of the others, including Bing.
Improve Your Bing Search Ranking
The Microsoft-owned and operated search engine has steadily increased its traffic over the past few years. In fact, a study conducted by ComScore found Bing to control 19.4% of the search market.
So, what steps can you take to improve your site’s Bing search ranking and nab a piece of its ever-increasing traffic pie?
Domain Age
One key difference between Google and Bing’s search ranking algorithms is their stance on domain age. With Google, it’s not uncommon for new websites to be indexed and ranked, often within weeks of being launched. With Bing, however, it may take months or even years before a new website will appear in its search results. Bing places a greater emphasis on domain age, so be patient and don’t worry if your website isn’t ranking immediately.
Publish High-Quality Content
This optimization tip holds true for all search engines. In its Webmaster Guidelines, Bing says: “By providing clear, deep, easy to find content on your website, we are more likely to index and show your content in search results.”
The article goes on to say that “thin” websites that consist primarily of affiliate links, ads, and/or duplicate content will not rank well. So if you are looking to achieve a higher search ranking in Bing’s index, focus your efforts on publishing relevant, high-quality content that visitors actually want to read.
Social Signals
While Google has said that the number of Facebook ‘likes’ a website has will not affect its search ranking, Bing has taken a different approach towards social signals such as this. According to Bing, social media “plays a role” in a website’s search ranking. Therefore, it’s a good idea to build a strong presence on the leading social media networks like Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Instagram and Pinterest. As you build your presence, you can use your social media profiles to create backlinks for your website.
Indexing
If your website isn’t listed in Bing’s search results, you may need to give it a little nudge via a sitemap. Like Google and Yahoo, Bing indexes new websites either by finding them through links or a sitemap. You can submit your sitemap to Bing through the Webmaster Tools. Once submitted, Bing will crawl the URLs listed on your sitemap, which should increase the number of pages that are indexed.
Don’t Worry About Flash
While Google may lower the rankings of websites with Flash, Bing shouldn’t. According to SearchEngineLand, Bing doesn’t mind Flash-heavy websites. Regardless of whether you decide to use Flash or not, though, you should perform a usability test of your website to ensure all of the elements are functioning as intended.
Contact us for all your SEO needs.
Image attribution: https://www.flickr.com/photos/michperu/
