Bing’s desktop search share is definitely rising quicker than Google’s.  As Search Engine Journal pointed out, in 2016 Bing’s share of US desktop search grew by zero.2% while Google’s dropped by zero.2%. This was put right down to components equivalent to the expansion of Home windows 10, with which Bing search is built-in, in addition to components like Siri utilizing Bing and Firefox having Yahoo as its default search engine.

What this implies is that Bing shouldn’t be ignored in your search engine optimization efforts. On the very least, you must have some understanding of how Bing differs from Google – simply since you rank effectively in Google, that doesn’t essentially imply that you simply going to rank effectively in Bing. There are variances within the search algorithms used which weigh completely different rating components otherwise.

Moreover, because the search volumes on Bing on the decrease, it’s a much less aggressive area through which to get your website seen on the SERPs.

Similarities Between Optimising for Bing & Google

There are lots of rating components which you’ll fortunately see are much like Google’s. Try Bing’s Webmaster Guidelines for a full breakdown of what Bing prefer to see. Merely put, the foundational search engine optimization tenets of content material and hyperlinks are basically the identical on each engine.

Content material

Like Google, the issue that Bing emphasizes initially is high-quality content material – they state that ‘content material is what Bing seeks’. Every web page needs to be distinctive, written for people and never engines like google. Guaranteeing your content material is wealthy and fascinating will get you in each Google’s and Bing’s good books.

Bing has put ahead of the ‘three pillars of content material high quality’ with which site owners can inform their content material to extend its possibilities of rating:

Following these ‘pillars’ is a good method when designing content material, whether or not for Bing or Google. Query whether or not what’s on the web page is reliable, helpful, detailed and introduced in a means that’s straightforward to learn for people and engines like google, and your search engine optimization efforts might be off to an excellent begin.

Hyperlinks

Equally, backlinks are vastly useful in terms of optimizing for Bing. Like Google, they’re learning as an indication of belief, and your web site might be rewarded accordingly. Blackhat hyperlink constructing techniques equivalent to hyperlink farms might be penalized.

Native search engine optimization

Each engine like google provide native outcomes, so for those who’re optimizing for a neighborhood enterprise, make sure you’ve arranged an in-depth Bing Places and Google My Enterprise itemizing.

Variations Between Bing and Google

On Web page Optimisation

An earlier weblog publish went into more detail on on-page optimization, and the identical guidelines apply for Bing. So your distinctive titles, H1s, web page content material, meta descriptions and so forth. are all nonetheless crucial when optimizing for Bing.

It will get a bit extra fascinating although – many have made a case to say that these components are much more vital on Bing, that Google’s algorithm is now way more superior, and that optimizing for Bing is like optimizing for a model of Google that’s a number of years previous.

Bing doesn’t have the superior understanding of context and semantics which Google’s algorithm has developed, so it’s doable that Bing places more prominence on factors like keywords, anchor textual content and title tags. With the concept optimizing for Bing is like optimizing for an older model of Google in thoughts, precise match key phrases, and precise match domains have extra prominence on Bing.

HTTPS

Google introduced in 2014 that websites with HTTPS would obtain a small rating enhance. Nonetheless, for Bing, having an SSL certificate has no profit on rankings. In the identical yr, the Lead Program Supervisor for Bing Webmaster Instruments, Vincent Wehren, mentioned that Bing has no plans on ever giving a rating enhance to HTTPS websites. As a substitute, they need to ‘give searchers the content material they need’ – whether or not that’s safe or not.

Age of Area

Bing locations extra emphasis than Google on the age of a website. The thought being that older websites are extra authoritative, Bing can prioritize older websites. In case your website isn’t rating as effectively on Bing, it may very well be as a result of it’s being outranked by older websites.

Social Indicators

It’s additionally doable that Bing makes use of social indicators as a part of its rating algorithm.

Bing’s personal webmaster tips state that ‘social media performs a task in right this moment’s effort to rank effectively in search outcomes. The obvious half it performs is by way of effect. If you’re influential socially, this results in your followers sharing your data broadly, which in flip ends in Bing seeing these constructive indicators. These constructive indicators can have an effect on the way you rank organically in the long term’.

A 2013 study by Searchmetrics confirmed that pages ranked greater on Bing had the next variety of social indicators. However in fact, this might simply be correlation, not causation.

Bing Webmaster Instruments

Like Google’s Search Console, Bing Webmaster Instruments is a good platform filled with helpful instruments which may support your search engine optimization efforts.

It definitely shouldn’t be ignored, so for those who’re not utilizing Bing Webmaster Instruments, set it up right this moment. Used alongside Search Console, it can provide you an extra detailed image of indexation efficiency and web site safety. It’s additionally the place you possibly can perform helpful behind the scenes work equivalent to creating and importing sitemaps and geo-targeting your pages to let Bing know who the supposed viewers of your website are.

One other helpful function that can assist in your efforts to optimize for Bing is the SEO Analyzer Tool. This lets you measure your pages in opposition to search engine optimization finest apply and offers you options for fixes, which is a pleasant and fast technique to establish any optimization alternatives.

Conclusion

Though there are just a few variations in how the various search engines function, the fundamentals of optimizing for Bing are the identical as if you’re working for Google. Deal with constructing the belief of your website and making pages which are helpful, detailed, correctly introduced, and written for customers, not engines like Google.