Bing SEO: How to Optimise Your Website

If you’re not optimising for Bing you’re missing out on clicks and customers. We’ve seen great results with Bing SEO as part of our SEO services and you can do the same. 

Focusing on Bing-specific strategies, we help businesses capture untapped market share, achieving a well-rounded, effective SEO presence complementing their overall search engine strategy. We’ve created this article to help you do the same. 

Understanding the Importance of Bing SEO

While Google dominates the worldwide search engine market, Bing holds a significant share that businesses need to pay attention to. Bing controls around 6-9% of the market and continues to grow. It’s even higher in certain regions and demographics.

Bing’s integration with Microsoft products like Windows and Office means it’s the default search engine for users, especially in corporate settings. By optimising for Bing, businesses can reach a segment of the market they’d miss if they focus solely on Google.

Key Bing Ranking Factors

According to the Bing Webmaster Guidelines, on-page SEO is crucial to ranking well on Bing, with particular attention to elements like meta tags, content relevance and keyword usage. 

Bing search results tend to value exact-match keywords more than we see in Google SEO, so it’s essential to incorporate them strategically into titles, headers and meta descriptions.

Meta tags aren’t as critical for Google rankings but can be a ranking factor for Bing. So ensuring optimised meta tags can boost search performance.

Another key area is content relevance. Bing’s algorithm favours clear, concise content directly related to a search query. Content likely to perform well is logically structured and strongly focused on the primary keyword. 

Bing also prioritises content by answering questions directly, so effective strategies can include integrating FAQs or structured data.

In our experience, some of the main takeaways for on-page Bing SEO include:

• Use exact match keywords in meta tags and titles.
• Structure content well with clear headings and subheadings.
• Use structured data to enhance content relevance and improve search visibility.
• Regularly update content to maintain relevance because Bing considers fresh and updated content in rankings.

Off-Page SEO for Bing

Off-page SEO for Bing focuses heavily on social signals, backlinks and brand authority. The algorithm puts more emphasis on social media engagement than Google, so an active presence on platforms like Facebook, X and LinkedIn may impact rankings. Encouraging social shares and interactions is a good way to boost your site’s authority from the perspective of Bing’s algorithm.

Bing tends to value the quality of backlinks over the quantity, so links from authoritative sites, especially when relevant to your industry, can have a substantial impact.

Ensuring your brand is consistently mentioned on reputable websites can enhance your visibility and authority.

Insights from our work and experience to keep in mind include:

• Focus on relationship building with authoritative sites for quality backlinks.
• Engage actively on social media.
• Monitor and encourage brand mentions to boost brand authority.
• Bing highly values using social platforms to share content and encourage interaction.

Technical Signals for Bing

As with Google, technical SEO is another cornerstone of Bing’s ranking algorithm. The search engine emphasises site structure, mobile friendliness and crawlability.

A well-structured site with a logical hierarchy of pages and a clean URL structure is more likely to perform well on Bing.

Mobile friendliness is a main ranking feature for Bing, so ensure your site is responsive and provides a seamless experience across all devices.

Bing’s crawler is sensitive to issues like slow-loading pages or broken links. The search engine favours easily crawlable sites with a clear sitemap and minimal technical issues that could otherwise impede effective indexing.

Examples of common technical issues that may be negatively affecting Bing rankings include:

• Broken links and slow page load speeds.
• Lacking a clear, logical site structure.
• Not regularly updating your sitemap.

Bing Webmaster Tools

Bing Webmaster Tools is an essential platform for any business wanting to optimise its search engine presence. It’s like Google Search Console but specifically for Bing’s search results to maximise your Bing search traffic. Setting up your account provides insights to help fine-tune your SEO strategy.

To set up your account, you do the following:

• Create or if you have one, sign in to your Microsoft account.
• Add your website to Bing Webmaster Tools.
• Verify ownership of your website.
• Configure your website settings.

Once your site is verified on Bing Webmaster Tools, you will get access to a set of features that are especially useful for enterprise-level SEO.

• Keyword research: Bing Webmaster Tools provides detailed data on keywords so you can see what you’re currently ranking for and identify new opportunities. The Keyword Research tool lets you discover relevant high-performing keywords and provides insights into the trends to inform your content strategy, helping you stay ahead of competitors.
• Backlink analysis: The Backlinks tool allows you to analyse the quality and quantity of backlinks pointing to your site and identify opportunities to acquire more high-authority links. The tool also helps you monitor backlink growth over time.
• Site audits: The SEO Reports section provides actionable insights into duplicate content, crawl errors and broken links. You can do a comprehensive site scan to audit for technical SEO agencies and ensure your site is in optimal health.
• Indexing and crawl control: Bing provides tools to manage how its crawler interacts with your site. You can submit URLs for immediate indexing, control crawl rates, and view crawl error reports. Use the Submit URLs tool to make sure your most important content is promptly indexed, especially if you make significant updates. To avoid server overload during periods of high traffic, the Crawl Control feature lets you adjust the crawl speed.

Advanced Bing SEO Strategies

From our experience working with clients on Bing optimisation, the following are key points to remember.

Leveraging Social Media for Bing SEO

Bing’s integration with social media platforms is a distinctive feature, setting it apart from other search engines, especially when compared to Google. Bing actively considers social media engagement as a ranking factor.

Bing’s algorithm uses signals from social media platforms to assess your content’s popularity and relevance. The more your content is shared and engaged on social media, the more Bing recognises it as valuable and relevant.

Consistent social media activity can boost your brand authority, which is also important in the Bing ranking algorithm.

Ensure your business is active on major social media platforms and regularly posts content encouraging interaction like questions and polls. Focus on sharing high-quality, relevant content. The more content resonates with your audience, the more likely it is to be shared, increasing your social signals.

Integrate social sharing buttons directly on your site, actively monitor social media mentions and respond to interactions.

Local SEO and Bing

Local SEO should be part of a comprehensive SEO strategy, including on Bing. Bing emphasises local search results, so it’s an important platform for businesses with physical locations or those targeting specific regions.

Bing Places, Bing’s equivalent of Google My Business, lets businesses manage their online presence. Optimising your listing helps you appear in local search results.

Your Bing Places for Business profile must be fully complete with accurate information. Relevant local keywords should be incorporated into your business description.

Encourage customer reviews. Positive ones can boost your local search rankings and add visual content like photos and videos to your Bing Places profile.

Voice Search Optimization for Big

As more users turn to voice-activated devices like Cortana and Amazon Alexa, optimising for voice search has become increasingly important to maintain visibility on Bing.

Voice searches are more conversational and natural than traditional text searches. The Bing algorithm can understand these natural language queries, so optimising based on natural language processing and voice search can improve your ranking potential.

Voice searches often use longer specific phrases. Bing tends to favour content answering long-tail queries directly.

With these things in mind, advanced strategies for optimising content for voice search include:

• Use conversational language: Write content in a tone that replicates how people speak so that it’s easier for Bing to match your content with voice search queries.
• Focus on question-based keywords: Voice searches often start with questions like “how” or “why.” Incorporate question-based keywords into your content, providing clear, concise answers.
• Optimise for featured snippets: Like Google, Bing often pulls voice search answers from featured snippets. Structure content to be snippet-friendly with bullet points, numbered lists and concise paragraphs.
• Enhance local content: Many voice searches are local, like finding nearby businesses or services. Ensure your local SEO is strong, with locally relevant keywords throughout your content.

Measuring Success: Tracking and Analyzing Bing SEO Performance

Proper tracking mechanisms need to be set up to measure the success of Bing’s SEO efforts. Tracking allows you to monitor key performance indicators (KPI), gaining insight into how your optimisations affect rankings, traffic and conversions.

You can start tracking by linking your Bing Webmaster Tools account with your preferred analytics platform, like Google Analytics. The integration will let you track Bing-specific traffic and analyse user behaviour on your site.

In your analytics platform, create goals specific to Bing traffic and ensure they’re configured to differentiate between Bing and other traffic sources so you’re getting the clearest insights.

When running Bing-specific marketing campaigns, use URL UTM parameters to track campaign performance separately and see which Bing campaigns drive traffic and conversions.

Within your Bing Webmaster Tools, you can regularly review key metrics like keyword rankings, impressions, clicks and click-through rate (CTR).

When approaching analysis, you can do the following:

• Begin by comparing Bing search engine traffic volume and quality to other sources. Find patterns indicating whether Bing users are more engaged or likely to convert. Pay attention to bounce rates as well as metrics like average session duration and pages per session to see engagement and determine whether your SEO efforts resonate with your audience. 
• Analyse conversion rates from Bing traffic compared to other traffic sources. Look at the keywords or pages driving the most conversions from Bing. If your Bing traffic is converting faster, consider focusing more on optimising for Bing-specific keywords.  
• Use segment analysis for deep insights. Segment Bing traffic in your analytics platform to analyse specific user behaviours, identify user engagement, and how different groups interact with your site.
• Leverage the insights you gain during analysis to refine Bing SEO strategies.

Continuously Improving Your Bing SEO Efforts and Strategy

As is true with Google, Bing SEO isn’t a one-time effort. It’s a continuous process. The Bing algorithm is regularly updated, and user behaviours are always evolving. To keep your Bing SEO strategy dynamic, regularly monitor algorithm changes.

Perform regular SEO audits, test and implement new strategies, and analyse competitor performance.

Comparing Bing and Google

Bing’s search algorithm differs from Google’s in several key ways regarding ranking web pages, impacting the approach to SEO strategies.

While Google heavily emphasises backlinks and content relevance, Bing gives more weight to on-page factors like page titles, meta tags and exact match keywords. Additionally, Bing values social signals from platforms like Facebook more than Google, making social media integration a critical aspect of Bing’s SEO.

Another notable difference is in the handling of multimedia content. Bing favours sites incorporating rich media such as images, videos, and infographics. The emphasis means businesses can improve their visibility on Bing by optimising multimedia.

The differences necessitate a tailored SEO approach. Strategies that work well on Google might be less effective on Bing and vice versa. Understanding the nuances lets businesses refine their tactics and perform well across both search engines.

Why Should Medium to Enterprise-Level Companies Care?

For medium to enterprise-level companies, ignoring Bing SEO means missing out on valuable traffic and revenue. While Google may bring in the bulk of search traffic, Bing’s user base represents a unique, potentially lucrative segment.

Focusing on Bing SEO can help companies diversify traffic sources and reduce reliance on a single platform. Diversification mitigates the risks associated with algorithm changes.

Bing users tend to have a higher conversion rate compared to those on Google, which may be due to demographics. Bing is used frequently by older and more affluent users who are further along in the buying cycle.

Partner with Our Bing SEO Services

Optimising for Bing’s search engine is vital for a well-rounded SEO strategy, especially for medium—to enterprise-level companies. With more than a decade of experience, our agency has successfully helped clients boost visibility and conversions on Bing. Whether on-page optimisation or building authority, we have the expertise to drive results. If you’re ready to elevate your Bing SEO, contact us to learn how we can help you achieve your goals.