Since the rise of Google as the most popular Search Engine, thousands of SEO Companies have established their businesses based on helping clients achieve front page visibility in Google. These such companies spend hours each week researching and keeping up to date with the latest speculation on Google’s infamous algorithms, and how these can effect search engine results to ensure the hard work put in to clients’ results will still pay off.
However, Bing is now a fast contender for the search engine hot spot. The number of internet users now utilising Bing as their search engine of choice is rising by an average of 3% each month. On the flip side of this, reports on the first quarters of 2011 speculate that the number of Google users is dropping by 1% each month. So what does this mean for Search Engine Optimization companies, and the businesses that have been working hard to optimize their websites for Google?
The Differences Between Bing and Google
An initial look in to the differences between optimization for Bing and for Google show pleasing results. Bing has adapted the same common sense rules as Google. Sites that have more content on them will be looked upon more favourably by Bing, as will pages that have more than 300 words of text. Sites that have a lot of outgoing links to relevant resources are also valuable to Bing, providing of course that these links are relevant.
The good news for companies looking to optimize their own or a client’s website for Bing search results is that backlinks do not matter so much. Bing is much more likely to take into account the age and amount of pages on a site than Google. Another bonus is that Google page rank will not take precedent over a more established site on the Bing search results. The key to optimizing for Bing is making sure that the content on a site is succinct when it comes to keywords – using the right keyword phrases in a minimal amount will be more effective because Bing favors human friendly text.
From Theory to Practice
It is also rumoured that Bing does not recognise blogs so much as Google might. So platforms such as Blogspot and WordPress no longer dominate the search results. An interesting tool to use is “Bingle” to see comparative search results on a particular topic. This is an important consideration for websites running a blog; blogs should be truly integrated within the domain to have a desirable effect in Bing Search results. In June 2011 Bing officially integrated with Facebook, which puts greater emphasis on businesses making sure they have a social media presence to complement their SEO campaigns.
In essence, SEO experts would do well to focus on high quality content and links, as before, as it is clear to see that the future of any search engine results will favour a holistic approach to creating a high traffic website.
Written by Lara Moreton
Lara Moreton is a Search Engine Marketing Professional writing on behalf of an SEO firm Scottsdale specializing in optimizing for Bing and Social Media Campaigns.
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I hope Bing starts gaining traction – real traction. The problem is getting the average person to start using bing over google.