Sometimes it’s easy to ignore Bing. Google is still the giant in the world of search engines, and because of that, many businesses have come to believe that they should focus all their attention there. However, there are several big reasons why it pays to focus on Bing marketing as well.
1. Bing has nearly 20% of the Market Share
While Google does have the biggest audience, the number of searchers who use Bing is nothing to scoff at. When you consider how many millions of people use the search engines, Bing’s 18% share of online searchers adds up to an impressive amount of potential eyeballs that could be looking at your organic listings. Keep in mind that this number is people who use Bing exclusively. As popular as Google is, there are still millions of people who will never see your company’s listing if you are only advertising there.
2. They’re partnered with Yahoo
In 2010, Bing and Yahoo inked a ten year deal that made them search partners, in an attempt to create a rival for Google. While this initiative wasn’t as successful as the two companies hoped it would be, it still makes them a formidable presence. Yahoo’s 11% share of searchers and Bing’s 18% add up to almost 30% of online searches. Not only that, but both Bing and Yahoo’s share of the market has been growing in recent years, while Google’s has been slowly falling. Because of the Yahoo/Bing partnership, Bing marketing efforts get you 2 search engines for the price of one.
3. Bing Users are Wealthier and More Reliable Customers
Google may have the younger audience in its corner, but Bing’s user base is a much more reliable one. Studies have consistently shown that searchers on Bing are on average not only wealthier than Google’s users, but they are also more reliable and likely to spend money. Ignoring Bing marketing not only means missing nearly 30% of the online audience. It means missing the segment of the audience that your business can most count on to spend money and take advantage of your services.
4. They’re Converting the Younger Audience, Too
While Bing has had the older audience locked down for several years, it’s also starting to convert the younger audience to their brand. A large part of the reason for Bing’s growing market share (and Google’s comparable losses in users) is because Bing has started to eat away at its biggest competitor’s user base. By using youth-targeted initiatives and integrating with Facebook, still easily the largest social media platform, Bing is growing its audience across several profitable demographics.
5. Your Competition is Already There
Because all of the data on Bing’s growing web presence and reliability is public knowledge, there’s a good chance many of your competitors are putting plenty of focus on their own Bing marketing efforts. Just because some businesses aren’t going after the millions of reliable potential customers that make up Bing’s audience doesn’t mean that others aren’t. Ignoring Bing marketing is the same as telling your competition that they can have an incredibly lucrative customer pool for no competition.
Just because Google is the biggest fish in the pond doesn’t mean that Bing isn’t a presence to be reckoned with. All signs point to Bing’s audience only continuing to grow. Putting time and energy into your Bing marketing now is only going to pay off in the long term.
This is a funny question to ask because the whole definition of SEO means something different to everyone these days. In our opinion, search engine optimization means being efficient with your digital voice and message while using ingredients the search engines like to see. Whether it is keywords, robust meta data or optimized images it all comes down to having a well rounded efficient approach to your SEO efforts. When done correctly the search engines actually like SEO, it is the bad SEO apples in the industry that really stomp on the loopholes to grow “success” (I use that term loosely). When was the last time a large brand was grown online from pouncing on loopholes? Never.
Here are a few excerpts from Bing’s SEO blog post that pretty much states what we have been saying.
How does Bing feel about SEO in general?
“As with so many things in life, perspective is important. On the surface it’s easy to say Bing likes SEO. But what does this actually mean? Do we actually care whether you have clean URLs, H1 tags and properly written meta descriptions? Sure we do, but the reasons might not be what you’re thinking. At the very core of its work, SEO is about improving a website. In today’s ever-populated SERPs, that’s important. Small things can help your website appear ahead of a competitor in the results, and with so much money online today, every advantage counts, right?”
It is all about improving the stickiness and search friendliness of your website at all times. Many times it just requires getting strategic by writing descriptive meta information, updating content by re-tweaking with keywords and interlinking along with basic developmental clean up.
How does Bing feel about the relationship between SEO and user experience?
“It helps them understand what they are about to consume and determine of the content on the page matches their needs. The H1 is more about usability than outright SEO. If you subscribe to the idea that SEO is about usability, then you’re on the right track.”
User experience, user experience and more user experience is the answer to online success these days. Being on the web is not a differentiator, your user experience, branding and website development is. Think about how your website visitors are going to interpret your content when they arrive on your website. Too much SEO could just confuse them if you are just shoveling keywords into your content. It also makes it horrendous to read.
How does Bing feel about meta tag descriptions?
“Think of these as your call to action that gets placed in front of a searcher. The meta description is your chance to expand on the idea or topic noted in the page title, and insert a call to action for the searcher to take. This call to action can be as overt as “click here now” or as subtle as “complete your task with our tools”. The range is nearly limitless. Those roughly 160 or so characters that appear in the SERP are really a chance to sell your site to the searcher. “Dear searcher, you should visit my site, and let me explain why…”
Failure to craft a good meta description is met with our best attempt to fill the void. Blank meta descriptions and poorly constructed ones are skipped over in favor of content we find elsewhere in an attempt to explain relevancy to the searcher in our SERPs.”
The reality is the meta data has been discredited over the years which I still find mind blowing. Meta data will not cause your site to rank but it does act as a steering wheel once your site is ready to move. Search engines catalog individual web pages and the way they catalog this info is by reading content and also individual page meta data. Don’t forget to always have clean robust meta data throughout your site.