SEO is not easy. It certainly is not easy when you are just starting off your journey. There is a long list of factors which affect the Search rankings and it gets very difficult to tick all the checkboxes in order to rank high.

But, what search results are we actually talking about? When we talk about internet search, what is the first thing that comes to our mind? I can bet my meal for this when I say that your answer is going to be Google. 

There is no denying the fact that Google is the God is online searches. But, is it everything? The answer is a big no.

A lot of bloggers do not pay any attention towards the fact that there is one more search engine giant which is not as cruel as Google. I am talking about Bing here.

Over the last couple of years, Bing’s share of the online search market has constantly been increasing owing to Microsoft’s take on Google’s monopoly. This has given rise to a new opening for website owners to rank high in Bing search results while they somehow fail to do the same on Google.

Before going any further, I’d give you some of the recent facts that would solidify my article’s relevance:

• The latest release of Mozilla Firefox (version 34) has removed Google as the default search engine

If they can change it for two countries, they can do it for the rest of the world in the near future too. And, just in case you did not know, Bing powers Yahoo’s search results.

• After the release of the latest Mozilla browser, the US search share for Yahoo jumped from 9.64% to 29.4% overnight whereas that of Google dropped from 82.14% to 63.46%
• On paper, this won’t look that daunting, but this graph actually means that there are millions of internet users who shifted from Google to Bing in just a matter of 24 hours

Coming back to the article, I would suggest that you pay attention towards maintaining proper SEO for Bing search results because of a lot of reasons.

Is traffic from Bing searches worth something?

After analyzing the visitors on Stuff Listings for well over two months, I noticed that the traffic coming from Bing is far more interested in the content I curate. The viewers from Bing tend to hit my subscription button way more than those coming from Google (55% – 70% more). The bounce rate is fairly less in comparison. They tend to spend more time on my website too. These are reasons more than enough for me to focus on Bing SEO and I don’t think as to why things should not be the same for you as well.

The Bing Bang Theory: How is ranking high on Bing easier as compared to ranking on Google?

First thing first, Google’s search results are ultra-competitive because of a lot of reasons. This gives Bing a straight up advantage in this SEO game. People generally think of Google as the superior product and the general belief is the fact that if you rank well on Google, you are automatically going to rank high on Bing as well.

While this holds true for most of the cases, it’s always better to take both of these search engines as different entities if you want to succeed. Additionally, both of them have altogether different algorithms.

1. User engagement is crucial for Bing 

Bing pays the utmost importance to user engagement. If someone visits your website after searching a keyword on Bing and hits the back button, that would be considered as poor user engagement and that is certainly going to hurt your Bing search rankings. On the contrary, if the user does not hit the back button, the Bing algorithm considers it to be a positive ranking signal and your post certainly gets a boost in the SERP.

To ensure a good user engagement, you can try out a lot of stuff. I, personally, prefer engaging the users in the comments section as comments also play a very crucial role in SEO.

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2. Social engagement does matter

Social media engagement is a very strong ranking factor on Bing. Bing, unlike Google, relies heavily on social media signals and you are sure to rank high if your website is popular on various social media platforms.

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3. CTR matters: A LOT

Bing measures click-through rates and improves its search results accordingly. This means that even if your post is on the number 10 of search results and if it is getting more clicks as compared to the post which is on number 1, Bing considers your post to be more relevant for that particular search query and will automatically improve your rankings. This means that you should focus on user-specific keywords and click bait is still not died in 2018.

4. Backlinks still matter, but not that much

Unlike Google, Bing is not a big fan of backlinks and backlinks certainly don’t influence Bing search rankings as compared to Google. This means that even if you do not have quality backlinks, chances are that you can still rank high in Bing search results if your content is of good quality. This gives new bloggers an amazing platform to compete with the already established blogs.

5. Keyword domains do matter

Google stopped prioritizing exact match domains a long time ago. Bing hasn’t. That certainly is not an ethical thing but, I’d be honest, I love it. For instance, the name of one of my websites is Android Updated. This keyword gets more than 2,00,000 monthly searches on Google and it is almost impossible to rank there with this keyword. Surprisingly though, this keyword is already on the first page of Bing search results. Therefore, if you want to go with an exact match domain name, Bing is certainly going to be your savior.

6. Page authority matters, pagerank doesn’t

Unlike Google, it is very hard to rank a newly created website on Bing. Domain age and page authority matter a lot when it comes to Bing search results. If you have an old domain, you are more likely to rank high in Bing.

7. HTTPS is not that important

Google has declared that HTTPS or SSL is going to be a factor for ranking. However small this factor is, it is still a matter of concern for those who can not afford an SSL for their website. Moreover, proper SSL implementation is a very difficult task too.

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Bing, on the other hand, does not consider HTTPS as a ranking factor. You have a better chance of ranking high on Bing even without an SSL enabled website.

Verdict:

I have always been talking about SEO and I know it is very difficult for new websites to ensure good SEO. Bing is certainly the trick for those who face a hard time while trying to rank decently on Google. If you are new to the SEO game, The Bing Bang Theory is going to be your savior. That being said, it’s not like the established websites should not be focusing on Bing SEO. After all, the number of people using Bing is huge too.

What are your thoughts about the article? Do let me know in the comments section below. Also, do not forget to subscribe to Stuff Listings. In order to do so, just tap the bell icon at the bottom of your screen.

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