When it comes to SEO, most casino affiliates don’t think much about Bing.
After all, Microsoft’s foray into the search engine world only captures about 18% of worldwide searches while Google grabs something like 68% (depending on the month).
Despite Google’s total domination of the search space, Bing offers some interesting advantages for SEOs who are willing to spend a little time on the world’s #2 search engine.
If you’ve been curious about whether Bing SEO is worth your time, here are a few points to consider.
Why Optimize for Bing?
When looking at market share, Bing doesn’t appear to have much going for it. Google is the big dog and it’s unlikely that anyone, even Microsoft, is going to knock them down anytime soon.
At the same time, Bing’s slice of the search pie is larger than the numbers indicate.
Remember, a few years back Yahoo! contracted out their search functionality to Bing. That means Bing’s true market share includes not only their 18%, but Yahoo!’s 10%, too.
Regardless of Yahoo!’s sinking fortunes, there’s definitely more to Bing’s market share than meets the eye. If you’re willing to turn away more than a quarter of all searches, you’re definitely leaving money on the table.
What’s the Difference Between Bing and Google Indexing?
The biggest difference Bing and Google indexing comes down to just a few, albeit important, points.
First and foremost, Bing does not support canonical tag functionality. This means you’ll need pay extra attention to canonical tags and mark them clearly with “www”.
SEOs will also find that Bing pays a lot more attention to authoritative backlinks. In a recent interview with SearchDiscovery.com, a former Bing manager Brett Young said, “…(webmasters) need to build page-specific backlinks before those internal pages will get indexed.”
So be certain you’ve made backlinks to authoritative sites a staple of your Bing SEO strategy.
Getting the Most Out of Bing
Though most end-users don’t really know it yet, Bing is actually a pretty good place to search for graphics. If you’re looking for copyright-free images, or just want some new wallpaper, Bing makes that search a lot easier than its big competitor.
For web publishers looking to make a splash on Bing, this means tagging images so that they’re as search friendly as possible is an absolute must.
If you’re one of those folks who love working working with Flash, you’ll be pleasantly surprised to find out that unlike Googl, Bing is very Flash-friendly.
Finally
Is Bing’s 28% market share worth chasing after? If you’re looking for a break from Google’s parade of animals and want to try something new, go for it.
To learn more about the in’s and outs of working with Bing, check out the Bing Webmaster Guidelines.)