5 Ways to Rank Better at Bing
Wednesday, September 2nd, 2009Google is still king, but Microsoft’s Bing has been getting a lot of press (I do enjoy the Bing! noise). So while I will forever optimize for Google first, it’s important to understand what other search engines care about.
For the most part, Bing follows the trends of other search engines: title tags, headers, meta-descriptions, and links (both incoming and intra-site) are all important. There are, however, some differences that Bing appears to hold near and dear; and here’s what you can do to accommodate the newest search engine…
1. Get the Bing Toolbox
Like Google’s Webmaster Tools, the Bing Toolbox is a great way to discover errors more quickly. It also has a unique set of interesting data for your statistical pleasure, including backlinks and outbound links, crawl dates, and a keyword tool to show how well your site is optimized for them. You can also submit your site to Bing through the Toolbox.
2. Focus on your URLs
Bing is especially aware of keywords in domains and URLs. Just take a look at the screen shot below. A search for “Maine SEO” lands this blog in the first two spots!
As I’ve talked about before, Google puts little, if any, weight on keyword rich domains or URLs. Established URLs are the name of the game for Google, but it seems that if you want to rank well at Bing, you’d best get yourself some keyword rich URLs.
3. Rely on exact match
Similarly, Bing focuses on exact match keywords. While Google is of the school of related match, you’d best know which keywords your customers are searching for. Obviously this has both benefits and downfalls.
4. Age matters
Unfortunately for bloggers and new sites, it seems that Bing is focused on older sites that have built reputation with age. Not a whole lot you can do here other than sit around and wait. It does cause you to think twice before creating a new domain, rather than sticking with an established one (hint: always pick the latter).
5. Think about anchor text before quantity…or quality
Anchor text is important to all search engines, but evidently with Bing it’s even more important than the quality or quantity of backlinks. Most likely, this is the reasoning behind #3 and coincidentally #2, as more often than not, sites will link using the same keywords used in the domain/URL.
See how the two compare for the same “maine seo” query:
I admit it, I’ve been positively ignorant of the fact that there’s another search engine out there willing to trifle with the power of Google; you’ll have to excuse my hesitation, it’s just that 
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