Owning the first page of Google is a great first step to a powerful online visibility; however, Google isn't the only game in town. Next up, you'll want to monopolize the entire first page of Bing. Here's how to do it.
Why Bing?
According to the May comScore rankings, Bing is second to Google in market share with 17.4 percent. This is up 13 percent compared to May 2012.
Microsoft has money (duh) and is spending it successfully to market Bing. Recently Apple announced that Bing will be the "default search engine" for Siri. According to Microsoft this feature will work as follows:
When users ask Siri a question either the specific answer or web search links will now be delivered automatically so users can find information even faster.
Aggressive marketing and business decisions leading to increased market share are one reason to focus on Bing. Another is their unique demographics. According to Alexa, users age 45-65+ are over representing on Bing as compared with Google. This same age demographic is also the fastest growing on Facebook.
What does it all mean? If you're trying to market to seniors you need to start paying attention to Bing.
As with Google, dominating the first page of Bing requires an understanding of how data is displayed on their SERP and how to take advantage.
Paid Search
Bing is slightly behind the times when it comes to paid search extensions for advertisers. Although they don't have as many features as Google, there is still plenty of opportunity to increase the visibility and size of your paid search listings.
Make sure you're utilizing the following features when buying ads on Bing:
•Enhanced site link extensions
•Call extensions
•Locations extensions
•RAIS – Rich Ads in Search
Note that recently Bing started adding company logos by default. This feature used to only be available through RAIS. As of now there isn't an official name for this feature.
Bing Image Search
Those who've watched TV over the past few months have undoubtedly seen Microsoft's "Bing It On" campaign. If you watch these commercials the users will always choose the SERP that includes more images.
Bing is going "all in" on images and isn't showing any signs of slowing down. On July 1st Microsoft announced an upgrade to their image search allowing users to browse images by usage rights.
Ranking images on Bing is fairly easy. Make sure your target keywords are included in the file name and alt tag of each image. Internal and external links to the target image also help tremendously.
Bing Places for Business
As Josh McCoy alluded to last month, Bing Places for Business is releasing various upgrades that will make it a better option than Google+ Local. Similar to Google, Bing heavily incorporates local/maps into their search results. Make sure you have verified locations and optimize listings within your feed.
The review system on Bing is powered by Yelp. Managing your location on Yelp and soliciting reviews (positive or negative) will help increase your maps rankings for non-brand terms.
Remember to take advantage of features commonly not available on Google+ Local. Bing provides business owners the ability to display images within maps as well as provide custom URLs to send additional traffic.
As they say, it's never to late to start. For a free Bing visibility assessment, call our office at (707) 853-0702 or email birgit@resultsmarketing.biz.
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