We talk a lot about SEO and Google Rank because Google tends to dominate the other search engines. Yet, while Google holds the majority of the market share, the fact is that when you combine Bing, Yahoo, DuckDuckGo, and other search engines, the smaller players actually hold command of good portion of your traffic.
Who Searches Bing?
Effect customers will find the answer to the question of who prefers alternate search engines quite interesting and relevant. Bing seems to be appealing to a slightly older demographic. Bing users are typically around 55-65. This is important as this group tend to have a little more free time to spend online, as well as some extra money to spend when they find what they’re searching for. A conservative estimate shows 25% of online shoppers are over the age of 55. That’s quite a few extra conversions you can have by utilizing Bing.
“Overall, Bing owns 8.3724% of the search pie. All things considered, their search share isn’t half bad. Bing seems to hold a stronger market share in the northern Great Plains region as well as the Rust Belt.” – WebpageFX
And What About Yahoo Searchers?
Yahoo! is still holding on to 7.7534% of the US market share. Yahoo! usage is heavily focused in southern states and the Rust Belt region. – WebpageFX
And if those two quotes were interesting enough, the WebpageFX report goes on to add this little tidbit:
States that ‘hate’ Google
- Delaware – 69.49%
- West Virginia – 73.23%
- Indiana – 73.76%
- North Dakota – 74.54%
- Ohio – 74.59%
In a nutshell, people living on the two coasts favor Google, but many of those living in the MidWest, Rust Belt, and the South prefer using these alternate search engines.
So, if your local market just happens to be in Indiana or its surrounding states, then you could be missing out by not optimizing for other search engines besides Google.
How are Bing SEO and Google SEO the same?
Before we get into the differences, let’s go over the similarities between the two search algorithms because there is no reason to do double duty and everyone should still optimize their sites to rank on Google.
However, the good news is that once your Google SEO is in place, you will have done 90% of the work required to optimize for Bing and Yahoo. (FYI – Bing powers Yahoo search).
- Top brands tend to rank higher on all the search engines.
- Social media signals trigger higher rankings (sharing, liking, reviews, etc.)
- The number of backlinks affects rankings across the board.
- Relevant and high-quality content is extremely important for search rank.
- On-page coding and backend development also play an important role.
What is DuckDuckGo?
Let’s take a moment to consider another player in this game of search engines, DuckDuckGo.
This small search engine is relatively unknown and even falls behind Ask.com in terms of search volume. Yet, it’s important for a couple of reasons.
DuckDuckGo users have grown exponentially (over 50% yearly) for the past couple of years for one reason alone – PRIVACY.
According to DuckDuckGo, it will never store your personal information or search history. They do not follow you with ads and nowadays privacy is a BIG issue.
“no tracking, no ad targeting, just searching.” – DuckDuckGo
But this is what I want to share with you… DuckDuckGo states that its search results are pulled from more than 400 sources, including, Bing, Yahoo, and Yandex.
Google is NOT their source.
And that means that if you do not rank on Bing, then you won’t rank on Yahoo, or DuckDuckGo, or any other search engine that draws from Bing.
You can wave goodbye to that 30% of all searchers who could have been looking at your products and services.
How Bing SEO Differs from Google SEO
We’ve shown you that optimizing for Google will also go a long way to optimizing your site for Bing. However, you should know that there are differences.
Bing loves established websites. In fact, the older the better.
Bing also tends to give greater weight to social media signals. When a user views Bing’s SERP, they can immediately see if one of their Facebook friends or Twitter follower has rated the company or product being searched. They will also show related Pinterest boards when a user searches for images.
(So, if you do not have a social media strategy and you want to rank on Bing, the time has come to get with the program.)
Another subtle difference between Google and the others has to do with backlinks. All search engines love backlinks. However, Google seems to favor quantity while Bing puts greater emphasis on quality.
What About Content?
Relevant and high-quality content will improve ranking on Bing, just as it does with Google. However, Bing rewards sites with optimized images, embedded video, and even audio more than those with text-based content. Adding these “extras” to a well-written article will give your content a boost.
Technical Factors
As you might expect, on-page coding and backend development play a huge part in ranking, regardless of which search engine you are talking about.
- On-Page Loading Speeds
- Keyword Placement
- Site Structure
But there a few differences you must address in order to rank better on the other search engines, even if you rank well on Google.
Technical tips directly related to Bing SEO
Bing relies more heavily on keywords in titles and headings than Google, and unlike Google, Bing still considers meta keywords, though these should be used with care. If the meta keyword is not actually found within the page text or you try to tag too many keywords, Bing will consider your page “spammy” and actually penalize you.
Review your XML sitemaps, and make sure you have submitted them to Bing Webmaster Tools. No sitemap submission is the primary reason sites don’t rank in their search engine.
Bing only caches the first 100k of web pages, which means you must place your most important information in the first 100k or it will never show in the search results.
Redirects are handled differently by Bing than they are on Google. A 302 will be interpreted as a 301 after a certain number of crawls.
How can you use this information?
Even though there are a lot of similarities between Google and other search engines, you still need to make some adjustments to ensure you rank on both search engines. Not only will you reach more people, but Bing SEO is not a common practice so it’s probable that your competition has not taken advantage of this strategy.
Effect Web Agency can show you how you currently rank on both Google and Bing. We can then help you develop a strategic SEO plan for both search engines to help improve your position in the SERP. Our SEO Packages are economical and have shown proven results. You can contact us for more information on SEO or other digital services.
There are many good writers, marketers, designers, and programmers, but employing a team like Effect Web Agency, where specialists in each of those areas work together towards a common goal, can lead a company to the forefront of their industry.
Kim Schmutzler, Director of SEO & Content Marketing
