So now you know how to run a Bing ads campaign and you know why you should be running a Bing ads campaign more important. But this doesn’t mean you’re done with Bing. Not by a long shot – because you can still get more out of it by thinking about SEO as well. SEO for Bing has all the same benefits over SEO for Google that Bing Ads does over AdWords.
That means:
- Less competition
- Slightly different market
- 20-30% of the market share
And a lot of those people will know all these things and still not do anything about it.
Which might leave you asking why not?
Well, there is one more thing to consider here; and that’s just how different Google and Bing really are. Because the assumption is that you can probably focus on SEO for Google and then rest assured that you’ll gain more exposure on Bing too. So you can put your time and effort into the biggest search engine and know that it’s probably helping out on Bing too.
As Google still has the bigger market share, that should still be the priority. It just doesn’t make sense turn it on its head. So does that argument hold water? Just how different are Google and Bing anyway? Well, it’s certainly true that a lot of your SEO practices are going to remain the same on Google and Bing.
Both Google and Bing have the same end goal. That end goal is to supply their users with beautifully made, high-quality content. Thus they will use similar means to achieve these ends. Both look for sites with lots of backlinks, both as a way to find them and as a way to learn what they’re about and whether they’re held in high regard.
Likewise, both will analyze the text on a site and look for the use of keywords. Thus, writing content and building links are both activities that you should be doing no matter which search engine you have on your sites.
But there are certainly some differences too.
So here is the thing: you don’t have to ‘focus’ on Bing at all. No one is asking you to ditch your efforts on Google, that wouldn’t be a smart business move. But if you understand how Bing works, then you can do a little of both. You can add in a few techniques that you know will help your Bing ranking, or you can occasionally write a post for Bing. This is just stuff that you should know.
So let’s make sure you know it…
An Introduction to SEO
Before we look at SEO for Bing specifically, it makes sense to first look at SEO generally. Just what is SEO, how does it work and what does it involve from a marketing perspective? Essentially, SEO means that you’re building your site up to show up in search results (the aforementioned SERPs). This is what we call an ‘organic result’ – it gets the same overall effect as targeting a specific keyword with a Bing Ad, except you aren’t paying for it.
Of course, this also makes it less guaranteed in that it might not work – SEO is a lengthy process that is based a fair bit on luck! Essentially, SEO is performed by adding lots of great content to your website so that Google and Bing can identify the topic of your site and know which searches to show your links for.
This content needs to be well written so that it will look better ‘quality’ than content from other sites. At the same time, it should use subtly inserted keywords throughout the text, the headers, and the HTML tags so that the search engines can index it for the keyword you’re targeting. Don’t overdo this though or you’ll get penalized.
Meanwhile, you should also think about using subtle. The other main ingredient for a successful campaign is your backlinks profile. This refers to all the links all around the wide web that are pointing at your site. These are good for you because Google and Bing consider them references – if a big site is willing to link to you, then it suggests that you must be a serious site in your own right.
This is another reason it’s important to write high-quality content and it’s a reason that you need to think about the quality of your links as much as the quantity. At the same time, having inbound links is important because it helps Google and Bing to find you in the first place. Both search engines use ‘robots’ (small scripts) that search the web by following links. Once you’re indexed, you’ll be checked regularly. Until then though, you’re relying on links!
Why Bing Ads and SEO Are a Match Made in Heaven
Combining PPC with SEO is a match made in heaven for a number of reasons. For starters, gaining more traffic for your site is always going to increase your visibility in the SERPs organically because it will mean more people see your site and hopefully share it with others – thereby linking to you.
This then improves your organic backlinks profile and helps you to climb the ranks. At the same time, using PPC allows you to ‘test out’ a particular keyword and see how it is likely to work for you and bring in more customers (or not). This then can show you which keywords are worth putting in the work to try and rank organically for.
Likewise, this also works in reverse as we discussed earlier – you can see how your organic results are working for you and which ones are helping you to get actual customers. Then from there, you can see which keywords are worth spending money on! You can also use a combination of both PPC and SEO in order to cover a wider spread of keywords, thereby bringing more people to your site!