It’s no secret that Google is at the forefront of most marketing campaigns today. Websites and content strategies are optimized around Google’s algorithms for businesses to build and maintain a solid online presence.

If your website has a high Google rank, then you’re good, right? Not necessarily… Believe it or not, Google has some serious competition with other search engines, such as Bing and Yahoo.

We know that you are probably thinking, Yahoo? Wasn’t that a 90s thing – right up there with AOL? Does anyone even use Bing? The answer is YES. In fact, it is important to optimize multiple search engines as you could be missing out on some great business opportunities.

Perhaps you’ve already spent a lot of time and money getting your website to appear on page one of Google, now you have to think about optimizing for another search engine? Is it even worth it? Read on to learn more about the differences between Google and Bing and why you should be optimizing for both.

Who Uses Bing?

So why bother with Bing? Although Bing isn’t as popular as Google, this is the exact reason why you should be including it in your strategy – to stay ahead of the competition. Although only 30 percent of web users and searchers use Bing, this is still potential business that you can target.

The Right Audience

Another reason why you should be optimizing for Bing is demographics. The demographics of Bing users differ from Google or even Yahoo users. Depending on your target audience, Bing users might fit the profile.

Keeping Up with Google

It’s happened before. After putting in a great deal of time and effort to increase your Google rank, your position suddenly drops. We all know that Google frequently updates and changes algorithms, which can be frustrating and can even become a full-time job – one that many businesses cannot afford.

If you are also optimizing for other search engines, such as Bing, then even if Google does change its algorithms, you can rest assured that you are still targeting an audience on Bing while you work to adjust to the new Google changes.

Bing SEO vs. Google SEO – What is the Difference?

Countless businesses have invested in developing solid SEO strategies to improve their Google rank and position. However, what many do not realize is that a good SEO strategy also takes other search engines into account. For example, Bing is gaining more attention and traction from brands looking to reach and expand their audience and rank higher on both search platforms.

So, in terms of SEO – what are the similarities and differences between Bing and Google? Here are some key points you should know.

Google vs. Bing: Similarities

  • Top brands tend to rank higher
  • The number of backlinks still matter!
  • Optimizing content with keywords based on geographic locations is important for local search results
  • Relevant and quality content is crucial for high search rankings

Google vs. Bing: Differences

  • Bing puts more emphasis on social media engagements and interactions than Google
  • Although a number of keywords and keyword variations are accepted by Google, Bing prefers exact keyword matches in content
  • Bing cares more about domain age and also considers .gov and .edu websites when assigning rank
  • Bing understands and crawls Flash websites better than Google
  • Bing puts more emphasis on mobile-optimized websites than Google

Here are some key takeaways…

Now that you understand some of the differences between Google and Bing SEO and why optimizing for both search engines is important, here are some key takeaways that you should begin implementing now.

Quality Over Quantity

The good news is that Google and Bing have some similarities in terms of SEO, so you don’t have to revamp your entire SEO strategy or duplicate your SEO efforts just for Bing. All in all, quality over quantity still matters. Similar to Google, Bing tends to rank top brands higher than smaller brands and also considers the quality of content and backlinks.

Get Social

As an experienced marketer, you already know that social media is a crucial part of any marketing or SEO strategy. So, putting more emphasis on your social engagements shouldn’t be too difficult. When a user searches on Bing, they will see if a friend or follower “likes” or has rated a product, brand or image. This is why Bing tends to put more emphasis on social signals, such as “likes”, “tweets”, “shares”, “pins” and “+1s”.

Mobile Optimization

Because most users perform web searches on a mobile device, brands have invested a lot of resources to develop a mobile optimized website. Although Google does consider website responsiveness, believe it or not, Bing actually puts more emphasis on brands with mobile optimized sites than Google.

So there you have it: a brief overview of Google and Bing, the key similarities and differences of each, and why it’s important to optimize for both search engines. Although optimizing for Bing might require a few extra steps, most of the work has already been done, and you will likely find that your efforts will go a long way.