How to Rank High on Bing.com

Historically, Google has commanded the largest share of the search engine traffic market. However, that is now changing. Ever since Yahoo started serving up Bing results, it is worth focusing some SEO effort on Bing, especially if catering to US-based traffic. The latest figures from Experian’s Hitwse indicate that Bing’s overall search engine traffic share is creeping up into the 30% range. (Note that this includes both Bing.com and Yahoo).

Before Yahoo starting serving up Bing-powered search results, it may have been more practical to focus primarily on getting a high rank on Google since it commanded the largest share of the search traffic market; for some people focusing as much effort on the much smaller share of Yahoo and Bing (or MSN as it was known before) was often hard to justify. Furthermore, since the search algorithms for Bing and Yahoo are different from Google and can sometimes be in conflict with each other so Bing and Yahoo tended to get less attention.

Things are different now. It is time to take Bing more seriously.

Here are 3 simple tips that will help get websites to rank high on Bing. And since there is some overlap between SEO techniques that apply to Google and Bing, adding these techniques to properly executed SEO should help Google search results as well.

Exact (Keyword) Match Domain Names

Google will often give a higher rank if the search terms exactly match a domain name. Consider our own website, http://www.seo-company-florida.com. As of the writing of this article, it ranks at #1 on both Google and Bing for the search terms “seo company florida” and ranks at #2 on Bing for “seo florida”. This rank is helped by the exact match domain name. Do note that exact match domain names work best with .com, .net, or .org domains and less so for with domain extensions. If you are launching a new website, take the time to see of you can find a domain name (.com, .net or .org) that exactly matches your main search term(s).

Link Quality

Google may not give much (if any) value for the possibly “dirtier” links; Bing does not appear to penalize the “dirtiness” of links as much as Google does so link quality can be a bit lower than Google’s and one can get away with it. However, one needs to tread carefully in this area – it is always best to follow proper SEO techniques and go after links that are of as high quality as possible. Of course this depends on the website being optimized.

Inline Links

SEO for Google is heavily dependent on links. Links from articles, blogs, directories, videos, content pages and all other sources. Google just loves links. When it comes to Bing, things are a bit different. Bing, of course, loves links and places good value on all kinds of links but just not as much as Google. Bing is partial to what are known as “inline links”. So, what exactly are “inline links”? These are links that appear within the content of a web page and within the text of an article or a blog post or a web page. Bing simply does not assign as much value to links from directories, article and video syndication websites.

Consider this:
This is an editorial link that makes sense to the reader because it flows through the content of the paragraph and is contextually correct. Of course, the contextual correctness is not the important thing; it is the fact that the link appears inline within the content that is important. This could be the case with a comment on a blog post, or on a forum

So, to rank high on Bing, one needs to look for these so-called “inline” links. A side benefit will be that since Google simply loves links, the Google rank will also benefit.

Content, Content, Content

Content is and always will be king. In the eyes of the reader and for the search engine robots. Unique content (Google farmer update, anyone?) holds one of the main keys to high SEO rank. Google loves unique content and Bing loves it even more. It is possible to take a 1-page microsite with little content and get it to rank on page one on Google if there are enough backlinks and proper SEO is conducted. Bing prefers content rich websites and it typically does not like to rank sparsely contented websites or pages and tends to disregard the number of backlinks (unless they are inline links). And in order to get inline links, one needs content. Catch 22!

It is important to make sure that the content on a website is relevant and related. If a website ranks in top results served by Google, it is advisable to continue to add unique content pages and link to them from the home page so that the Bing bots can find this content.

We took the time to experiment with the above guidelines. The 3 things that worked well are (1) inline links (2) unique content and (3) exact match keyword domains. This is demonstrated by the rank of http://www.seo-company-florida.com for several search terms. As an added benefit, the above practices will also benefit Google rank. However, one needs to be sure to always follow proper and ethical SEO processes.

Arnima is a Florida SEO company that can help you rank high on Bing and also on Google and other search engines via our Search Engine Optimization Services.

Our blog post http://arni.ma/leadtime stated that leads tend to go stale very quickly if not contacted within 5 to 30 minutes... We took this matter to heart and investigated it thoroughly. We also made temporary adjustments to our inbound lead handling and we are happy to confirm that, indeed, the faster you engage with a potential lead, the more chances you have of qualifying it and the more engaged the person is.

This resulted in another adjustment. The speed at you get back to your prospective clients is yet another factor that determines your closure rate. Granted, this does not apply to every single qualified lead but it does apply to engaged leads. If you make a possible client wait, they will seek other vendors. The more you make them wait, theoretically, the lower your chances of getting them to closure. Of course, there are exceptions but then there are exceptions to most things.

Some pre-conceived notions may prevent you from contacting your leads quickly. These are things we have heard at one time, or another:

-we don't want to seem desperate by calling a prospect back immediately
-we dont want our prospective customers to think that we are waiting by the phone to call them
-we want our prospective customers to wait so that they think we are busy
-we will call them back when we are ready - at our convenience and not theirs

And many more.

The bottom line? Call them. As fast as you can. It will be worth your time. We validated it. In less than a week.

Inbound leads that are generated on your website (whether it is a form-fill or call-in) go stale almost immediately!

Your chances of qualifying such leads decrease by a factor of 21 times if you wait beyond 30 minutes to contact them!

Check out this blog post by Tim Ash, a landing page optimization at Site Turners.

Mortgage Contracting Services (MCS) – www.mcs360.com – is a national property preservation and maintenance company located in Tampa, Florida and Dallas, Texas.

MCS offers extensive mortgage field services including property inspections, property preservation, REO property maintenance, property valuation and many others.

Arnima has designed and developed 4 websites for MCS over the course of the last five years and has been providing search engine optimization services to MCS for the last 18 months. The MCS website ranks in top 5 search engine results for multiple keywords on major search engines.

SEO goals for MCS are to:
(1) establish and increase credibility for their organization
(2) to dominate their competition and
(3) to drive more traffic to their website so they can generate more traffic.

Search Engine Optimization services continue for MCS. View their SEO report from March 2011.

Arnima, a Florida SEO and Florida Web Design company, can help you get your website in the top search engine results. Learn more on our website at www.arnima.com.

Unless your organization has significant brand recognition and awareness, just having a nice website is simply not enough. Remember, there are close to 250 million websites on the Internet. Your website is simply one of them – a proverbial needle in the haystack!

It is challenging enough that the expectations of Internet users are constantly increasing and people want much more than they did previously. Technological advances have made the Internet an essential part of life for most people to the point where they rely on it for information, entertainment, research and a whole lot more! They expect fast load times, minimal distractions, user friendliness and attractive designs and more than anything else, they expect unique and meaningful content. And this challenge is augmented by the fact that search engines are continually improving and tweaking their search algorithms to make sure that relevance is maintained for every search conducted – so now you have to satisfy both your website visitors AND the search engines!

Consider the following questions:
1. How do you expect your potential website visitors to find you on the Internet?
2. Once your potential visitors find your website, what do you want them to do?
3. Do you have a plan to engage your visitors and lead them through a decision making process?

When it comes to the Internet, there is no magical formula for success. In order to gain an edge, you must dot all your “i’s” and cross all your “t’s”.   With that in mind, at the very least, your website should:

-be well designed and architected with focus on ease of use
-have unique and relevant content that engages your website visitors and prospective customers
-be optimized to rank high on search engines using ethical SEO (search engine optimization)
-have properly laid out landing pages with clear call(s) to action that lead visitors to take action
-be constructed such that information is readily found without having to hunt around for it
-be optimized to load quickly without any broken links and missing elements
-make minimal use of distractive technologies and elements (excessive use of flash, for example)
-work properly on all major browsers and have no broken links and missing elements
-use effective technology that enhances the user experience without becoming cumbersome
-be easy to manage, update and keep current without having to rely on designers or developers for assistance

If your website is not generating the results that you expect it to, you need to take a hard look at its overall effectiveness and address the items listed above.

Arnima is a Tampa SEO and Florida Web Design company that can help you rank high on Bing and also on Google and other search engines via our Search Engine Optimization Services.

Tampa, Florida, USA - January 03, 2011 - 09:30 am EST

In order to provide highly competitive search engine optimization (SEO) and Internet marketing services to the Orland area in Florida, Arnima, a Tampa, Florida based website design, development and Internet marketing company today launched a micro-website dedicated to SEO Services for Orlando, Florida area. This website can be found  at www.seocompanyorlando.net.

Arnima has successfully achieved top 10 rank on all major search engines for its own web presence and for that of its clients. Several of Arnima's clients websites are also in the top 3 rank on all 3 major search engines.

In this struggling economy, businesses need a serious edge over their competitors. When compared to traditional forms of advertising and marketing, Internet narketing stands out because of its deep reach and low cost. A well designed website, coupled with a highly targeted and honed Internet marketing campaign can provide this edge to small and medium businesses.

About Arnima

Arnima is a web services and solutions company based in Tampa, Florida, USA. We specialize in search engine optimization (SEO) and other forms of Internet marketing, website design and development, e-commerce websites and web application development. With operations in the India, Canada and USA, Arnima provides organizations and businesses across the globe with seamless access to web solutions and services. Current clients are located in North America, Europe and Asia. For more information, please visit www.arnima.com.

We are pleased to announce our first ever CYBER MONDAY Special Offer. Starting Friday, November 26, 2010, all our SEO plans are 33.33% off. This is a great time to take advantage of our SEO Services. This offer is valid unitl December 3, 2010.

Website analytics tracking software shows you the activity of your website visitors and measures their online behavior.

Google Analytics

Google Analytics offers you more insights on the performance of your web site than just about any other tool available today. You can find anything from what screen resolution your customers have, what color space they're using, to what ISP they are using and much more.

Graphs, charts and interactive map

You can get graphs, pie charts, and lists and that’s not all. You can also find an exciting interactive world map that shows you from which countries, states and cities your visitors are coming from, plus when and how they got there!

Search engine Statistics

You also get detailed search engine statistics, such as which keywords are being typed into the search box to get to your site. You also get to see which pages are getting most hits, how users are searching for your website and a lotmore data!

Another great thing about Google Analytics is that it can show you how people are getting to your site (which search engines, what percentage of users are reaching your site through referrals, what or where they were referred from and also what percentage of your visitors were direct traffic and what they were typing in to become direct traffic).

The information you get from the referral data shows you which of your marketing campaigns are working and which ones aren't doing so well. This abundance of information allows you to make easy and quick changes to your marketing strategies and track your progress on an almost daily basis.

Here are some actual visitor statistics from one of our websites, www.findnotarypublic.com:

Site Usage - the number of visits, page view and other statistics

Visitors Overview - the number of visitors



Traffic Sources - where people are coming from

Most people involved in SEO are familiar with primary link sources such as directories, press release websites, blogs, forums, article syndication websites, social networks and bookmarking portals. However, as part of your link building, consider the following alternative sources that can provide you with much needed link juice:

Customized 404 Pages
Just be sure that missing pages on your website are not impacting inbound link numbers. If someone links to your website and they get a 404 error, you may be missing out on potential incoming links. Be sure to address this problem. If you have your own custom 404 error pages, do a crawl test (available in Google Webmaster Tools) to identify broken links and put in place permanent 301 redirects to appropriate pages on your website. Oh, and do test the links individually after you implement the 301 redirects.

Testimonials
It may be worth contacting some website whose products & services you use and discuss the possibility of you providing them with a testimonial in order to get an inbound link from them. This may take a bit of work but the results are well worth it, especially if you can get a link from a highly ranked website.

Wiki’s
Apart from Wikipedia, there are a large number of other Wiki’s that cover a very large number of topics. Links from Wikis are beneficial and generally tend to be in-content external links that appear within the body of an article, or content. Search Engines assign a high value to such links despite the fact that some of them place “nofollow” attributes. Some examples: Google’ sKnol and AboutUs.org.

Free Press Release Websites
SEO experts are familiar with PRWeb.com. However, there are several other free press release distribution websites that can provide you with high value links. Some of them don’t allow the creation of anchor text links but these websites are indexed and do appear in search engine result pages. Some examples are 24-7PressRelease.com, PRlog.org and PR.com.

Social Network Profiles and Pages
A lot of social media websites allow you to create custom profiles using your name, or that of your business. Take advantage of this. Do remember that idle social media profiles can do more damage than good so be sure to do periodic updates. The frequency of the updates will depend on you business and on your service and/or product and industry.

.edu pages
Links from educational organizations are highly trusted by search engines. Although difficult to obtain, you can create a profile on your educational organization’s alumni section, or you can create a profile on a sorority, fraternity or educational related volunteer website that may be linked to your alma mater.

According to data ranking the top 15 advertising networks recently released by Comscore, Microsoft’s Media Network has grown by a whopping 31% in 2009! And according to iCrossing’s Enterprise Natural Search Share Index for 2009, Microsoft’s Bing is showing consistent gains of about 1.1%, year over year. In stark contrast is Yahoo Search – losing over 2.75% of market share year-over-year.

What does this mean for you? If you haven’t given Bing and Microsoft’s Adverting network serious consideration, it is time to change that in 2010. Based on current trends, it is predicted that Bing will overtake Yahoo! Search within the first half of 2010 to become the second ranked search engine, right after Google.

If I was a betting man, I would lay some serious odds on Bing!