“While Google is clearly the market leader, we view Bing as a dark horse,” SEO.com President Ash Buckles said. “Nearly a third of all Web searches now go through Bing. This is considerably more share than Microsoft achieved previously with MSN and Live Search.”
Bing turned heads with the way the search engine integrated social media into its search results, said Claye Stokes, director of SEO at SEO.com.
Facebook and Bing partnered to provide a search experience that integrates elements of the social networking website into the search engine. Once the user enables the Facebook-Bing application, related posts from the user’s Facebook friends will appear on a separate sidebar.
Bing has also aligned with Klout, a tool that measures social influence, to provide users with expert opinions on certain subjects.
“Our design focuses on unique ways to bring friends and experts into search results,” said Kevin Anderson, a spokesman for Bing. “These social results complement the standard search results without compromising them.”
The focus on social media in search was part of Bing’s recent redesign, which was rolled out in May. The changes marked Bing’s first major tweaks in its three-year history. Aside from
incorporating social media into search, Bing also focused on cleaning up its results pages, combating what they call “search overload syndrome,” by making results more human-friendly.
All of the redesigns and updates seem to be working. A new campaign launched by Bing,
Bing it On, allows users to compare Google search results right next to Bing results and decide which ones they like better. Microsoft claims that in blind side-by-side comparisons, users prefer Bing results over Google, 2:1.
“Bing's a major search engine and traffic source, so marketers should definitely be considering it,” said Danny Sullivan, editor-in-chief of
Search Engine Land. “It has also indeed been on the rise.”
Search marketing expert
David Mihm said optimizing a website to rank well in Bing is a little easier than it is for Google. This is because Bing’s algorithm is less reliant on link signals than Google’s and more reliant on traditional keyword-related factors.
“Feature-wise, I actually think a lot of Bing's features are ahead of Google (and) close to my heart,” he said. “They just need to capture the hearts and minds of more searchers and get them ‘trained’ away from typing Google.com every time they want to perform a search.”
Only time will tell if Bing will continue to gain search engine market share or if Google will remain the undisputed search giant.
About SEO.com:
Founded in 2007, SEO.com is a leading search engine optimization company that increases search visibility, leads, and sales for more than 250 clients in various industries and sizes. Their award-winning services and results have landed them a spot on the prestigious Inc. 500 list. SEO.com's primary specialties include enterprise SEO, small business SEO, social media, search engine marketing (PPC), content marketing, conversion optimization and web development. To find out more about what SEO.com can do, please call (800)351-9081 or visit;
http://www.seo.com/.
Source:
PRWebURL:
Source