How to Optimize Your Website to Accommodate Bing

You thought you were done when you optimized your site for Google, MSN, and Yahoo, right? Nope - the Microsoft Network, MSN, has partnered with Yahoo in a 10-year, $275 million dollar agreement and recently launched Bing. Having gone live in June 2009, it's instantly very popular. There's even talk that it may eventually replace Google as the most popular search engine because it is intuitive and offers users a number of search options.

Time will tell and Google will most certainly have an answer to Bing's growing popularity.

Early reports also show that Bing users are more likely to click on advertisements than Google users.

While we can't predict the future, all signs point to making the effort now to optimize your website for Bing. Here's how:

#1 Make your content longer than 300 words. According to SEO experts, Bing algorithms seem to place a higher value on content that is over 300 words. That means longer blog posts, more content on web pages and longer articles.

#2 Optimize your title tags for your keywords and use unique title tags on each page. You may be doing this already for Google and Yahoo. Keep it up; Bing likes title tags and pays attention to them when indexing and ranking your page. If you haven't been paying too much attention to them up until now, it's time to start.

#3 Linking is always important. However, unlike Google, Bing likes backlinks from relevant websites and outbound links are treated with a bit more weight than other search engines.

#4 Bing's FAQ page suggests that you target no more than two keywords per page.

#5 You may have let your meta tags slide because rumor has it Google doesn't really pay attention to them. However, Bing recommends you use unique meta description tags on each page.

#6 Continue to Use Other Standard Optimization Techniques and strategies. For example:

There's a bit of disagreement between experts. There are some reports that indicate Bing places value on longevity. The older your website, the more respect Bing seems to want to give you.

However, other sources cite that younger, newer sites, have the advantage.

Regardless, whether you're a brand new site or a website that's been around for years, put the above practices in place and be patient.

As an internet business owner it's always good to pay attention to what the big three are doing, the big three being MSN, Yahoo, and Google.

And when two of them team up then that most certainly deserves a change in strategy. As the months pass and Bing continues to grow, there will likely be some additions or changes to how they index and rank websites. Stay tuned for further developments.