Importance: [rating=3] (Given the dominance of Google)
Recommended link: Summary of countries affected
The Yahoo & Bing alliance is old news from this time last year, but it is only recently that the affects of the alliance has started to make its way to the UK and Europe.
Advertisers & search businesses alike in the US have been using Bing to market on Yahoo for some time now. Any search on Yahoo UK will now display results powered by Bing.
It all depends. If you are a UK focussed business this shouldn't change your strategy too much, according to the latest hitwise data Yahoo & Bing between them only account for 6% of searches in the UK.
This is very different in the USA where between the businesses they account for 23% of search. In short don't waste too much time on ranking in Bing as you are very unlikely to see a good return on the time & budget invested. Making sure you have covered the basics for SEO is an obvious starting point so making use of Bing's webmaster tool suite will start to give you a basic idea of how Bing has indexed your site. While not as featured as Google Webmaster Tools it is well worth siging up to.
Outside of this if you are already working on search engine optimisation for Google you are likely to be doing the right things for Bing as well. Key differences are:
The above list are still relevant to Google but it is believed they have a larger bearing on your results in Bing. We know from blogs on the Bing Webmaster Site that Social activity is likely to play a large part in the ranking algorithm so ensure this is core to any digital plans as it undoubtedly plays a large part with Googles ranking as well.
By Chris Soames
Chris Soames is a Smart Insights blogger and consultant, he has worked in digital marketing for over 6 years with the last few years managing international web strategies for a leading travel brand. Now the Commercial Director at First 10, an Integrated marketing agency, he helps clients get clarity on their marketing strategy and create campaigns engineered to engage with their consumers to help drive sell-through. Most of all, Chris enjoys working with talented people who want to create great (& commercial) things not just tick boxes.
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