The rise of local SEO strategies comes as no surprise for those in the SEO industry because in 2017 alone, the rise of search queries with “near me” increased over 200 percent. Fast-forward to four years later, and a global pandemic, local search continues to be an essential part of SEO strategies. 

While Google is the largest search engine out there, Bing is the second largest on the market and does bring in a considerable amount of traffic for a number of companies in a large range of industries. While your website is optimized for local SEO strategies on Google’s search engine, what about Bing? 

Does a significant amount of website traffic come from this search engine? Is it worth the investment? It could be! 

This is a local SEO for Bing strategies from our SEO consultants Austin Texas! 

There are some differences that companies should consider when they are working on their Bing local optimization strategies. 

1. Keywords on Bing are a bit behind compared to Google. While Google is constantly updating its algorithms and strategies each month, Bing on the other hand is a bit slower to release its guidelines and updates. This is fine, but for those who are working on their SEO strategy, make sure to keep this in mind. 

2. Social media marketing strategies matter on Bing! One of the biggest ranking factors on this search engine is a strong social media presence! While this is not true for other search engines out there, Bing is the exact opposite! 

3. Google has the ability to understand search queries better than Bing does. For Google, even if the search query is similar enough, it usually pulls the search results a consumer was searching for, but on Bing, exact phrases and URLs are important! 

One-third of all search queries take place on Bing, and with the rise of voice search technology, Bing is proving itself as a rising competitor with Google! For companies to rank on the first page of several search engines, follow these strategies for local SEO for Bing! 

Use Bing places 

As a company, if you already are working on SEO strategies, more than likely you will already have a Google My Business account, and at its core, Bing Places is its own version of Google My Business. One of the biggest reasons to make sure that your company is on Bing Places is because it mimics Google’s MapPack local search results. 

The more that your company shows in local search results with Bing Places, the more accurate the search results will show for your local SEO. Essentially, if consumers are continuously finding your business and following through the customer journey, it builds credibility with Bing. 

It provides those companies who have higher local competition with an advantage point because it is less competitive; on the other hand, it is less competitive because fewer consumers use Bing and Bing Places. Nevertheless, just because it is smaller and less competitive, does not mean it isn’t worth the investment. 

Use social media 

While social media accounts show on branded search results when searching for companies and other search queries, they are not a large part of the ranking, and in fact, they do not affect ranking at all. 

You can have 16,000 Facebook followers, but it doesn’t matter to Google. The same cannot be said about Bing SEO. Bing puts an emphasis on companies who have their local SEO for Bing optimized and have a strong and consistent social media presence. 

Our SEO consultants Austin Texas suggest implementing digital marketing strategies in place this way a company can hand off their social media marketing efforts along with their Bing SEO! 

Optimized on-page SEO 

At its core, Bing optimization is similar to Google’s but there are some differences due to the fact that Bing is typically a bit behind on updates and technology; however, it is still important to have on-page SEO strategies in place! 

This will help with your Bing Places ranking for local search queries, and along with this, on-page SEO is more critical than off-page SEO! While both strategies will only help your website over time, on-page SEO is stronger and more imperative for Bing local search results than off-page SEO! 

Old school isn’t bad 

Search Engine Journal provides a great example of this, “Think of Google before Hummingbird and Penguin.” Yup, the wild west of SEO works on Bing. While our SEO consultants Austin Texas know there is a fine line between old school SEO and new school, a combination of the two can help grow your companies ranking on Bing and Google.