But It’s Not Google: It’s Bing
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Bing has been all over the news since Microsoft announced its launch last week. They’ve also done quite the commercial blitz. Rumor has it that Microsoft has earmarked more than $80 Million for marketing their new search engine.
As a small business owner or freelancer, why should you care?
That’s a pretty tough question.
Google has made itself hella useful for business. Since getting your company’s website to show up on the Google search results means more business for you, business owners love Google. Can getting your website to show up on Bing help your business?
As of December of 2008, Google had a market share of over 63%. Yahoo was at 16%, and Microsoft’s Live Search was at 9%. Bing replaces Live search, so we can assume that Bing is starting with a 9% market share. When you are looking at where to spend your resources, it seems like a better idea to put your efforts into the big G.
On the other hand, you may feel it’s worth it to conquer one tiny search engine. Here are some ways you might benefit:
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Bing seems to be heavily weighted towards Domain Name relevance. One client company that I work with had four of its sub-domains show up on the first page of the results, where on Google the first page of the results show several negative reviews of the company.
- Microsoft pulled a fast one and made Bing the default search of Internet Explorer 6. About 20% of people still use IE6. Note: this was a mistake and Microsoft is working on fixing it.
- Watch it and wait. By many accounts, Bing doesn’t suck. The search results are relevant, and if enough people are willing to give it a try, Bing might become a place where you’ll hope your customers find you. From the Techcrunch Comments section:
I am curious to know how many Sparkplugging readers spend time on search engine marketing. Let us know in the comments whether you engage in SEO or paid search tactics for your freelancing or small business work.
Oh, and let us know what you think of Bing.
Cory Huff is best known online for AgoodHusband.net. He also works for an internet marketing firm that specializes in Search Engine Marketing. Cory hopes to leverage the Sparkplugging internship to help performers and artists make money using the internet.
Follow Cory on Twitter: @aGoodHusband
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Great post. So far I like Bing and hope it gains some steam. In terms of traffic I think it is worth keeping an eye on, for some sites I track I have seen Bing send close to double the traffic live did. Obviously the numbers are skewed a bit because of the all the media hype, but it’s still a good sign.
I’m still a Google guy, but it looks like my general SEO & SEM strategies have worked well on Bing too, so I’m just going to stick to the plan for now.
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I started noticing a few days ago that I’m getting a lot of search traffic through Bing where I was not getting any Live traffic. I’m not sure if that’s because it’s new and Microsoft is pushing it–or maybe it has to do with that IE6 thing. Definitely something to keep an eye on!
i have been evaluating the search results of Microsoft Bing compared to Google and they are comparable. Bing gives almost the same relevant search results just like Google.