Whether you like it or not, Bing is making some waves in the search engine (decision engine?) world. If you’re like me, you’ve seen a steady increase in traffic from Bing since its launch. But, at least for me, the traffic is still far less than what I receive from Google. And since we all want more traffic, one inevitable question is: How does one optimize for Bing?

For starters I’d recommend continuing everything you are doing for Google. Things like Title Tags and onpage keywords, which you should already be optimizing for Google, are of importance to Bing as well. And since Google doesn’t appear to be in danger of losing the dominate market share, I wouldn’t recommend changing any SEO strategy to come out on top on Bing. Most SEO professionals optimize for Google since they provide the most traffic, but could optimizing for Bing help your efforts on Google?

It is quite possible that the answer to this question is, “Yes”, but more time is needed for conclusive evidence. However, it is clear that Google and Bing serve up different results for the same search term.

What might be slightly more important on Bing is the Title Tag of the page with the incoming link. This means that if your site sells bicycle parts a link from a page with “bicycle parts” in the Title will help you rank better than a link from a page titled “Bubblegum Wrappers”. Certainly, this type of relevant link building is also favored by Google.

Another factor that tests seem to confirm is that Bing factors in the age of a domain more heavily than Google. Again though, having an older domain can help on Google as well.

So while there are some clear differences, if you continue to follow the best practice rules for optimization you shouldn’t have too difficult a time climbing up the ranks.