Link building For Bing
Earlier this year it was reported that Bing and Yahoo will be forging a deal sometime in the future to integrate their search facility. With this in mind it’s important to realise that although Google is going to stick around as the number one search engine, but we must pay more attention to Bing’s search if we are to get the most out of or SEO campaigns in the future.
On Web Pro News yesterday Rick DeJarnette of Bing Webmaster Center has shared some link building ‘rules’. These ‘rules’ read a lot like Google’s own, as one blog commenter already pointed out.
Some Do’s of Link Building for Bing
- Develop your site as a business brand and brand it consistently
- Find relevant industry experts, product reviewers, bloggers, and media folk, and make sure they’re aware of your site/content
- Publish concise, informative press releases online
- Publish expert articles to online article directories
- Participate in relevant conversations on blogs/forums, referring back to your site’s content when applicable
- Use social networks to connect to industry influencers (make sure you have links to your site in your profiles)
- Create an email newsletter with notifications of new content
- Launch a blog/forum on your site
- Participate in relevant industry associations and especially in their online forums
- Strive to become a trusted expert voice for your industry, while promoting your site
Do you do all the ‘Do’s’? I think it’s important to take note of this list, as the variety of links you will get by doing all of this is what’s important here. Without doing numbers 1 – 9 you have no chance of becoming “a trusted expert voice for your industry”. You must participate in your area of expertise, because if you don’t somebody else will.
Some Do Not’s of link building for Bing
This list is so similar to Google’s list of bad behaviour, that I’m almost certain that if you read this SEO blog, you don’t do any of this, right? But I will break each point down for SEO novices.
- The number of inbound links suddenly increases by orders of magnitude in a short period of time
To a search engine that relies on inbound links this is an important point. Links gained by honest means should increase gradually. A sudden increase of links isn’t necessarily going to get you banned, but it may trigger a reaction for the search engines to pay attention to your site and if you have anything slightly ‘black hat’ on your there it will be noticed. - Many inbound links coming from irrelevant blog comments and/or from unrelated sites
Ah, blog comment spam. It’s not to say you shouldn’t blog comment, as this is a natural thing for someone who is a “trusted expert voice for your industry”. But, just don’t do a search for follow blogs and comment on blogs about knitting if your site is about plumbing. Make sure that you comment in relevant places. - Using hidden links in your pages
Surely nobody does this anymore? I’m surprised that this even made it on the list, not that I agree with it, but just that it astounds me that such an old-fashioned black hat technique is still considered important enough for Bing to include it in their “Do Not” list! - Receiving inbound links from paid link farms, link exchanges, or known “bad neighborhoods” on the Web
Again, I’m surprised that this made the list, for the same reasons expressed above. I guess there are a lot of green horns’ about who go right ahead trying to spam search engines without realising they are doing bad. Or they are just idiots. - Linking out to known web spam sites
This one is a little bit trickier to determine. How does one work out what’s a spam site and what’s not? Use your common sense here, if you think it’s a spammy site, it probably is. Only ever link out to sites that are relevant, with information that your visitors will find useful.
Take Away
Your own site should have good, useful relevant content. This does several things; first of all it’s great for your visitors. With great content you are far more likely to get what you want from them, whether it’s a call to your sales department or to download an ebook, if you provide something useful and fulfil a need you will be rewarded.
Great content also gives other webmasters something to link to. Great content allows you to become an ‘expert’ in your industry. I personally think the secret of success online is content, after all ‘content is king…’
