Category: Bing

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Bing Ads Revamps and Improves Conversion Tracking

Finally! Bing Ads is updating their quirky and hard to get going conversion tracking.  Here’s their recent video that shows how to do the set up and why conversion tracking is so important to get working right.

Personally I am very glad to see this change and hope it works as advertised. So often we have the code in place properly but get hung up on the set up of the string for their old control panel.

With the new very simple set up that is now finally intuitive, this should be a huge improvement. Bing will also let you know if the tag is active with even some troubleshooting information.

Make sure to look for these new tools in the Shared Library in Bing Ads. If you need help getting your business advertising on Bing Ads, make sure to check out our services and management programs.

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Bing Ads Announces Product Ads

Google and Bing Product Ads Generate a Strong ROI
Google and Bing Product Ads Generate a Strong ROI

New into the e-commerce product selling market with product images in their search results, Bing Ads enters with a new service offering called Bing Product Ads. With huge returns for e-commerce stores and familiarity with Google Shopping (previously known as Product Listing Ads), Bing Product Ads is sure to be a hit. For early embracers of this new program the ability for them to own their product market on Bing is a huge incentive to move in fast. Well, at least for now, while there is not strong competition for buyers. You can read Bing’s full announcement.

I have found the biggest stumbling block to businesses moving into either Google or Bing’s product program is the creation of the data feed. It is onerous to create the taxonomy to match both Bing and Google’s criteria that allows for them to sort and return your products in ads.

I have however found that Lexity may provide the solution in regards to data feed creation. For Bing Ads, Lexity provides several tiers of service with monthly fees plus a click budget, and services over 36 different shopping carts. With big business now being done starting with consumers clicking a picture of a product in search results and then moving all the way to the purchase process Lexity provides the right service at the right time.

Although not everything that Lexity sells in their own toolbox has value, the Bing Ads and Google Shopping programs are of important note and something that e-commerce stores should definitely consider using. The ROI that I have seen from clients of mine that are using Lexity to create the product ads for Bing and Google is extremely good.

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Blurring the Lines Between Paid and Organic

Check your vision that may be an ad you're looking at
Check your vision that may be an ad you’re looking at.

In 2013, I feel that Google has actively worked to blur the lines between paid and organic. With algorithms that forced businesses aggressively into Google AdWords, advertising that nearly blends in at the top of the page with organic results, Google+ Local ads that look like regular listings, and now Google Shopping ads that are scheduled to appear within the organic search results, paid ads are becoming the new “organic” way to drive traffic.

Just ask any consumer of your services, “how did you find me?” Nearly all will say “on Google”. But probe further and the consumer really does not know if they saw and organic link or a paid link.

With Google testing new ad layouts and new ad products they are pushing the envelop to move search placement almost into a fully paid arena. Although today on Google.com the ads at the top of the page sit inside a pink box, earlier this year they have sat in a very, very light blue or gray box, to being in a white box that matches the page with a small goldenrod box in front.

But Google’s not alone Bing is additionally testing some of these same exact formats. I believe that we will see even further blurring between paid and organic this next year with more emphasis on paid placement programs than paying firms to place your website content in the organic results.

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Bing is Different Than Google – So How Do You Get Good Placement

Yes, it is true that a site that does not perform well on Google may have great placement on Bing. 

So what are the tips to try to get better placement on Bing? 

1. Make sure that you have created a Bing Webmaster Account and use this account to upload your sitemap.xml file. 

2. Others have stated that to have a highly accurate sitemap that does not contain any pages with a 404 (page not found) error is key for placement on Bing. I have not necessarily found this to be a huge factor, but it is a good practice to regularly re-spider your site and create a fresh site map and to evaluate errors in the site map. 

3. Get social, especially on Facebook. I do agree with this approach, especially when you review the tight integration that Facebook and Bing have created. Facebook activity (meaning interaction and follower growth not just updates) may play a very important part in organic placement on Bing. One need go no further to understand this integration than to review Bing’s properties (Skype and Sky Drive) to see the tight connection that Bing is pushing with Facebook inside these applications. The key is that if you want placement on a search engine, you pay attention to what they consider important and play the game their way. Google considers Google+ key and Bing considers Facebook key. 

4. Make sure you have a robots.txt file. Now others have stated that they feel this is key to good placement on Bing. I personally have not see sites without one take a dive in organic results, but it is a best practice to include one for all sites and for all search engines. 

5. Strive to have a low page/site bounce rate. Some have said that this is key to good placement on Bing. It makes sense that Google and Bing consider the bounce rate important in their algorithm for placement with today’s focus on user relevancy. I don’t consider this however a Bing only placement item. 

6. Make sure you have unique content. This one is a no-brainer really. In today’s new world of search if you are not providing unique content that has real and perceived value for readers your site will drop in organic placement over time. Content needs to be updated on a regular basis and created with your unique audience in mind. Content for the sake of content is not an approach I would recommend. If this means you need to do one blog post a week that is well-written and shareable instead of three days a week of thin or scraped content, go with the lower frequency but higher value approach. 

7. It used to be that Bing liked bolded text specifically top keywords in your content and preferentially showed sites that embraced this approach. I do not however encourage use of this tactic. Many of the things SEO’s have done in the past for both Google and Bing have been devalued as of late. 

Many of the things you would do for placement on Google are important to get placement on Bing as well. The gap of how to place on Bing versus Google is getting narrower and narrower. So I would take the approach of making my website the most interesting for my audience and share and interact preferentially on Facebook for placement on Bing specifically.

If you need help with your strategy for content creation and search placement check out our website for services that may be of value to you.