Bing I owe you an apology. As of this weekend, I’ve realized I owe you one big fat public apology. For years I’ve dismissed Microsoft and I was a loyal fan of Google. This weekend you made me see a new you. A new, improved and pretty cool Bing.
On Saturday morning I was drinking my coffee, surfing the web, and reading blog posts. Yes I am an SEO (aka nerd) and this is what we do on a Saturday morning. As I explored the web I happen to run across a blog post on Bing’s Webmaster Center blog. I’ll be honest, I don’t even know how I got there but I did and I was happy I did. I started reading a blog post from Duane Forrester. Then I found another and another and I was impressed. I was impressed with Duane and with Bing. It was good content, transparent, and written in a way the average person could digest. All things I love and appreciate.
I’ve been blogging for a very long time. I like blogs and I recognize good blogs when I see them. Google’s blog posts are one of the reasons why I’ve been such a Google fan. I like to know the rules and what is expected of me as an SEO consultant.
Duane’s posts are good and while they are not currently receiving the retweets and likes they should, if he keeps blogging at Webmaster Center, they will in due time.
Recent Bing Webmaster Center blog posts I found of interest were:
- You love links. We love links. Build for the right reasons.
- How To Build Quality Content
- Keyword research: a wise investment of time
- The Power of Local – why small, local businesses matter so much
- Social and Search: A Small Business Primer
All four are things I blog about and care about. I try to get others to read and care about them too. They are elements of good white hat SEO and the big part of what makes the internet awesome.
But why have the SEOs and internet marketers not been tweeting, liking, and sharing this content? I think they are like me and we’ve kind of gotten lazy. We’re getting much to reliant on Google, Danny Sullivan, and Matt McGee. All sources I love, but we need to broaden our horizons a little more and our horizons need to include a little more Bing.
While I am publically apologizing to Bing, I do think Bing still has a huge uphill battle. Bing is still recovering from the MSN flop and still trying to position itself as a true competitor to Google. But it can and I think it will. Competition is good and I welcome it.
Now I just need to get my fellow SEO consultants to pay a little more attention to the underdog. Goliath (I mean Google), as much as I love it, needs the competition. In the end, that competition will be good for SEOs, search quality, and the ultimate users.
…and I owe Rebecca a big fat thanks!
Always love hearing from folks across the industry when they have feedback for us. 🙂 So much the better when the feedback is positive! And very happy to hear you like what you’re seeing over here. Our team is working hard to bring forward tools and support that makes a difference for webmasters.
Between attending the major conferences, the blog, our community forum and direct access to folks like me, we’re encouraging everyone to tell us what tools they need from us. I know SEO, and so have a good idea of what’s useful, but one voice on the topic is pretty lonely, plus crowdsourcing ideas often leads to bigger, better, more useful things in the end. 🙂
Thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts Rebecca – very much appreciated.
Duane in my opinion the more you can tell us about what Bing considers good SEO, the better prepared we are to steer clients away from the bad SEO. I frequently send clients links to support my white hat SEO practices and why the black hat SEO sitting on their existing website is terribly wrong. My first stop for proof is always one of the search engines.
I’m a good SEO consultant because of the search engines. Over the years I’ve relied on Google for instruction, although now I know I can also rely on Bing. Additional information on what Bing wants from websites and even SEO consultants, will only continue to enhance my SEO experience and my ability to provide results for clients.
I love search and truly believe in the power of organic SEO and quality content. I embrace the search engines and consider them part of my SEO team and not the enemy. The more our industry can play nicely as a team, the better the world of search will become. I already think it is amazing, so I can only imagine what lies ahead.