[Method] Use Bing Search Console to improve your Google rankings

Most webmasters exclusively target Google and completely ignore Bing due to low traffic share. Even if you don't want any traffic from Bing, you can take advantage of their search console that offers a lot more data in comparison to Google. While Google plays with your search rankings without giving you much information, Bing provides some solid recommendations. You can follow this step by step guide to identify easy fixes for quick ranking improvement.

Step 1: Login to your Bing Webmaster Tools. You can login with your gmail account.
https://www.bing.com/webmaster/login/redirecttohomepage

Step 2: Click "Recommendations" in left panel.


Step 3: Identify and fix errors.


Please keep in mind that some errors go against the recommendations of SEO plugins. For example, many SEO plugins don't recommend using h1 tag on home page as they don't have a traditional title for SEO purposes. Some also advise against using alt tag on brand image. So, it's a personal preference when it comes to these errors. But you can identify and fix some obvious errors that affect pages in bulk like having similar titles or description.

Step 4: You can also use Bing Webmaster Tools for keyword research and backlinks.

Bonus: Go to "Search Performance" from left panel. Click on "List by" Pages. Identify your top pages and check their keywords. You can update your content to target some high performance or new keywords. Although you can do the same from Google, GSC gives generic results that won't change over time while Bing may surprise you with new opportunities.

Results: Here are my results after applying these strategies to a site. Bing suggested me to build some high authority backlinks, so there is still scope for improvement.


As far as white hat SEO is concerned, Bing and Google have similar recommendations. So we can follow Bing's recommendations to improve Google rankings.

Did you get "high authority backlinks" before this performance boost in this screenshot or is it only from these error fixes?

Yes bing's this feature is quite good compated to gsc. Their suggestions are also helpful though some are considered useless nowadays. But these works for bing particularly.

I think Bing Search Console is useful since it shows extra data and easy fixes that Google often hides.

msadax said:

Did you get "high authority backlinks" before this performance boost in this screenshot or is it only from these error fixes?

Click to expand...

The performance boost is not because of backlinks. Bing suggested me 2 important fixes for my site. One is to fix "too many similar meta descriptions" error and the other is to build backlinks for authority. I know the first error but ignored it because Google kept generating description based on user intent regardless of what I provide. But I fixed it after Bing suggested it to me and it worked. I'm yet to implement the second suggestion. The remaining suggestions are not high impact ones imo.

Solid post. Most people sleep on Bing, but the info from their console is seriously underrated. You get actual actionable tips there, way more direct than the other guy. I've used their recommendations to clean up some common site issues and improve how my pages are seen. Definitely agree on using it to find new search terms for content updates too. Good stuff, thanks for the share.

I got only one error, "Inadequate inbound links from high quality domains". In Backlinks it shows Total referring domains 2. but according to GSC, Total external links 1,090.