When Microsoft released its new Bing decision engine this past June, it began pouring a huge amount of money and effort into making Bing a strong competitor to Google.

They’ve spent millions on ad campaigns, made a landmark deal with Yahoo to power its search and PPC ads, and have lured a bunch of big-name companies to participate in their Bing Shopping “Cash Back” program.

… They’ve even struck a deal with the Seattle Seahawks NFL football team to have Bing decals sewn on to the team’s practice jerseys. (Now that’s innovative advertising! But then again, Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen owns the Seahawks, so it doesn’t come out of the blue.)

Share, share alike

Microsoft’s latest strategy to lure people away from Google is intended to make it easier for Bing users to share their search results with friends.

Bing & Ping is still in beta, but will get rolled out in full sometime in the next couple of months. It will allow searchers to click on a button right under a given search result and instantly share that information with other people via Facebook, Twitter, or email.

Here’s an example of what it will look like when it’s released:

… As you can see, in this example users are encouraged to invite their friends to see a football game… but they could just as easily send the game scores to friends in order to gloat over the fact that their team is winning!

So what does this mean for you?

If your site has a good ranking with Bing, then anyone who uses that search engine will be encouraged to share your listing with their friends and family. And that could send a lot more customers to your business!

For example, say you own an Italian restaurant in Chicago…

When someone searches for “Italian restaurants Chicago” in Bing, when your site appears as one of the first listings, the searcher can easily send your website to his dinner companions, so they can decide if it’s where they want to eat.

Or maybe you sell an eBook teaching people how to get their picky toddlers to eat their vegetables. When a frazzled mom finds your site through Bing and likes the information you offer, chances are good she’ll forward your site to all of her friends who are in the same boat.

Microsoft is banking on the idea that if it’s easier for searchers to share information with their friends, they’ll use Bing more often. If so, that means a good ranking with Bing will soon be sending a lot more visitors your way.

Set yourself up for success

To make the most of this feature, you’ve got to include keyword-rich, benefit-driven content in your meta-description tags. That’s the text that Bing uses as the descriptive part of your listing on the search results page. You have to make it eye-catching and appealing so it stands out from the rest and compels searchers to click on your listing instead of your competition.

That way, more people can see what you offer and share it with their friends and family.

“Bing & Ping” is currently still in beta but Microsoft is inviting people to join their Fan page so they can be among the first to test and use this new system. If you’re interested in getting more traffic from Bing, then we encourage you to check it out.

This entry was posted on Sunday, October 4th, 2009 at 3:22 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.