No matter how new you are to the game of digital marketing, you are prepared and bred with the mindset that Google is the place to be. It makes sense after all, how many search engines can claim the kind of relevance or dominance that Google has, which makes every SEO target them right off the bat. Google is the big field as the proverb goes and if your business can make a standing here then it is en route to do well in all circles. However, yet as the observant within the Inbound have pointed out, this boom within Google is leaving a bit of a vacuum within the other search engines.
The competition within Google for links and ranks is tough. You have more businesses vying for higher ranks and traffic, hence you have a more difficult goal for reach as a startup in terms of visibility. The story is different around in Bing or Yahoo (powered by Bing). It is different because of the narrative I just posted above. Now take one website with the most cutting edge development methods and pitch your business. But more likely than naught, you will face stiff competition within Google in the form of:
- Steep rates for ads
- Same niche but more competition
- Higher number of social pages ranking in the higher numbers
From a startup’s perspective, these are daunting business realities, which exactly tell why it’s not incorrect for the said business to start playing its marketing game in the not so populated areas!
According to James Love, Often times there are two common issues that people face with Google Adwords.
- Keywords are so highly targeted that the daily budget isn’t being met – sometimes because campaigns are targeting a small location and they do by targeting exact phrase matching
- Keywords are all broad match with minimal targeting and the daily budget is met early in the day.
If you have either of the two problems then BING or Yahoo may be a good prospect as they have smaller market shares.
Now, if you still want to use selective geo-targeting, demographic targeting, or exact match keywords, you come closer to hitting your daily budget goal by using additional search engines.
This can be summarized more clearly by saying that your costs rgo significantly goes down when the targeted areas are within Bing. Thus this makes things easier for a lot of businesses. If you are a startup, that is good news as you can arm up and strengthen yourself at least financially before you start moving into the big businesses territory for rankings and standings.
The more prominent example I can give you here is between two CMS brands. Newer retail businesses that move into the digital realm often have trouble figuring which CMS solution to adopt. Again a lot of your decisions are manifested via the budgeting at your disposal but in many cases you intend to also adopt the platform that suits your strengths and makes up for the weaknesses. For instance, if you want to be able to play with lesser products with more add on’s then Shopify becomes the natural option for you.
On the other hand, if you want product scalability with lots of options for categories and prices (meaning a wider retail store) then you should be choosing Magento or Shopify. Either model can still produce very intriguing and successful businesses but that depends on how you set your niche up.
With that said, now its turn for you to get your website ranked in Google. However, before spending on your marketing budget on it, you must listen to what Hubspot had to say. Google’s majority share did not lead to BING and Yahoo lagging behind, with both having a whopping 29% of the search share, a decent number by any account.
Although Bing and Yahoo combined have 29% of the market share, there are reasons why you should be choosing Bing and Yahoo over Google.
- The Demographic Advantage
Indeed, Google have a bigger market share but there are certain demographics and geographic where Bing goes over Google. If your business is targeted the audience of certain demographic or geographic where Bing rocks, you probably should invest more on search engines like Bing instead of Google.
- You are a newer business
If you are a new business with a tight budget, you probably should try Bing instead of investing on Google, being less crowded, which means there is less competition between you and the advertisers.
- Political Affiliation and Educational level
According to WebPageFX, government policies and educational demographics alongside other things may have an impact on your search engine preferences.
- Content wise quality
Ranked brands will tell you about how Google and Bing go about ranking their sites differently. While Google goes for the more socially relevant sites that can achieve popularity quickly, Bing, on the other hand, gives preference to content relevant sites that are informative , the .edu or .gov domains as the higher ranked sites. Again if you are marketing content with a certain type of flavor to it then this is one factor to be aware of.
Conclusion
Even if you are not a small business that has just started then you can still benefit a lot by using the Bing as one of the platforms for SEO, PPC and more. The startups stand to gain a reputation before they enter Google as well as the established business can easily stretch itself further financially and categorically.
