So ranking #1 on Google isns’t enough for you? Luckily Bing has recently provided 18 of its top tips how to rank higher on Bing and Yahoo search.

While most of these items are similar to current wisdom for how to rank #1 on Google, it is nice to hear these straight from the mouth of Bing, and not conjecture from all us SEO gurus out there! So without further adieu, here are the 18 items in no particular order:

1. Create a solid content hierarchy by doing basic keyword research and avoiding placement of your content in rich media such as Silverlight and Flash.
2. Use a short meta title that has fewer than 65 characters and that’s unique to each page, and try to include the targeted keyword toward the beginning of that title.
3. Make sure your site is crawlable by using an XML sitemap, a robots.txt file, and well-structured on-site navigation.
4. Create quality content (following the guidelines Bing provided earlier).
5. Improve your site structure by using an HTML sitemap and linking to trusted sources both within your site and outside of it.
6. Use schema.org markup.
7. Use a unique meta description tag.
8. When you build links, focus on keyword-relevant anchor tags that link back to quality content on your page.
9. Create a user interface that prioritizes the user experiences; the search perspective on things like page load time aren’t as important as how the user responds.
10. Create an RSS feed.
11. Encourage social sharing with the use of social buttons.

These last 7 are things you should <span class=”red”>NOT</span> do in your SEO efforts:

1. Don’t use thin content.
2. Don’t buy links.
3. Don’t engage in three-way linking.
4. Don’t duplicate content.
5. Don’t cloak your website.
6. Don’t use link farms.
7. Don’t use auto-following on the social front.

If you follow these simple 18 guidelines, you should be able to get top rankings in all the major search engines, not just Bing and Yahoo.

To learn more about our SEO process, check out our SEO section of the site or our Education Center.

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