A practical guide to understanding Bing Webmaster Tools

Through our SEO Agency Optimize 360

Search engine optimisation (SEO) is an essential part of ensuring your website's visibility on the web.

Did you know that Bing, the search engine developed by Microsoft, offers tools to help you optimise and analyse your site?

In this article, we'll explore the definition and operation of Bing Webmaster Toolsa suite of tools dedicated to natural referencing and analysing your site's traffic.

But what is Bing Webmaster Tools?

Bing Webmaster Tools is a platform provided by Microsoft to help website owners and managers improve their presence and visibility on the Internet.

It offers a wide range of tools and reports for monitoring and analysing your site's data and performance, as well as concrete actions you can take to optimise it.

Using this solution is an excellent alternative or complement to other analysis tools on the market, such as Google Analytics and Search Console.

Key features of Bing Webmaster Tools

Indexing and crawling: refine Bing's understanding of your site

The first essential step in using Bing Webmaster Tools is to add your websites to the platform. You need to check the ownership of the site in order to access all the features.

Then you can configure the Sitemap (sitemap) which lists the pages on your site, as well as the crawl parameters to tell Bing how to crawl and index your content.

You can also add rules and priorities to the robots.txta standard document used by search engines to surface indexing instructions.

Dashboard: track your website's key data at a glance

The dashboard is the platform's main interface, where you'll find a summary of essential information about your websites. It displays indicators such as the number of indexed pages, the number of clicks from search results and the success rate of indexing operations.

You will also see a list of notifications and alerts relating to technical problems identified by Bing during its analysis of your site. The dashboard is therefore a centralised space for monitoring and improving the overall health of your site.

SEO reports: take a closer look at your traffic and optimise it

Bing Webmaster Tools offers a series of detailed reports on your site's performance in terms of natural referencing and organic visits. These reports include:

- Positioning report in search results;
- The report on keywords that generate traffic;
- The report on the most visited pages and those that generate the most engagement;
- Diagnostic reports to identify technical problems and correct errors that could potentially harm your search engine optimisation.

These reports provide valuable data on user behaviour and the success (or otherwise) of your web pages in terms of visibility.. They also provide a solid basis for identifying optimisation opportunities to improve your ranking in Bing search results.

Content submission tools: make new content visible quickly

Bing Webmaster Tools provides you with several tools for quickly submitting content for indexing by Bing. These include a quick submission form, which allows you to send the URL of a new or modified page directly.

You can also use the Submission API, if you prefer to integrate this functionality into your publication workflow. These tools can be very useful for speeding up Bing's consideration of your updates and new publications, and improving their visibility from the outset.

Compare with other available analysis platforms

Google Analytics and Search Console: usefulness and differences

The combination of Google Analytics and Google Search Console is undoubtedly the best-known and most popular solution for analysing traffic and monitoring natural referencing.

Although Bing does not rival Google's hegemony in the field of search engines, it nonetheless generates a significant market share. It is therefore a good idea to use Bing Webmaster Tools alongside Google tools to get a more complete and diversified view of your digital performance.especially if you are targeting an international audience or if Bing represents a significant proportion of your organic traffic sources.

Yandex Metrica: an interesting alternative

Finally, it may also be wise to explore other analysis platforms such as Yandex Metrica, developed by Russia's leading search engine. Just like Bing Webmaster Tools, Yandex Metrica offers a range of tools and reports for monitoring the performance of your website and its ranking in the Yandex search engine results.

In a nutshell, Bing Webmaster Tools is an excellent choice for those who want to better understand their performance on Bing and optimise their organic traffic..

It's easy to use, with a user-friendly interface and a host of features for refining indexing, analysing traffic and correcting potential problems. Ready to take up the challenge?

Don't hesitate to sign up for free to start enjoying all the benefits offered by this analysis and optimisation platform.