Have you heard of Bing Site Search? I am sure you have heard of Microsoft’s latest addition to the search world, Bing. What many may not realise is that, like Google, Bing has its own version of site search that web masters can add to their sites.

You have two options. The first is a basic site search that includes the option of searching within your site or from the web. The results are published on Bing’s search site.

Option two is the one that has caught my attention and for some web masters, could add a lot of value to their business – not to mention keeping potential customers on their sites for a longer period of time. The longer someone stays on your sites, the more probable they will become a customer.

The advanced site search publishes the results on your site. That’s a bonus to start with. You also have the option of searching the web or from within your own site. However, and here is the bonus for some web masters, you can also nominate other sites that can be included in this site search.

I can see a lot of different ways to use this option. The first and most obvious is where you have several web sites covering the same niche but dedicated to certain areas. By including those sites in the advanced site search, if your visitors query cannot be found from within your pages, they may find the answer on a page from a related site. This means the visitor, whilst not staying on the one site, is still staying within your business.

Another practical use is for complementary businesses to group their site searches together. Since they do not compete directly, than can still deliver traffic to each other by offering a related search. I wonder if web masters will take up this option. It could well be a big plus for those that do.

I suggest you read the service terms of use before you start – they are fairly standard and of course full of legalese. To set up site search on your pages is a fairly straightforward process and doesn’t require any knowledge of programming code. It’s really as simple as filling in a form and copying the resultant code into your pages.

Bing Site Search may offer a few bonuses for those with multiple web sites. Keep the traffic within your empire and away from a general web search. That has to be good for business and in the long term, good for the bottom line. It’s one way your web design can practically help your internal marketing.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, June 11th, 2009 at 1:54 am and is filed under Web Design. 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.