How to Use Bing Search Volume to Fine-Sharpen Keyword Research
While more SEOs and digital marketers may concentrate their efforts on the dominating search engine, savvy experts surely want to leverage every available channel to reach more potential customers. One of such channels is Bing.
It’s the second largest search engine with an increasing market share. Along with promising new audiences, Bing also appeals to SEOs and digital marketers with lower competition, both in terms of organic and paid campaigns.
With DataForSEO Bing Ads API, your software can bring an opportunity to cherry-pick the most lucrative keywords right into the experts’ hands.
If you prefer a proprietary solution, check out our Bing Databases.
What exactly do I get?
DataForSEO Bing Ads API will empower your tool with the most accurate and granular keyword data delivered in a structured format. Bing Search Volume endpoint will provide you with search volume data for the last month, search volume trend for the last year (to estimate the dynamics and seasonality), as well as current cost-per-click, and competition values for paid search.
With each request, you can obtain data for 200 keywords. The price for 1000 tasks is $75 with real-time data retrieval and $50 with the standard method.
Check our pricing >>
Learn more in docs >>
How does it help me?
Adding Bing Search Volume data to your tool, you’ll primarily increase the number of available data sources for keyword research. This will help you to win a new share of customers who are investing their SEO and SEM efforts not only into Google but into Bing search as well. At the same time, your software will gain a new competitive edge compared to keyword research tools that unwisely overlook Bing data.
But there’s surely more to it.
1. Get insights by devices
First off, Bing data is super-granular. Unlike Google, Bing allows reviewing search volume by devices. In this way, you can get precise numbers across desktop, tablet, and mobile. This will help users of your software understand their target audiences better and adjust the strategies accordingly. For example, they may find out that a larger share of their potential customers is searching from the desktop rather than mobile and prioritize the optimization of desktop website version.
Result Sample for mobile
{
"keyword": "seo",
"location_code": 2840,
"language_code": "en",
"device": "mobile",
"competition": 0.9,
"cpc": 1.01,
"search_volume": 1070,
"categories": null,
"monthly_searches": [
{
"year": 2020,
"month": 11,
"search_volume": 1250
},
{
"year": 2020,
"month": 10,
"search_volume": 1040
},
{
"year": 2020,
"month": 9,
"search_volume": 950
},
{
"year": 2020,
"month": 8,
"search_volume": 1070
},
{
"year": 2020,
"month": 7,
"search_volume": 1220
},
{
"year": 2020,
"month": 6,
"search_volume": 820
},
{
"year": 2020,
"month": 5,
"search_volume": 900
},
{
"year": 2020,
"month": 4,
"search_volume": 810
},
{
"year": 2020,
"month": 3,
"search_volume": 790
},
{
"year": 2020,
"month": 2,
"search_volume": 790
},
{
"year": 2020,
"month": 1,
"search_volume": 1020
},
{
"year": 2019,
"month": 12,
"search_volume": 1740
},
{
"year": 2019,
"month": 11,
"search_volume": 1560
}
Result Sample for desktop
{
"keyword": "seo",
"location_code": 2840,
"language_code": "en",
"device": "desktop",
"competition": 0.9,
"cpc": 4.69,
"search_volume": 13470,
"categories": null,
"monthly_searches": [
{
"year": 2020,
"month": 11,
"search_volume": 5140
},
{
"year": 2020,
"month": 10,
"search_volume": 10350
},
{
"year": 2020,
"month": 9,
"search_volume": 18760
},
{
"year": 2020,
"month": 8,
"search_volume": 13480
},
{
"year": 2020,
"month": 7,
"search_volume": 8360
},
{
"year": 2020,
"month": 6,
"search_volume": 5090
},
{
"year": 2020,
"month": 5,
"search_volume": 8150
},
{
"year": 2020,
"month": 4,
"search_volume": 5290
},
{
"year": 2020,
"month": 3,
"search_volume": 5160
},
{
"year": 2020,
"month": 2,
"search_volume": 8620
},
{
"year": 2020,
"month": 1,
"search_volume": 4630
},
{
"year": 2019,
"month": 12,
"search_volume": 29040
},
{
"year": 2019,
"month": 11,
"search_volume": 53050
}
Result Sample for tablet
{
"keyword": "seo",
"location_code": 2840,
"language_code": "en",
"device": "tablet",
"competition": 0.9,
"cpc": 2.77,
"search_volume": 100,
"categories": null,
"monthly_searches": [
{
"year": 2020,
"month": 11,
"search_volume": 100
},
{
"year": 2020,
"month": 10,
"search_volume": 80
},
{
"year": 2020,
"month": 9,
"search_volume": 90
},
{
"year": 2020,
"month": 8,
"search_volume": 120
},
{
"year": 2020,
"month": 7,
"search_volume": 110
},
{
"year": 2020,
"month": 6,
"search_volume": 70
},
{
"year": 2020,
"month": 5,
"search_volume": 90
},
{
"year": 2020,
"month": 4,
"search_volume": 90
},
{
"year": 2020,
"month": 3,
"search_volume": 100
},
{
"year": 2020,
"month": 2,
"search_volume": 90
},
{
"year": 2020,
"month": 1,
"search_volume": 110
},
{
"year": 2019,
"month": 12,
"search_volume": 110
},
{
"year": 2019,
"month": 11,
"search_volume": 110
}
2. See precise values per keyword
Secondly, the search volume data provided by Bing is not compound as it is with Google. Point is, from 2016 Google started displaying combined search volume for groups of similar search variants in the Keywords Planner. So, for example, keywords “seo”, “search engine optimization” and “search engine optimisation” will return search volume with equal values.
Result Sample for Google Search Volume
{
"keyword": "seo",
"location_code": 2840,
"language_code": null,
"competition": 0.3522482733693367,
"cpc": 17.804124,
"search_volume": 135000,
"categories": [
10004,
10007,
10276,
11088,
12376,
13152,
13316,
13418
],
"monthly_searches": [
{
"year": 2020,
"month": 11,
"search_volume": 135000
},
{
"year": 2020,
"month": 10,
"search_volume": 135000
},
{
"year": 2020,
"month": 9,
"search_volume": 135000
},
{
"year": 2020,
"month": 8,
"search_volume": 135000
},
{
"year": 2020,
"month": 7,
"search_volume": 135000
},
{
"year": 2020,
"month": 6,
"search_volume": 135000
},
{
"year": 2020,
"month": 5,
"search_volume": 135000
},
{
"year": 2020,
"month": 4,
"search_volume": 165000
},
{
"year": 2020,
"month": 3,
"search_volume": 135000
},
{
"year": 2020,
"month": 2,
"search_volume": 135000
},
{
"year": 2020,
"month": 1,
"search_volume": 135000
},
{
"year": 2019,
"month": 12,
"search_volume": 110000
}
]
},
{
"keyword": "search engine optimisation",
"location_code": 2840,
"language_code": null,
"competition": 0.3522482733693367,
"cpc": 17.804124,
"search_volume": 135000,
"categories": [
10004,
10007,
10276,
11088,
12376,
13152,
13316,
13418
],
"monthly_searches": [
{
"year": 2020,
"month": 11,
"search_volume": 135000
},
{
"year": 2020,
"month": 10,
"search_volume": 135000
},
{
"year": 2020,
"month": 9,
"search_volume": 135000
},
{
"year": 2020,
"month": 8,
"search_volume": 135000
},
{
"year": 2020,
"month": 7,
"search_volume": 135000
},
{
"year": 2020,
"month": 6,
"search_volume": 135000
},
{
"year": 2020,
"month": 5,
"search_volume": 135000
},
{
"year": 2020,
"month": 4,
"search_volume": 165000
},
{
"year": 2020,
"month": 3,
"search_volume": 135000
},
{
"year": 2020,
"month": 2,
"search_volume": 135000
},
{
"year": 2020,
"month": 1,
"search_volume": 135000
},
{
"year": 2019,
"month": 12,
"search_volume": 110000
}
]
},
{
"keyword": "search engine optimization",
"location_code": 2840,
"language_code": null,
"competition": 0.3522482733693367,
"cpc": 17.804124,
"search_volume": 135000,
"categories": [
10004,
10007,
10276,
11088,
12376,
13152,
13316,
13418
],
"monthly_searches": [
{
"year": 2020,
"month": 11,
"search_volume": 135000
},
{
"year": 2020,
"month": 10,
"search_volume": 135000
},
{
"year": 2020,
"month": 9,
"search_volume": 135000
},
{
"year": 2020,
"month": 8,
"search_volume": 135000
},
{
"year": 2020,
"month": 7,
"search_volume": 135000
},
{
"year": 2020,
"month": 6,
"search_volume": 135000
},
{
"year": 2020,
"month": 5,
"search_volume": 135000
},
{
"year": 2020,
"month": 4,
"search_volume": 165000
},
{
"year": 2020,
"month": 3,
"search_volume": 135000
},
{
"year": 2020,
"month": 2,
"search_volume": 135000
},
{
"year": 2020,
"month": 1,
"search_volume": 135000
},
{
"year": 2019,
"month": 12,
"search_volume": 110000
}
Besides that, if you do large-scale research on search volume values in Google Ads, you’ll discover that figures are often reiterated. Having an extensive keyword database with search volume extracted from Google Ads API (our database consists of over 3 billion keywords), we were able to identify around 80 search volume values that are repeated across all keywords.
At the same time, Bing search volume is to the point, and you can see actual data for each keyword individually. The numbers are precise to the nearest tens.
Result Sample for Bing Search Volume
{
"keyword": "search engine optimisation",
"location_code": 2840,
"language_code": "en",
"device": "all",
"competition": 0.9,
"cpc": 0.26,
"search_volume": 30,
"categories": null,
"monthly_searches": [
{
"year": 2020,
"month": 11,
"search_volume": 40
},
{
"year": 2020,
"month": 10,
"search_volume": 30
},
{
"year": 2020,
"month": 9,
"search_volume": 10
},
{
"year": 2020,
"month": 8,
"search_volume": 40
},
{
"year": 2020,
"month": 7,
"search_volume": 20
},
{
"year": 2020,
"month": 6,
"search_volume": 10
},
{
"year": 2020,
"month": 5,
"search_volume": 20
},
{
"year": 2020,
"month": 4,
"search_volume": 100
},
{
"year": 2020,
"month": 3,
"search_volume": 20
},
{
"year": 2020,
"month": 2,
"search_volume": 20
},
{
"year": 2020,
"month": 1,
"search_volume": 30
},
{
"year": 2019,
"month": 12,
"search_volume": 30
},
{
"year": 2019,
"month": 11,
"search_volume": 20
}
]
},
{
"keyword": "search engine optimization",
"location_code": 2840,
"language_code": "en",
"device": "all",
"competition": 0.9,
"cpc": 5.79,
"search_volume": 2230,
"categories": null,
"monthly_searches": [
{
"year": 2020,
"month": 11,
"search_volume": 2900
},
{
"year": 2020,
"month": 10,
"search_volume": 2930
},
{
"year": 2020,
"month": 9,
"search_volume": 2840
},
{
"year": 2020,
"month": 8,
"search_volume": 3050
},
{
"year": 2020,
"month": 7,
"search_volume": 2660
},
{
"year": 2020,
"month": 6,
"search_volume": 1930
},
{
"year": 2020,
"month": 5,
"search_volume": 1940
},
{
"year": 2020,
"month": 4,
"search_volume": 2110
},
{
"year": 2020,
"month": 3,
"search_volume": 1490
},
{
"year": 2020,
"month": 2,
"search_volume": 1440
},
{
"year": 2020,
"month": 1,
"search_volume": 1630
},
{
"year": 2019,
"month": 12,
"search_volume": 1960
},
{
"year": 2019,
"month": 11,
"search_volume": 2050
}
]
},
{
"keyword": "seo",
"location_code": 2840,
"language_code": "en",
"device": "all",
"competition": 0.9,
"cpc": 3.49,
"search_volume": 14640,
"categories": null,
"monthly_searches": [
{
"year": 2020,
"month": 11,
"search_volume": 6490
},
{
"year": 2020,
"month": 10,
"search_volume": 11470
},
{
"year": 2020,
"month": 9,
"search_volume": 19800
},
{
"year": 2020,
"month": 8,
"search_volume": 14670
},
{
"year": 2020,
"month": 7,
"search_volume": 9690
},
{
"year": 2020,
"month": 6,
"search_volume": 5980
},
{
"year": 2020,
"month": 5,
"search_volume": 9140
},
{
"year": 2020,
"month": 4,
"search_volume": 6190
},
{
"year": 2020,
"month": 3,
"search_volume": 6050
},
{
"year": 2020,
"month": 2,
"search_volume": 9500
},
{
"year": 2020,
"month": 1,
"search_volume": 5760
},
{
"year": 2019,
"month": 12,
"search_volume": 30890
},
{
"year": 2019,
"month": 11,
"search_volume": 54720
}
3. Find the core keyword
Given that each separate keyword comes with its specific search volume in Bing Ads API, you can also easily identify the main keyword within a group of similar terms. While this data will certainly be helpful for organic and paid campaigns on Bing, it can be equally useful for un-grouping Google’s close variants and refining the strategies for Google campaigns.
For example, if we get back to the data we retrieved from Google Ads above, it’s unclear which term is searched for more and which one promises less competition.
Compare data for Google
"keyword": "seo",
"location_code": 2840,
"language_code": null,
"competition": 0.3522482733693367,
"cpc": 17.804124,
"search_volume": 135000,
"keyword": "search engine optimisation",
"location_code": 2840,
"language_code": null,
"competition": 0.3522482733693367,
"cpc": 17.804124,
"search_volume": 135000,
"keyword": "search engine optimization",
"location_code": 2840,
"language_code": null,
"competition": 0.3522482733693367,
"cpc": 17.804124,
"search_volume": 135000,
With Bing Search Volume, you can put this chaos to order and see clearly which keyword gets more lookups and which one will be more difficult to compete for. Again, you can try to apply these insights to Google search terms.
Compare data for Bing
"keyword": "seo",
"location_code": 2840,
"language_code": "en",
"device": "all",
"competition": 0.9,
"cpc": 3.49,
"search_volume": 14640,
"keyword": "search engine optimisation",
"location_code": 2840,
"language_code": "en",
"device": "all",
"competition": 0.9,
"cpc": 0.26,
"search_volume": 30,
"keyword": "search engine optimization",
"location_code": 2840,
"language_code": "en",
"device": "all",
"competition": 0.9,
"cpc": 5.79,
"search_volume": 2230,
4. Refine traffic estimation
Similarly to the point above, Bing search volume data will allow you to deliver more accurate traffic estimations. As we explained, Google is lumping search volume for close search terms together, as well as competition and CPC values. However, these close variants may produce vastly different real-world results.
Incorporating Bing Search Volume for your traffic estimation formula, you can unscramble this issue and enrich your tool with much more factual forecasts based on distinct values for each keyword.
Rundown
Bing Search Volume delivers more granular and accurate data than Google provides through its Ads API. Besides getting accurate search volume per device and per each individual keyword, you’ll be able to identify the main keyword inside a group of similar terms and refine your traffic estimation formula.
After all, Bing Ads is a rich and powerful source of data, and it shouldn’t be overlooked when developing keyword research tools. Otherwise, you’ll be cutting off a fair share of opportunities to bring more potential customers to your tool.
