It’s been a good year for Bing. The latest Hitwise reports show that the search engine accounted for more than 9 percent of U.S. searches last spring. Moving forward to the summer, Microsoft announced at the Seattle SMX Advanced conference that it will update Bing’s Webmaster Tools to create a more intuitive experience for marketers looking to advertise to its growing users.

In a post on the Bing Community blog, Microsoft explains that its no-cost toolset for search engine optimizers will be overhauled based on feedback from valued customers. The new tools focus on three areas: crawl, index and traffic.

Microsoft explains a new "tree view" will allow webmasters to see all of the crawling and index data for their websites at a glance. The tree view also gives marketers specific data management controls, such as recrawl requests and URL blocking.

The new tools will run on Microsoft’s Silverlight 4.0, which the company says will create a smooth experience, "enabling webmasters to better analyze important trends through connected visual data about their websites."

While the new Webmaster Tools will likely offer some advertisers incentive to boost their Bing marketing campaigns, Google still dominates the search market. Hitwise reports the search engine accounted for 71.4 percent of all U.S. searches at the start of May.

Katherine Griwert is Brafton's Marketing Director. She's practiced content marketing, SEO and social marketing for over five years, and her enthusiasm for new media has even deeper roots. Katherine holds a degree in American Studies from Boston College, and her writing is featured in a number of web publications.