Expanding Your SEO. It’s true Google is still the top search engine on the internet, but by no means should you limit your company’s search engine optimization (SEO) campaign to Google. When it comes to SEO, Google should be your primary focus; after all, it is the way most internet users access the internet. Although not as frequently used there are a growing number of users who use other search engines to seek out what they need and to ignore that group would be a mistake. Some of these other search engines may help you to reach your target audience better.
Why Use Other Search Engines than Google for SEO?
As previously stated, there are a growing number of users who use other search engines than Google. Google’s market share has begun to decline. In 2019 according to Statista, Google’s market share had dropped to roughly 88%. Ten years ago, Google had nearly 100% market share for search engines. That is a slow but steady decline in Google users. What does that mean? It means that you can reach 12% of users who don’t use Google to improve your SEO results by expanding your scope.
Bing is the Second Most Used Search Engine
You probably already guessed that Bing has the second-highest market share of internet users at 2.32% and that number continues to grow. Although it does not have as many users, Bing is used by a number of specific demographics. Also, keep in mind that Bing is the default search engine for Microsoft’s Edge browser so it makes sense that it would reach a number of users from that fact alone. Surprisingly Bing has a 6.16% market share in the US and a 4.14% share of the UK market, perhaps in part to the growing distrust of Google.
Bing has consistently been improving their search algorithm using bidirectional encoder representations from transformers (BERT) even before Google started using it. What does that mean for your SEO campaign? Because both Google and Bing use BERT, you can use the same strategy for both. BERT looks at the intent of an article and punishes irrelevant content and keyword stuffing so having a well-written copy that is relevant to your topic will put your site in good standing with both search engines. As with Google, Bing looks favorably on multiple sites that link to your site. Take caution if you are using link building if you are being linked to by spammy or pornographic sites any benefit you would get through link building will be erased. The good news is that like Google; Bing has a disavow tool that will let you dispute bad links pointing at your site.
The last thought about Bing. It does not place the same emphasis on social media shares as Google does so if you are expecting social media to help your SEO, it won’t.
Yahoo is Still Here
Although not as big as Bing, Yahoo is the third most used search engine at just under 2% market share. The irony in thinking about your SEO efforts for Yahoo is that it has used Bing to power its searches for the last decade. What does that mean? It means if you focus on Bing, you are focusing on Yahoo as well, and any thoughts of Yahoo directly should be put aside.
DuckDuckGo is a Growing Player Among Search Engines
The fourth most used search engine is DuckDuckGo. Although DuckDuckGo has announced it has over a billion searches a month, it uses Bing, Yahoo, and Wikipedia as its primary sources for return page results. Again as with Yahoo, if you focus your SEO efforts on DuckDuckGo, you are primarily focusing on Bing.
The Bottom Line
The lesson to learn from focusing your SEO efforts on other search engines than Google is that in any case, great, relevant content will bolster your SEO efforts.
For more information on how Incend Media can help you contact us today.