Take the 9% potential of search engines other than Google

There is no doubt, Search Engine optimization (SEO) has been equivalent to optimizing website for Google search. But, we should not be ignorant about the 9% search engine market share (Data as per Wikipedia, of late 2010) by Bing, Yahoo! and all other search engines.

Google: 91.0%

Bing: 3.0%

Yahoo: 4.0%

Others: 2.0%

Can we really ignore this potential?

In our opinion, one should not underestimate this potential, even if Google is clearly has a dominant role in the search engine market.

The reason is quite obvious; every one knows Google, every browser (except Internet Explorer) has Google search field by default.

In July 2009, Yahoo! signed a deal with Microsoft, the result of which was that Yahoo! Search would be powered by Bing. This is now in effect.

So, we can think Bing plus Yahoo nearly as one unit. Moreover, in Wikipedia Bing page, the market share is showing a higher data than the last year. Seasonal variation can happen, though nothing can be said conclusively, it might happen at the end of year, Google gets 85% market share, versus 91% at the end of 2011.

Why we will think of only a few percentage of visitors from these search engines?

• Internet Explorer (and thereby Bing) is most likely to be used by new computer and Internet users. Do not forget, a new Internet user has more probability of clicking the Advertisements than a ripe Googler.
• Free traffic; what ever is the source is always good!
• It is not good, if we search with our domain name without the extension and others’ website appears. Frankly, we are missing a potential visitor.
• 9% means around 6 million users.

So, think ahead, optimize your blog or website for these search engines too for better SEO.