Hands up – how many of us only look at Google when we do keyword research?
It’s something most people working in SEO are guilty of and to be fair, you can’t really blame them. After all, Google is by far the most popular search engine out there, with a market share of more than 90% and nearly four billion users worldwide (source: Review 42).
In fact, even the word ‘Google’ has become a replacement for the term ‘internet search’. When someone wants to know something, they simply Google it.
However, this doesn’t mean that the other search engines should be ignored. Why? Because focussing solely on Google could mean you’re missing out on some excellent opportunities to drive more traffic to your site.
Here are several very good reasons why you should optimise your content for other search engines, including Microsoft Bing, Yahoo and DuckDuckGo.
What are the alternative search engines to Google?
While we almost exclusively focus all our SEO chat on Google, there are several search engines out there which are being used daily. And with a massive 68% of all website traffic coming from searches, search engines continue to play a pivotal role in the running of the internet (source: BrightEdge).
Here are some of the most popular alternatives to Google:
Bing
Bing is tech giant Microsoft’s search engine offering and the second largest search engine in the world. Even though it has just a 2.47% worldwide market share, it is still growing, generating $8.53 billion from search advertising in 2021 (source: Backlinko).
Bing users are typically in the older demographic, with 71% of users older than 35 years. In fact, the most popular age groups using Bing are 55-64 year olds at 17% and 65+ at 16% (source: Truelist).
Bing is simple to use and has lots of internal features such as currency conversion and language translation, just like Google. It also provides a more visual experience for its users.
Baidu
Baidu is China’s largest search engine, dominating it with 74.73 percent of the market as of February 2019. In comparison, Google has managed to capture only 2 percent of China’s search engine market.
Yandex
With 1.5% of the worldwide market share, Yandex is the most popular search engine in Russia, accounting for 55% of its traffic, largely thanks to its ability to understand Russian inflection in search queries (Source).
DuckDuckGo
The USP about DuckDuckGo is that it has no user tracking and therefore keeps your online activity private.
Its clean design has minimal ads and it lets you keep scrolling through all of the search results, rather than moving between pages.
Yahoo!
Yahoo may seem a little outdated, after all it has been around for even longer than Google, but it is still the third most popular search engine in the world. The browser Firefox has even made it the default search engine.
As well as search you can access email, news, shopping and games on the Yahoo platform.
These days, Yahoo!’s search engine is actually powered by Microsoft’s Bing search engine. Meaning that the results from both search engines are very similar (Source).
Ask
Remember Ask Jeeves? Ask is the new iteration of this search platform which was popular in the late nineties. With no butler in sight, Ask is geared towards natural language searches which means it is user friendly, especially for older users.
Ecosia
A small player but nevertheless worth a mention, Ecosia’s pitch is that it is the green search engine that plants trees as you search. Attractive to the eco aware, it uses the advertising revenue from your searches to plant trees where they are needed the most. It also claims not to create a profile of you or to ever sell your details to advertisers.
Part of the Microsoft Search Network, which includes Yahoo, AOL and DuckDuckGo, Ecosia is able to access the search algorithm that powers Bing, and Microsoft’s network of advertisers, in exchange for a percentage of its ad revenue (Source).
Reasons to optimise your content for other search engines
Now you know what else is out there, it’s time to have a think about your SEO strategy and consider whether it’s worth spending time on optimisation to hit those other search engines.
1. Higher quality traffic
While you may not be generating as much traffic from these other search engines compared with Google, these sessions are still valuable. In fact, a study conducted by Mathew Woodward claimed that traffic via Bing had lower bounce rates, more page visits, longer dwell time and more subscribers.
2. Less competitive keywords
You might assume that ranking factors on other search engines are the same as Google’s but this isn’t always the case. This leaves some keywords which are highly competitive on Google less so on other search engines.
3. Target your audience where they are
If you know your target audience well then you can meet them on the platform that they’re most likely to use. Are they more mature? Maybe try Bing. Are they concerned about internet privacy? Head to DuckDuckGo. Care about the environment? Ecosia is a dead cert.
4. Ranking poorly on other search engines
If your focus is solely on Google, this could mean that you’re ranking poorly for your chosen keywords on other search engines, which in turn could lead to missed opportunities.
5. Default search engines
Although some browsers use Google as their default search engine, others don’t. Microsoft’s Edge and Internet Explorer use Bing while we’ve already mentioned that Firefox uses Yahoo.
Once users are already directed to a search engine, it could be that, thanks to inertia, they search using this tool, rather than actively choosing to go back to Google.
6. Overdependency on Google
The old adage ‘don’t put all of your eggs in one basket’ is always worth bearing in mind. While it’s unlikely that Google is going anywhere anytime soon, there’s always the risk that it could produce an update which completely destroys your rankings. Trust us, it happens!
Optimising for search on other platforms will ensure that your traffic sources are more evenly spread so that if there is an issue with one, you’re still generating traffic from others.
How to optimise for other search engines
We’re all very well versed by now in finding keywords and optimising them for Google search. So how do we do optimise for other platforms? You might assume that once you’ve optimised for Google, you’ve optimised for them all but that isn’t necessarily the case.
Different search engines will have different volumes for key words and different ranking factors. Each one will also have its own guidance for how to rank well, so it’s worth having a quick Google (or Bing, or Ask, or DuckDuckGo…!) to see what the best practice is.
We suggest starting with articles that aren’t ranking that well on Google and seeing if you can get to page 1 on some of the other search engines.
Search engines for international markets
If your company is a global company which operates in different markets then solely focussing your SEO on Google could mean that you’re not ranking well in some large territories. While Google dominates the market in the UK and the US, that’s definitely not the case in all countries.
Take China for example. Access to Google search is partially blocked in China, with requests redirected to Google’s Hong Kong servers where the results are then censored, depending on the search.
China’s most popular search engine, Baidu, has billions of searches each month. Baidu can only index simplified Chinese characters and gives priority to websites which are 100% in Chinese, rather than using multiple languages.
Of course, creating an entire Chinese website is a huge investment and not feasible for some brands. However, China is a huge market, so if increasing your sales here is one of your marketing goals then it may be worth a look.
