Currently the holy-grail of internet marketing is search engine optimisation (ranking high in the organic or natural results of search engines for popular keywords related to your business, market sector, or products). Closely followed by Pay Per Click Advertising (sponsored results). Not knowing what search engines to concentrate on can lead to much wasted time, effort and money.
Below are the latest search engine usage stats for the UK:
Google: 32%
Yahoo!: 26%
AOL: 19%
MSN: 17%
Ask Jeeves: 2%
Well as you can see Google, Yahoo, AOL and MSN should be the main focus of any search marketing campaign, but are these figures accurate?
Google, Yahoo, AOL, Ask Jeeves and MSN make up the heavy weight division of search, with the highest market share held between them (around 98% of all UK based search queries). But Google provide search results to AOL and Yahoo provide Wandadoo’s results? Knowing this information changes the above results significantly.
True UK Search Engine Usage Statistics:
Google: 51%
Yahoo!: 26%
MSN: 17%
Ask Jeeves: 2%
Google now has over half of the market share and should be the main focus of any search marketing strategy. Combine these figures with the fact that 80% of products purchased online derived from a search engine. You can say out of every ten items sold online, Google was the starting point for four of them. Ignoring this information would be a very bad idea for any business looking to use the internet to increase turnover.
The Future of Search
Search has become a multi-billion pound industry that is constantly changing. Which is hardly surprising when you consider each person using a search engine is estimated to be earning them £50 per year from sponsored clicks and ad serving.
Competition to be the number one provider of search is tough but open to any company able to provide better results than the current champion. Searchers will use the best tool for the job careless of who is providing it. Currently 51% of people feel Google is providing the best results and choose to use their service. But for how long?
You don’t have to look back very far to see the internet without a Google. Which means the current situation of one search provider dominating the entire industry will probably change with time. With companies like Microsoft, Google and Yahoo each pushing the industry forward at great speed. The top spot of search will probably be a forever changing affair.
From this article you know where to concentrate your search marketing campaign but it will pay dividends to keep a keen eye on this ever changing medium.
James Anderson is an Internet Marketing Consult working for Podium Solutions Web Design Manchester. Podium Solutions is also the company responsible for the trolleytech eCommerce Solution. Please include this short bio and links when reproducing the article, many thanks. Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=James_Anderson |
