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TIPS and TRICKS - Search Engine Promotion

Targeting your search engine marketing

Search engines are not exactly few and far between. Since one can only put a certain amount of effort on search engine marketing, it's important to know which search engines to focus on - and which ones to forget. After analyzing the logs of a couple of sites I run and keeping an eye on the reports of others, I've come up with a rough estimate on how the search engine traffic to an average site could be divided into sources.

In this estimate, all paid traffic from search engines - for example through Google Adwords - is ignored. Also, in an attempt to reflect the average website, we assume that the content of the site is in English. If your site is in another language, you might in some cases see a significant portion of your search engine traffic coming from local search engines in addition to the ones mentioned here.

Search engine marketing targets

#1: Google >80% of search engine traffic

The importance of Google is hard to overestimate. 80% of total search engine traffic is a conservative estimate - on many sites, the share is well over 90%. Whatever the exact number for your site is, it's clear that Google should be the main focus of any search engine marketing campaign. Let the rest rank your pages as they will, just try to get Google to see you in a good light.

At first, it may seem pleasant that Google so overwhelmingly dominates the search engine market. After all, that means you just have one set of rankings to worry about, right? Unfortunately, it also means that like it or not, most of your eggs are in one basket. Optimize, but be careful, as ranking changes at Google will have drastic impacts on your traffic.

In addition to the main engine, Google Images provides a nice chunk of traffic for image-heavy sites. A trickle also comes through AOL, where Google provides the search results.

#2: Windows Live 0-10% of search engine traffic

Despite the Microsoft connection, Windows Live (aka MSN search) is a minor player compared to Google. Using Windows Live reveals a Google-like appearance with fairly accurate results. When you take into account the resources of Microsoft and the fact that they've obviously done their homework when creating Windows Live, something might come out of this search engine in the future.

Impressive or not, the fact still remains that Windows Live enters a market that is already cornered by one competitor. My suggestion is to keep an eye on how it grows, but invest little time in optimizing for it.

#3: Yahoo / AltaVista 0-5% of search engine traffic

I've combined Yahoo and AltaVista into one source, as both draw results from Yahoo's database. Together, they hold a share of the market that is small but nevertheless has some significance. Most of the traffic from this pair comes through Yahoo - expect individual visitors from AltaVista every now and then, but nothing more.

This estimate includes traffic from both the Yahoo search engine and the Yahoo directory. Being listed in the directory appears to boost the amount of visitors Yahoo sends quite a bit, not necessarily by itself but by increasing the ranking of the site in Yahoo's search. However, even taking this effect into account, the traffic volume is relatively low.

#4: Ask / Lycos 0-3% of search engine traffic

The smallest fish in the sea worth noting is Ask. In a way similar to the Yahoo-Altavista connection, Ask provides the results for Lycos. The latter features paid results very prominently, so even good search engine marketing tricks won't open up the top spots for you, unless you're willing to open your wallet as well.

I hate to be a pessimist, but I don't see much potential for future growth in Ask / Lycos search traffic for sites that base their search engine marketing strategy on optimizing rather than purchasing traffic.

Conclusion and search engine marketing recommendations

Obviously, Google rules the market and everyone else is fighting for the scraps. The plan for your search engine marketing campaign should be to please Google at all costs. At the same time, you can ensure that your site is noticed by the rest of the search engines by doing the simple things like increasing your link popularity and adding content. As they will also help you with Google, it's a case of hitting two birds with one stone.

Also remember that while Google is currently the undisputed champion of search, the situation might not stay the same forever. Google started out as a small search engine that slowly replaced most of the others. It is entirely possible that at this very moment, another new player is emerging that will eventually replace Google. So keep your eye on those logs for any changes - and react to them.