The new search report from comScore has been released, and it shows the numbers from March. Not surprisingly, Google is still on top with about 64% of all searches. What may surprise many people, however, is that Bing has finally crossed the 20% mark for US searches. This is an important threshold, and one that Bing has worked hard to attain. This is Bing alone. When you factor in the Yahoo searches, which use the Bing algorithm, the number is bumped up to nearly 33%.
Bing’s numbers have been moving up for years, though at a very slow rate. This slow and steady growth is starting to make some noticeable numbers, however.
From a marketer’s point of view, this is an important reminder that Google is not the only name in the game. If you aren’t taking time to optimize your content to rank well in Bing, you could be missing out on up to 30% of all traffic coming to your site.
Optimizing for Bing is often seen as simpler than optimizing for Google, which makes it even more attractive. Many experts believe that Bing uses much more ‘on site’ triggers than Google does. So, focusing on high quality content, the right tags and a friendly on-site linking strategy could very well help your site to move up in the rankings on Bing searches.
Keep in mind that there is really no reason to think that Bing’s slow growth will stop any time soon. While it is unlikely that they will overtake Google, many people expect Bing alone to move up close to 30% over the next decade or so. If they maintain their relationship with Yahoo, that could translate into almost half of all searches in America and a fairly significant percentage of international searches as well.
The bottom line here is that this milestone for Bing should really be a reminder to all marketers that Google is not the only game in town. It is absolutely essential to keep Bing in mind with all SEO efforts as well.