The majority of countries throughout the world place a strong focus on Google-first SEO. There’s a reason why we say we’ll “Google” something. However, Google isn’t the only search engine available, and depending on your target, you may gain a lot of momentum by customizing your SEO for the rest of the search world.
Alternative search engines are gaining popularity among sophisticated online users for a variety of reasons, including the need for specialized information, privacy concerns, and annoyance with Google’s frequent, apparently random algorithm adjustments
There are several additional search engines that can assist us in getting our brands in front of our target audience. When we talk about SEO, some of them don’t often come to mind. However, the same optimization concepts will apply.
Why Go Beyond Google?
Let us start with the latter and investigate why going outside Google matters at all. Because of Google’s massive market dominance, SEO will generally rely on its search ranking criteria and algorithms.
Google remains Chrome’s default search engine, which is a big benefit given Chrome’s continued popularity. However, both Google and Chrome have frequently faced privacy issues.
Google’s privacy policies have come under scrutiny in recent years. Almost everyone is aware of Google’s data collection and ad targeting. In reality, many firms use similar tactics to get in front of their target audience.
People have recently been increasingly concerned about their internet privacy. Many of those worried have avoided Google searches, which has contributed significantly to the reduction. Consider all of the other Google programs that know a lot about you and your activities outside Search, such as Gmail, Google Maps, and YouTube.
Less Competition
Why should you only rank high in Google when you can rank high in Google and other search engines as well? Neglecting alternative search engines is equivalent to ignoring the potential clients you may contact through them.
Because of variations in how different search engines manage their SERPs, pages that rank in the middle (or not at all) for Google may merely rank at the top of the results for another engine. While you won’t have less competition from other search platforms — the number of websites available is exactly the same. But you will have less competition from alternative-optimized websites than from Google-optimized ones.
Target Audience
Regardless of how famous Google is, your intended demographic may not be there. Or a portion of it may not. For example, if a sizable section of your target audience also uses Yahoo Mail, they’re definitely searching using Yahoo at least occasionally. Furthermore, if you target an international audience, they may be utilizing a different search engine that is more common in their region.
What are Some Alternative Search Engines?
With the above framework in mind, we can now investigate Google’s SEO rivals.
A completely fleshed-out SEO plan necessitates juggling SEO techniques for Google and other search engines in order to reach a larger audience.
DuckDuckGo
DuckDuckGo is recognized as one of the greatest search engines for private browsing, and it has increased market share in recent years as a result. It does not gather any information about your searches or personal information, which is one of the key reasons for its current success. However, because DuckDuckGo cannot directly track its users’ whereabouts, keywords and geo-specifications must account for this distinction.
Bing
Bing continues to employ targeted keywords as a ranking factor. As a result, you will rank higher on Bing for selected keywords than on Google. Having a strong social media portfolio is advantageous for Bing ranking, since they have indicated that social signals do influence how they rank websites. However, social signals aren’t that crucial to Google. It has no substantial impact on the rankings.
Yahoo
Yahoo is regarded as the third-best Google search engine alternative in terms of market share. Although Yahoo’s prominence has waned over the years, it is still an excellent source for top search results in sports, news, and finance. Unlike other search engines, Yahoo Domain Age is very important. The majority of SEO optimization for Yahoo stays the same. As a result, for higher ranking, this search engine prioritizes tailored terms.
Ecosia
Ecosia is a one-of-a-kind search engine that is simultaneously working to rescue the earth. Google searches produce carbon dioxide, and Google has a significant environmental effect owing to the massive quantities of energy it consumes in its data centers throughout the world. Ecosia exists to change this by contributing more than 80% of its proceeds to tree planting efforts. One tree is planted for every fifty searches.
GiveWater
GiveWater is another search engine dedicated to environmental protection. It donates the revenue from its sponsored search advertisements to charitable organizations that offer clean water and sanitation. Regardless of its economic strategy, GiveWater strongly cautions avoiding thoughtless ad clicks in order to support its cause. It promotes people clicking on adverts that actually pique their interest above monetization.
Baidu
If your company wants to attract customers from China, it should optimize for the Baidu search engine. Baidu benefits from Google SEO. However, there are some distinctions. Baidu ranks websites based on numerous variables, including having a Chinese-registered domain, content written in simplified Chinese, and accurate meta descriptions.
Swisscows
Swisscows is a search engine that promotes itself as a family-friendly option for its consumers. Swisscows is a privacy-friendly search engine that does not keep personal information. To make search results more family-friendly, no explicit content is served. Swisscows is unusual in that it employs a semantic map for search results to answer inquiries. Swisscows will also not normally offer advertisements from any ad network, but will serve banner ads to donors.
Social Media SEO
Social media networks, more than other search engines, optimize user data collecting and greatly affect search results based on earlier activity. However, a popular term is a popular keyword, with or without individualized data, and it provides optimization chances that websites may employ to obtain a competitive advantage in social media platforms.
Social media platforms provide highly tailored searches that promote content consumption and reward material that is highly shareable. When it comes to social media search engines, the emphasis on the target audience is even more important.
Youtube
Youtube is the world’s second most visited website, and anyone may locate any type of video using its search engine. Video content has risen dramatically in recent years, and being found on critical keywords in video searches is an opportunity that businesses and websites must seize in order to boost their internet traffic. Including YouTube videos in your content strategy can help you get a lot of traffic. While simply uploading anything to YouTube will not work, further study into keywords and video kinds is necessary to stand out.
LinkedIn is the professional social network, making it one of the greatest venues to target corporations and professionals alike. LinkedIn should be the go-to search engine for organizations looking to optimize and attain organic professional traffic to their websites and enterprises. Optimizing your LinkedIn company pages, LinkedIn posts, groups, services, and jobs will bring them closer to your target audience.
Bottom Line
Are you suggesting that you disregard Google and focus solely on its alternatives?
The response is “no.” The main search engine dominates internet searches by a wide margin, so you should surely spend the majority of your efforts on it. Google is the largest and most powerful search engine available, due to everything from its artificial intelligence and algorithms to its massive user base. But it is Google’s personalization that makes it so dominant. That means it collects a lot of information about its consumers.
As a result, Google has been steadily losing market share, and your audience may shun Google for a variety of reasons. From privacy concerns to eco-friendly supplementary features, alternative search engines provide something for everyone. Knowing how to cater to those various tastes will allow you to reach members of your audience that aren’t reliant on Google — while still making Google and its users happy by adhering to basic SEO best practices. Everyone benefits.
You should look closely at what various search engines have to offer in terms of traffic. Check to check if your prospective patients utilize them. If this is the case, don’t be afraid to improve your SEO and climb the search results.
SEO on other search engines is well worth marketers’ time. Although Google is unlikely to face significant competition in the near future, rival search engines are improving. Each has a specific audience that certain firms may appreciate, and they all have higher conversion rates than Google.
Ready to Get Started?
Because times and user expectations are changing, marketers and brands must see SEO as a platform-independent discipline. You must be present where your target consumers are most active, which most likely implies optimizing for search engines other than Google, such as search engines in certain target areas. Slopes Marketing can take your SEO to the next level by implementing strategic tactics for your company.