Posted by Royh
[Estimated read time: 4 minutes]
SEO is not only about Google! Yes, thats right, we genuinely mean this and Im going to stick to my word.
Its common practice for SEOs to invest all their time and energies in to only one search engine, but this is a limited approach. The truth is that SEOs need to investigate alternative strategies for generating traffic that dont rest purely upon Google. And to underline this point, Im going to take a quick look at a current landscape and prove why this is an essential step for SEOs to take.
In mid-February, after a few months of in-depth testing, Google finally released sum upon a 4 paid ads upon top. And theres one particularly keen insight that Dr. Pete has uncovered that you need to pay attention to.
With 4 paid ads upon top, Google is environment itself up in a enviable position of being able to control 80% of a formula on top of a fold. This scenario raises many questions, but a most intriguing one concerns a effect it will have upon a organic formula CTR.
For example, lets quickly do a search upon a religion of enlightenment, Buddhism. Can you see a 2nd or 3rd results? Hardly positive karma, isn't it?
The alternative search engine
I could speak about a lurking potential hidden deep within Bing, but Ive got nothing to add to a swathes of articles going over old ground.
Instead, we wish to take a sidestep from current SEO trends and focus upon a fastest-growing search engine: DuckDuckGo.
Its a search engine that respects its users privacy and, as a result, is operating in a niche that taps in to a current zeitgeist of security concerns. The world of Internet search is gradually becoming different from a trackable arena in to a more private and unknown realm, so DuckDuckGo find themselves first in line to exploit this brand new frontier of SEO opportunity. Its an exciting climb and, as we covered recently, one that is threatening to frazzle a edges of SEO.
As you can see here, in correlation to the increase of direct queries (more than 12 million per day), DuckDuckGo had more than 108 million visits in one month, that is an increase of 22% in their total traffic.
And a sweetener with DuckDuckGo is that they have only one position upon top for ads. Naturally, this sets up a highly lucrative disproportion in between a CTR of a top formula in DuckDuckGo compared to Google and its bulldozing proceed of 4 paid ads upon top.
The expansion marketing opportunity
It should be becoming clear to you now that your SEO needs to concentrate upon more than only Googles complex algorithms. SEO needs to take time to delve in to a exciting world of guerrilla marketing and help to drive a expansion marketing tactics of your client/company.
One of a most sweeping changes to SEO in recent years has been a scorched earth policy of social media traffic. What exactly do Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube have in common? Thats right, theyre driving huge amounts of traffic thats out of Googles reach.
The top 5 biggest social networks by effusive traffic:
Im not being speculative when we say Facebook is a leading social media network for effusive traffic. Its a cold, hard fact. As you can see, according to SimilarWeb traffic stats, in January 2016 Facebook sent more than 3.5 billion desktop visits to alternative websites. Thats only over 1.5 billion more desktop visits than Twitter.
The top 10 biggest referrals in effusive desktop traffic:
However, it would be a little foolish to simply renounce Google and put all your eggs in a social media basket. There are still plenty of alternative websites you should be looking to portion your SEO efforts out on.
Twitch.tv is a number one referral site in a world and manages to deliver 385 million effusive desktop visits. Even a fifth most popular, BuzzFeed, still generates a mammoth 50 million effusive visits, and HackerNews closes a list with almost 20 miillion effusive visits in January 2016.
Final thoughts
Ive shown how times are becoming different in SEO, and all a clues indicate towards social media becoming a brand new Google. This, of course, could easily be tampered with as repeating a SEO/Google mistake of neglecting diversification. However, this couldnt be further from a truth. Instead, it underlines a need to choose your tactics carefully upon a SEO battleground and attack a number of different traffic sources.
If youve got any questions, or wish to discuss how youre rebellious a evolution of SEO, then Id love to hear about it in a comments below.Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you upon a top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by a Moz team. Think of it as your disdainful digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but wish to read!