Search engines optimization is more than just optimizing for Google. Yes, they are the king of search with over 65% of the search market.So why do we care about search engines optimization and not just a sole search engine optimization?

Because Google does have eleven Billion searches every month on their site. At the same time the other large search engines, such as Bing, Yahoo, Ask, and AOL still received over 6 Billion searches in the month of July. Let us ignore 6 Billion searches at our own peril.

Search Engines Optimization Breakdown

Google-Let’s start with our good old favorite, friendly search provider. I am not going to spend a lot of time rehashing discussions on Google, when you can review previous articles that I have written on the subject: 5 Ways To Quality Backlinks and The Magic Of Keyword Analysis. Just focus on backlinks and fresh, unique content.

Bing- Microsoft has come a long way in the past two years to make Bing a contender. While for the most part focusing on backlinks and fresh content will help you get the same rankings, one of the things that I found interesting in my search engines optimization is that

The key difference is that Bing is much more willing to rank non-.com’s than Google. That is not to say that Google will not do so, but it is more .com centric than Bing. For example, I have a site PeriodicTables.org that is ranked 22 on Google, but 19 on Bing. Not a huge difference until you consider the fact that it is the difference between page 2 and 3. While the site is still relatively new, I know it needs to be at least at page two to rank for the sites namesake keyword. I have to wonder if part of this relates to the site being a .org?

Additionally, the rest is mostly slight difference in preferences. Bing is likes when you link out to other sites more. They also have a lower tolerance for keyword usage, so do not stuff keywords if you want a site to rank high on Bing.

Finally, Bing reads flash a lot better. That is huge for all the sites that were created 5 years ago with flash intros that got tossed aside like yesterday’s news, because Google was not indexing them. Bing could be the way to revive your search prospects.

Yahoo- About two years ago, Yahoo and Bing partnered up. That means that Bing now powers Yahoo searches making them almost one in the same for search engines optimization. Henceforth, check out the Bing information to optimize Yahoo!

Ask- I have to be honest here and say that Ask Search Engine Optimization is pretty, well sad in terms of how to optimize.

My only experience with Ask was when I used them for a failed PPC campaign about two years ago, so when I did some research I was disappointed to find the only remotely relevant article about the topic was from 2006 and the entire article was striked through.

Considering that they have such a low percentage of traffic, I would tell you to let it go and focus on the other search sites. Especially, since half the first page is made up of ads. While Google might place two on the top and have the right hand full of ads, Ask has 5 ads at the top and 5 ads at the bottom with 5 content pieces in the middle, rendering it useless to search marketers.

Aol- They are the copyme engine from what I researched. They take their websites from the DMOZ listings (Open Directory) where every new website is supposed to publish their site. Additionally, they have an agreement with Google that allows them to share their search information.

OK, so maybe this is a point in futility for different search engines optimization, because Bing and Yahoo are one in the same, plus they have similar requirements to Google. Additionally, Ask is utterly useless and AOL just copies Google on the search side for the most part.

However, I believe that all is not lost. The fact is that we have Google fixation sometimes when it comes to internet marketing and search engines optimization. What will Google do next? Look Matt Cutts is about to open his mouth to chew food!

While Google is important! Heck! It provides this blog with close to 4500 visitors per month, the reality is that there are other search engines out there that can stabilize your efforts. Then when a Google Panda-like update comes around you have the ability to bounce back faster in case of natural Google sized disaster.

Take a few moments therefore and start working on your search engines optimization. Do not spend too much time on this, because the reality is that it should only play a small role. However, optimizing your site for Bing and Yahoo would not be an altogether bad idea. That way you have search engines optimization for 95% of the world’s search traffic.