Any reason to optimize my site for smaller search engines or should I just concentrate on Google?

Google is still the 800lb gorilla. As of September 2010 Google accounted for 66.1% of all searches with Yahoo at 16.7% and Microsoft at 11.2% according to comScore 2010.

When you combine Yahoo and Microsoft they accounted for 27.9% of searches. Definitely an avenue you do not want to ignore.

Part of the equation is if you are marketing your products/services locally, regionally, nationally or worldwide. If you are promoting locally Yahoo and Bing are a must. In fact, if you are marketing locally you want to maximize you presence on sites like Yelp, JudysBook and CitySearch to name a few. For a great resource and guide to Local Search I recommend Local Search Optimization from http://www.searchenginenews.com a fantastic up-to-date reference. If you are optimizing for local search you need to get this book.

No matter how wide a net you're casting get a directory listing at Yahoo. It's $299 per year but will provide not only additional exposure but some great backlinks.

One more thing don't forget about onsite SEO. You are in total control of everything on your site and make certain you're maximizing your onsite SEO. If your onsite SEO sucks than any offsite efforts will be far less effective.

In the sites I manage, Google drives over 80% of the traffic, Bing is about 10% and Yahoo a little less than Bing. So for me, there's not much of an ROE (Return On Effort) from anything else. I would recommend focusing on Google and Bing, and if you have additional time/resources, look at the ROE for the other search traffic sources listed on your site's traffic reports. Definitely look at traffic reports to see your current results so you can measure your priorities.

Good input from Scott and Steven. I would just add that while Bing is not even close to Google, it is growing consistently and some segments such as tech and healthcare are much stronger with Bing than others. I say spend some energy with Bing, look at it as an investment in the future, and you will gain beneficial advantages vs. your competitors who are NOT spending tome on Bing.

Google is definitely going to bring the majority of your traffic through but let's not forget that good SEO practices apply across all search engines.

Hi Paul,

Yes I recommend also focusing on Bing, Yahoo, and Firefox as well. Different customers who would visit your business will often use different browsers, that leverage different search engine tools and SEO.

Steven Bonacorsi

Good question Paul, you read my mind. I'm currently trying to make it through my first year of running my business. Within the last month I've been up to my head with 10+ tabs all about SEO.

There are a lot of things I have to learn. Your question along with the replies, has sent me in the right direction.

Thanks

Focus most optimisation efforts on Google. I'd recommend any other search engine-specific optimisation to be considered only after you have ensured that you are driving search traffic from Google in the first place. Also, you might want to consider if your target audience is in the B2C or B2B space. In the B2C space, I'd suggest expending more resources at ranking on Bing (which will in turn drive traffic from Yahoo as well). Douglas' suggestion about targeting local directories & search engines is great.

Last year one of the most signficant changes in the search world is the integration of Bing results into Yahoo and in the US Yahoo stopped using its own search index. Hitwise shows that Bing's market share has gone from under 10% to over 25% with Google still having more than 70% share. I wrote about this back in July last year here - http://www.searchgap.com/blog/bing-yahoo-challenge-google/

Great points all around. My simple take on it is that, generally, if you can focus SEO on Google and win there, you're likely to be getting the same results in the other search engines. If not, it still makes sense to win Google over first and then the others, especially if you have limited resources.