Things you can count on in 2010: Taxes and SEO growth

On Friday, comScore released a study that tracked the growth in the global search market in 2009. Two of the main points I took from the study:

1. The U.S. remains the largest search market worldwide
2. Google still has a serious headlock on the search market

Google, in it’s many worldwide forms, ranked as the top search conglomerate with 87.8 billion searches in December alone, increasing 58-percent in volume over the past year. While Microsoft sites, i.e. Bing, cracked the top five growing 70 percent to 4.1 billion searches.

In announcing the study, comScore EVP Jack Flanagan stated the obvious:

“Search is clearly becoming a more ubiquitous behavior among Internet users that drives navigation not only directly from search engines but also within sites and across networks”

Searching is such an ingrained behavior that it grew 46 percent in 2009  and we will continue to rely on search to solve our daily problems.  While search engine optimization (SEO) has changed dramatically over the last decade – and it’s death is a favorite topic among marketers – the need to factor search into your marketing strategy is not going away anytime soon. Which brings us to Flanagan’s second statement:

“If you equate the advancement of search with the ability of humans to cultivate information, then the world is rapidly becoming a more knowledgeable ecosystem.”

Search is getting smarter and Web sites, content and data are becoming more accessible. Your site not only has to reflect that people are searching for your services, but your data/content/information needs to be integrated wherever customers are searching for it. There is a reason Facebook was the No. 8 search property worldwide in the study. People want your information and if search engines, aggregators and social sites can’t find it within their walled garden or their algorithm, good luck in the 21st Century.

If you or your company is looking to take that next step, contact Point to Point today.