It’s no surprise that Google still dominates the UK search space but Hitwise have recently confirmed that the Search Engine now has an “unprecedented 92% market share of all searches conducted by UK Internet users”. This overwhelming share becomes even more vital considering the decrease in search engines as a means of driving traffic to a site.

Hitwise also confirmed that social networks currently drive just under 13% of all site visits in the UK, with YouTube accounting for 20.76% of those visits.

With Social Media on the increase, Google continues to ensure it completely overshadows Bing & Yahoo with the presence of YouTube and the introduction of Google + in that area too.

So, how should a UK SEO react to this kind of information? Well, I think it’s more than obvious that social media really cannot be ignored and must form part of the package in any kind of search campaign. Building a social network to promote your client’s brand, products and/or services and to allow others to promote them will bring a higher ROI than on site or link building alone can do. Google has already made it clear that positive “signals” from social media activities may count towards establishing a site’s authority and contribution (therefore increasing SERPs and traffic).

As for Bing, good rankings are a bonus but I can’t be the only UK SEO that isn’t actively optimising for that search engine for any of my UK clients? Perhaps this will need to change in a year or so but it’s not an area I can afford to waste time and budget on when Google is still so important.