1 In 3 Visits To Sites Driven By Search

Most brand owners are by now well aware of the impact search marketing has on their business. But the latest data from Experian Hitwise can do more to convince them why it is worth it.

More than 2.3bn visits to the Internet were made by UK consumers in January, marking a 4.5% growth in traffic on an annual basis. Overall, search accounts for 12% of all online visits in the UK.

With the growing volume of search, businesses are becoming more dependent on search engine optimisation to deliver traffic. In fact, more than one in three visits to websites came from searches in January, Experian Hitwise figures suggest. Facebook and YouTube have also become major drivers of traffic to sites, figures reveal.

Not surprisingly, Google and its sites remain at the top of the table, despite losing a tiny part of its market share, snatching 90.6% of the total online visits. Its main rivals Yahoo and Bing have gained some ground but the gap between them and Google still looks more like an abyss. While Yahoo accounts for 4.16% of UK searches, Microsoft’s Bing has crawled up to nearly 3%.

Entertainment is the top category in search, accounting for 14% of traffic, closely followed by social media with 13% and search engines with 12%, the Experian Hitwise report shows.