Nov 28 2006
A survey released today by Simply Business (http://www.simplybusiness.co.uk), the UK's first online comparative and purchasing facility for business finance & insurance, has revealed that the UK small business community are less likely to use Google than UK consumers.

Simply Business surveyed 200 of its small business customers and asked them about their search habits. Despite the expected dominance of Google over the other search engines, the UK's small business community is 27% less likely than UK consumers to use Google.

The latest statistics for the UK's search market indicate that Google has a 75% share of the market*. However, the Simply Business survey shows that Google's dominance is significantly less amongst the UK enterprise community at only 55%.

UK business owners are more likely than their consumer counterparts to spread their search across multiple engines when researching and comparing business products and services.

"We surveyed our small business customers to get a better understanding of how they search, compare and buy products for their businesses via the Internet" commented David Walmsley, Head of Marketing, Simply Business.

"Small business owners are hands-on and like to compare business products and services. However business products and especially business services can be far more complex. Every purchase for the business can be an anxiety purchase when the financial spend involved could be the difference between survival and failure. While Google is the dominant force on the Internet, our survey shows how much more determined business owners are to thoroughly research, compare and buy online than the average consumer."

Results
* Recruitment & Construction / Tradesmen industries use Google the most, 70% & 65% respectively.
* Retail is the most 'search intensive' industry with 45% searching multiple times a day
* The Transport sector is the biggest fan of 'Natural' results, 63% preferring them over the sponsored equivalents; followed by Retail (54%), Recruitment (51%) and Manufacturing (42%)
* The Leisure industry is the least likely to understand the difference between 'Natural' or 'Sponsored' results.
* When asked about the relevancy of searches 24% of both Google & Yahoo users thought results weren't relevant without further research