In this blog post you will learn how to optimize your content writing for DuckDuckGo SEO.

According to this MediaPost update in 2018 the DuckDuckGo search engine served more than 9 billion searches.

Here is what DuckDuckGo recently tweeted:

DuckDuckGo served over 9 Billion private searches in 2018 (and is on pace to shatter that record in 2019)!

Despite our traffic growth, though, the number of personal profiles we store remains unchanged.

It's still zero.https://t.co/qlSaz4j9ZH pic.twitter.com/LZ5IIcreDo

— DuckDuckGo (@DuckDuckGo) January 3, 2019

I keep writing on my blog that Google is very competitive about its ranking algorithm and it doesn’t rest on its laurels. Just because there isn’t a significant search engine in sight doesn’t mean the search engine giant start serving lousy search results.

Google knows that before it, there were many “search engine giants” including Yahoo!, Lycos and AltaVista. They can easily be one to take its place at the helm.

Microsoft has half-heartedly tried to capture some portion of the market with Bing, but very few people take it seriously although, as a search engine, you should definitely make sure that your links feature in its search results.

A search engine that can pose a threat to Google’s dominance is the DuckDuckGo search engine.

Why are more people using DuckDuckGo, bypassing Google?

Privacy concerns.

When you use the DuckDuckGo search engine, it does not store your personal information.

It does not store your search history. It has no intention of using your search pattern for retargeting and for advertising.

With data breaches happening almost on every platform including even Facebook and Google, many people who are cautious about their privacy, have started using DuckDuckGo because they openly claim that they don’t store your private information and your search history.

And even the search results aren’t bad too. It finds the information you are looking for. In fact, off late I have observed that its results are better than Google.

Should you seriously optimize your content writing for DuckDuckGo SEO?

Although 9 billion searches in a year don’t match with Google’s 1.2 trillion searches per year worldwide (source), sooner or later DuckDuckGo is going to become a force to reckoned with.

There are many reasons why this search engine is going to become the search engine of choice for many.

In Google Chrome you can set it as your default search engine.

In iOS 8 browser options, you can set DuckDuckGo as your default search engine. This means a big number of iPhone users may start using DuckDuckGo increasingly.

Just see below its growth trajectory even for January 2015.

You can imagine how fast it is growing.

If you start optimizing your content writing for DuckDuckGo SEO, right now you can get a headway because there aren’t many people focusing on it.

Optimizing your content for DuckDuckGo SEO

When I was doing research for writing this blog post, predictably, every good suggestion revolves around the standard advice for every major search engine these days – quality and relevance.

In this Search Engine Land blog post, Neil Patel has made the following suggestions for optimizing your content for the DuckDuckGo search engine:

Create a great website

Great website in terms of usability, quality of information and ease of use. The website must be accessible on all devices, especially mobile phones. It should be a fast loading website.

Focus on your users

Every search engine aims to provide the best possible answers to the questions people pose them. When writing content for your website or blog focus on providing the best value to your users.

Write valuable content so that people naturally link to you

Just like backlinks are important in Google, they are also important for DuckDuckGo SEO.

So, high-quality content isn’t just good for your conversion rate, it also earns you backlinks from authority websites and this in turn helps you improve your DuckDuckGo SEO.

Optimize using semantic keywords

Semantic keywords are the related keywords. Suppose I’m trying to optimize a web page for “content writer”.

Google also does that – DuckDuckGo, when analyzing my web page, don’t just look for “content writer”; it may also look for “web writer”, “web content writer”, “website writer”, and so on.

Similarly, when optimizing a web page for “phone reviews” it may also decide to rank the web page for “phone comparisons” and “phone recommendations”

Concluding remarks on optimizing your content writing for DuckDuckGo SEO

A good thing about DuckDuckGo is that it does not use people’s search behavior to filter results or customize results. It indexes and ranks different links according to its own unique method or algorithm.

Relevance and quality rules the roost. Create very topical content. Although longer blog posts are good, try to focus on the subject without stuffing too much information that might be unrelated.

Personally, I wouldn’t suggest that you do something extra for DuckDuckGo. Just follow the best practices for all the mainstream search engines like Google, Bing and DuckDuckGo and your rankings will improve even in this latest search engine.