SEO statistics and research play an important part in strategic digital marketing planning. In fact, it is not merely a matter of using the Google Search Console for internal SEO research: a variety of SEO tools come into play to enable broader market research and competitor intelligence. We contend that any SME that fails to spend at least 5% of it’s marketing budget on proper research, might be taking a shot in the dark.
It comes as no surprise that the latest SEO statistics serve as an eye-opener to CEO’s and is worth a closer look. A big part of successful online marketing results from SEO – as a company’s website ranks when searched through a search engine. Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process where the quality and quantity of traffic to a website is improved. Google page speed is no doubt a crucial factor these days, but what else is important?
With the right SEO strategy, companies can bump up their websites to one of the top spots in online search results. Online marketers understand that companies need to have an online presence in order to compete with their competitors. They spend a lot of time on making sure their SEO strategies are evolving in order to remain effective. Below we look at SEO statistics that every business should be aware of.
72 Important SEO Statistics
- 93% of online sessions start by entering a keyword into a search engine.
- Almost 92% of the search engine market belongs to Google.
- 40 000 Keyword searches are recorded through Google every second. That equates to over 3,5 billion searches per day.
- The top 5 results on a page get around 68% of the clicks.
- The number 1 result on a search engine page receives an average of 32% of all the clicks.
- The Google algorithm changes around 500 times a year. Marketers have to stay on top of the changing SEO environment.
- More than 60% of the world’s population has access to the internet and uses search engines.
- Almost 50% of online marketers reported in a survey that SEO has the best return on investment (ROI) than any other online marketing channel.
- 1450 Words is the average length of a top performing article on Google.
- Studies show that more than half of consumers research a product through a search engine before deciding to purchase it.
- The average web page takes around 6 seconds to open compared to best practice standards of 3 seconds.
- Research shows that the SEO market value is around $80 billion. This number is continually increasing year after year.
- More than 50% of traffic generated is through organic searches.
- The average salary for a professional in online SEO marketing is around $65 000 annually.
- Older web sites tend to perform better than newer ones. Almost 60% of top 10 search results on google are pages more than 3 years old.
- It is estimated that the number of users in the U.S. using search engines is around 240 million people.
- Search queries are more than 50% of the time 3 words or longer.
- Over 90% of all web sites receive no organic searches from Google.
- Users are 20 times more likely to click on an organic search result from Google than a paid advert.
- E Commerce sites receive 10 times more traffic from search engines than from social media.
- The average length of a video on Youtube on the first page of search results is just over 14 minutes long.
- A backlink costs on average $360.
- Approximately 10% of searches are in the form of a question.
- Bing ows roughly 2% of the SEO market.
- Yahoo owns approximately 1% of the SEO market.
- Google is the number 1 searched website in the world.
- The second listing in a Google search result gets around 10% of the clicks.
- Only around 6% of clicks go to the second page results.
- The data indicates that there are on average 8.5 billion Google searches per day. This is based on around 1.7 million users, searching roughly 4 times per day on Google.
- Over 200 factors are taken into account before Google delivers its best search results.
- Google processes around 70 000 searches per second.
- A website’s click through rate (CTR) can improve nearly 30% by moving up just one space in Google search results.
- The most searched word on Google is “Facebook”, followed by “Youtube”.
- Research shows that the most expensive cost per click (CPC) word on google is “business services” at $58.64.
- More than 20% of the time, Google users choose the autofill suggestion.
- Search volume grows at an estimated 10% – 15% per year.
- From 2017 to 2019 Google search results grew by more than 250%.
- Almost 50% of all Google searches end in no clicks.
- More than 60% of all searches are through mobile devices.
- Consumers trust sites that are optimized for mobile devices, 50% more than those that aren’t.
- The recommended load time for a site on a mobile device is less than 2 seconds.
- Surveys show that more than 60% of mobile users will not recommend a website to friends if the design is poor for mobile devices.
- More than 30% off all mobile searches are location related.
- The CTR (click through rate) on mobile devices is approximately 50% less than on a desktop device.
- Almost 90% of all smartphone users utilize a search engine on a daily basis.
- The first listing on a search engine results page gets roughly 30% of the clicks from mobile devices.
- Store operating hours are searched more on days like Christmas. It is therefore crucial for all businesses to list their trading hours.
- Over 45% of all searches on Google are for local businesses.
- Research shows that over 70% of people searching for a local business visit the business in the results page within one day.
- Almost 20% of local searches will result in a purchase.
- A survey done showed that over 75% of consumers would like to receive adverts based on their location.
- More than half of consumers have discovered a business they did not know about through a search engine result.
- Over 90% of users will choose a business from the first page of results.
- Almost 90% of consumers value an online review as much as a personal review.
- In 2020, online advertising was roughly 70% bigger than advertising on television.
- Consumers indicate that over 80% of them look for negative reviews online.
- Searches from “near me” have increased by more than 500%
- Only around 30% of small businesses have websites that are optimized.
- Research shows that around 65% of small businesses have used the service of an SEO provider.
- Around 55% of smartphone users make use of voice search.
- More than 70% of users utilize voice search to ask for directions.
- Over 50% of people use voice search while they are in the car driving.
- HTTPS pages account for 70% of all voice related search results.
- The average length of a voice search result is 29 words.
- Apple’s Siri owns almost 50% of the world’s voice assistant market.
- Speech recognition from Google can recognise over 100 languages.
- Nearly 30% of global mobile users make use of the voice search function.
- Websites that rank high in voice search results usually have strong link authority.
- According to Google research, over a billion users will use voice search at least once per week.
- 71% of consumers prefer to use voice search instead of typing.
- Over 30% of U.S. consumers own a smart speaker. The smart speaker market is dominated by Amazon, Google and Apple.
- Over 33 million consumers use smart speakers to conduct online shopping.
Conclusion
As a business, it is important to understand some of the key statistics of SEO in order to make strategic marketing decisions. SEO has many layers and is quite complex to try and understand. It can take years to learn how to optimize SEO and even then it requires continuous learning and staying up to date with trends and changes.
Statistics like the above mentioned ones can improve your knowledge on how to optimize the search engine results for your business. It is clear that businesses who have spent the time on optimizing their SEO are reaping the benefits.
Luckily there are plenty of SEO companies that can help business owners improve their website ratings.
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