When it comes to getting found online, there is no better medium than organic search. Since the creation of search engines, search engine optimization (SEO) has been a powerful strategy to ensure that your brand gets noticed by your target audience, at the right time. While the strategies used by the search industry have shifted over the years, one thing remains solid; SEO is essential for driving organic traffic to your website and for achieving online marketing success.
Like all ethical internet marketing strategies, SEO takes time and dedication. It’s more than just link building or content creation. Depending on the industry and the type of search you are trying to increase your visibility in, you’re going to need to use different strategies and tactics. Today’s search engines give users more options, making them more lucrative for site owners than ever before.
Below are 80 SEO statistics that prove the power of organic search engine optimization and search engine marketing.
Table of Contents
SEO Statistics That Prove the Power of Organic Search
Organic Search
- In 2019, organic and paid search dominated as website traffic sources. 68% of all trackable website traffic is sourced from organic and paid search.
- Ranking highly in organic search results is crucial; between 70% and 80% of users completely ignore paid advertisements.
- 66% of distinct search queries result in 1 or more clicks.
- 21% of searchers click more than one result.
- Over 73% of all searches are performed using Google.
- 94% of all mobile and tablet search traffic comes from Google.
- Search engines drive 300% more traffic to sites than social media.
- 87% of smartphone owners use a search engine at least once per day.
- 67% of clicks go to the top five websites in search engine results and the results from 6 to 10 yield less than 4% of the clicks.
- 50% of search queries are four words or longer.
- The average time spent on a search session is less than 1 minute long.
- 50% of visitors are more likely to click a result if the brand appears multiple times in search engine results.
- SEO leads have a 14.6% close rate compared to only 1.7% for outbound leads such as print advertisements.
- 75% of users never click past the first page of search results.
- Inbound leads, such as SEO, cost 61% less than outbound leads, such as direct mail or cold calling.
- Marketers using both organic SEO techniques and pay-per-click ads see an average of 25% more clicks and 27% more profits compared to using a single technique.
- Companies are predicted to spend $79 billion on SEO by 2020.
- 68% of online experiences begin with a search engine.
- 57% of B2B marketers stated that SEO generates more leads than any other marketing initiative.
- 88% of people perform some type of online research before making a purchase online or in-store.
- 75% of people never scroll past the first page of search engines.
- Leads from search engines have a 14.6% close rate, while outbound leads (ex. cold-calling, direct mail, etc.) have a 1.7% close rate.
- 70-80% of people ignore paid search results, choosing to only click on organic listings.
- 55% of searchers don’t know which links in the Search Engine Results pages are PPC ads. And up to 50% of users shown a Search engine Results page screenshot could not identify paid ads.
- 40% of people abandon a website that takes 3 seconds or longer to load.
- A 1-second delay in page response can result in a 7% reduction in conversions.
- Marketers see SEO as becoming more effective, with 82% reporting effectiveness is on the rise, and 42% of this group stating effectiveness is increasing significantly.
- 15% of Google queries have never been searched before.
- Google uses more than 200 ranking factors in its algorithm.
- Approximately 55% of searches are done on mobile, 43% are done on desktop, and 3% are done on a tablet.
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Local Search
- 88% of users who perform a local search on their smartphone visit a physical store within a week.
- 93% of consumers use the internet to find a local business, with 34% searching every day.
- 72% of consumers who perform a local search visit a store within 5 miles of their current location.
- 61% of mobile searchers are more likely to contact a local business if they have a mobile-friendly site.
- 88% of consumers trust online reviews as much as they trust personal recommendations.
- 86% of people look up the location of a business on Google Maps.
- 78% of location-based mobile searches result in an offline purchase.
- Businesses that have a strong keyword in the business name rank 1.5 spots higher than if there is no keyword in the name.
- 46% of Google searches have local intent.
- “Near me” searches have increased 500% in recent years.
Content for SEO
- A blog is an essential part of a brand’s content strategy. Business-to-business marketers with blogs receive 67% more leads.
- Companies who blog receive 97% more site links than those who don’t.
- Companies that blog have 434% more indexed pages than those that don’t. That means more leads!
- Content optimization is key. Updating and republishing old blog posts can increase traffic by more than 100%.
- 72% of marketers say the single most effective SEO tactic is relevant content creation.
- 47% of consumers view 3-5 pieces of content created by a company before talking to a salesman from that company.
- A Backlinko report revealed that longer content tends to rank higher. The average first-page result on Google contains 1,447 words.
- A 2015 study by Moz and BuzzSumo analyzed the shares and links of over 1 million articles and found that long-form content of over 1,000 words consistently receives more shares and links than shorter form content.
- The Backlinko study also reported that using a single image within content will increase search engine rankings.
- 62% of B2B marketers and 51% of B2C marketers have optimized their blogs for mobile in order to improve SEO.
- Google tends to source voice search answers from long-form content averaging about 2000+ words.
- A page that is ranking in the top 3 search results has a 75% chance of also ranking for the same query done via voice search.
- Google processes 40,000 searches per second and 3.5 billion searches per day.
- Google has 78% of desktop/laptop search market share and 92% of total search engine market share for mobile devices.
- Bing at 10.82%, Baidu at 4.98%, Yandex at 3.22%, and Yahoo at 2.11% account for most of the remaining desktop/laptop search engine market share.
- In June 2021, Bing.com had close to 1.08 billion unique global visitors, up from 935.8 million visitors in February 2021.
- Google has decreased the number of organic blue links displayed as the result of a search from 10 to 8.5, on average.
- In 2021, Google’s annual advertising revenues in the United States are projected to decline and only reach 39.53 billion US dollars, down from 41.8 billion US dollars in 2019.
- According to Andrey Lipattsev, Search Quality Senior Strategist at Google, high-quality content and link building are the two most important signals used by Google to rank your website for search.
- Google “near me” mobile searches that contain a variant of “can I buy” or “to buy” grew 500% between 2015 and 2017.
- Google changes its search engine algorithm roughly 500 – 600 times per year.
- On Google, 18% of organic clicks go to the first search result, 10% go to the second, and 7% go to the third.
- 49% of Google searches don’t result in a click, demonstrating the increasing emphasis on optimizing for SERPs. This is an increase of 12% from the first quarter of 2016.
Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
- In Q1 2019, the click-through rate on organic searches was 47.4%.
- Three-fourths of people (75%) say paid search ads make it easier to find the information they are searching for on a website or search engine.
- More than one-quarter of people (26%) click on a paid search ad because it mentions a brand they are familiar with.
- 45.5% of people couldn’t identify ads vs organic results if there were no ads in the right column.
- 49% of businesses receive more than 1,000 average Search views of their Google My Business listing per month, and 33% receive 1,000+ views on Maps.
- On average, the return on ad spend for Google Ads is 200% or $2 for every $1 spent.
- In Q1 2019 Google’s US web search engine, sent 7.2% of all search clicks to paid results.
Emerging Trends in Organic SEO
- Voice queries have increased 3400% since 2008.
- A well-optimized video is up to 52 times more likely to show up on the first page of Google than a text article.
- As of 2015, more searches are done every day on mobile devices than desktops.
- 87% of people who own a smartphone use a search engine at least once a day.
- 40% of mobile website visitors will leave the site if it takes more than 3 seconds to load.
- Voice search currently accounts for 10% of total searches.
- In Q1 2021, mobile devices generated 54.8% of global website traffic, consistently hovering 50% since 2017.
- Video is the #1 form of media used in content strategy.
- Smartphones will account for 44 percent of total IP traffic by 2022, up from 18 percent in 2017.
- 60% of smartphone users have contacted a business directly using the search results (e.g. “click to call” option).
There are more reasons than ever before to invest in SEO and SEM. If you are serious about driving quality, targeted visitors to your website, taking time to learn and implement effective SEO techniques will pay off huge in the long run. If you are interested in learning SEO, check out my course below.
Editor’s Note: This article was originally published in November 2017 and has been updated with new data.
