Search engine optimization is not an exact science, however, there are statistics that could help nudge you in the right direction. Today, I’ve gathered for you, a list of the top 25 SEO facts and statistics which you can use to improve your SEO skills and knowledge. Here we go.
SEO Fact #1: The top 5 URLs on the SERPs get 75% of user clicks.
Not surprising right? After all, most of us find what we are looking for in those first few search results. However, many expect this number to be much higher. So don’t be surprised if you are getting a lot of clicks while not being in the top 5 of the SERPs.
SEO Fact #2: 70% of the links clicked on by search users are actually organic.
There’s a lot of backlinks on the Internet yes? I mean, between all of the GSA SER users and other link building software, millions, if not billions of links are being created every day. However, most of them barely ever get clicked. That’s why everyone is fighting for those top positions in the organic search results – everybody clicks those.
SEO Fact #3: Google owns 65 – 70% of the search engine market share.
Which is less than it was in the past, but yet still a huge portion and the big reason why everyone wants to rank on Google and not so many focus on other search engines.
SEO Fact #4: 81% of businesses consider their blogs as an important asset to their business.
Not very surprising right? I mean, a blog can really spice things up for a website. Just take a look at what happened when I started this blog.
SEO Fact #5: Search and email are the top two Internet activities.
We all know about search, but many ignore the email part of this fact. Email is by far the most effective channel to reach out to your audience. Social media, PPC, and any other kind of outreach doesn’t even come close in terms of effectiveness when compared to email. That is why I always recommend implementing a bulletproof email marketing strategy.
SEO Fact #6: Page titles are the most important on-page element after content.
Of course the essence of your articles is what matters but it is the title that gets people to land on your website. According to resent stats, people will spend about 1 second on a title before moving along to the next one. So, you have 1 second to capture their attention with the few words you can put in your title. Just 1 second. Use it responsibly.
SEO Fact #7: 75% of SEO is off-page and 25% is on-page.
Now, I want you to understand that this doesn’t mean that 75% of your rankings depend on off-page SEO and only 25% depend on on-page SEO. No. If you were to ask me, I’d say it’s probably 50/50. However, it is true that most of the SEO forces are focused on off-page SEO. After all, it is a lot more complicated and dynamic than on-page SEO.
SEO Fact #8: 70 – 80% of users ignore the paid ads, focusing on the organic results.
While that sounds like a lot, it’s actually not that much. Think about it – 20% still will look at the paid ads which is not that little when you think about the billions of searches that are performed every month. However, as you can see, organic search results is where you want your business to appear.
SEO Fact #9: 50% of search users begin their search with a mobile device and this percentage will only increase.
Mobile search has been growing ever since that beautiful presentation of the first iPhone came to life and phones became Internet-friendly. So, don’t forget to adapt your website for mobile searches.
SEO Fact #10: Google estimates that the Internet now contains roughly five million terabytes of data – but the search giant has indexed only 0.04% of it all.
Yep, just 0.04%. Just imagine how much unknown there is out there somewhere on the vastness of the Internet. Don’t be one of those resources. Make sure that your website is discovered by submitting a Sitemap to the Google Console and posting regularly on your blog.
SEO Fact #11: Google accounted for nearly 40% of all U.S. digital ad spending last year. Facebook’s share was about 8%.
Google is still the king of digital advertising, however, since it is the king, there’s a lot of competition and prices can be quite high for someone on a budget. If you are that someone, turn your eye to Facebook ads, or even Bing ads as shown in this tutorial.
SEO Fact #12: Having a video on the landing page of your site makes it 53% more likely to show up on page 1 of Google.
Who doesn’t like video right? It beats the hell out of text and images I’ll tell you that. And as it appears, Google loves it too. After all, the biggest video sharing platform is owned by Google – YouTube.
SEO Fact #13: The top challenges in SEO are link building (cited by 41% of corporate marketers) and keyword research (39%).
Sounds legit. I mean, many people think that they are good at link building when in fact they are not. Link building has changed and is still changing a lot as opposed to on-page SEO which doesn’t change that much, so when people stop adapting, it’s normal that they have trouble getting good links for their websites.
On the other hand, keyword research is challenging because of the amount of competition. That’s basically it. There’s just a lot of people and they are all looking for profitable keywords to put in their content. So, nowadays, it’s not that easy to find some of those golden nuggets.
SEO Fact #14: 75% of users never scroll past the first page of search results.
Why should they? Usually, we always find what we are looking for on the first page right? Make it your priority to get to that first page on the SERPs because the difference between the clicks you will get from page 1 (any position) and the clicks you will get from page 2 (any position) is light years.
SEO Fact #15: Companies that blog have 434% more indexed pages. And companies with more indexed pages get far more leads.
Yep. Blog, blog, blog. I don’t care what your business is. Start a blog on your website and you will never ever stop it. I mean, there’s just so many benefits of blogging that I just can’t believe my eyes when I see a website without a blog.
It’s like trying to outrun a cheetah barefoot when you can be racing with it in a Koenigsegg One:1 – you still have a chance (maybe the cheetah slips or something), but you will never be nearly as effective as if you were in that Koenigsegg One:1.
SEO Fact #16: A study by Outbrain shows that search is the #1 driver of traffic to content sites, beating social media by more than 300%.
Again, you want to be on top of those search results because even if you have thousands even millions of social media following, it still won’t be as effective as ranking high on the SERPs for your target keywords.
SEO Fact #17: For Google, a study from Slingshot SEO shows 18% of organic clicks go to the #1 position, 10% of organic clicks go to the #2 position, and 7% of organic clicks go to the #3 position.
That’s a lot of clicks just for these first 3 positions according to the study. And as you can see, the difference between 1st and 2nd position is huge. 8% out of a billion searches is, well, a lot.
SEO Fact #18: In that same Slingshot study, tests for Bing show the following: 9.7% of organic clicks go to #1, 5.5% of organic clicks go to #2, and 2.7% of organic clicks go to #3.
Bing’s search share is growing, however, it still has a lot of catching up to do when compared to Google.
SEO Fact #19: Search directly drove 25% of all online U.S. device purchases in 2010.
Good times to be a device manufacturer.
SEO Fact #20: 53% of marketers rank content creation as the single most effective SEO tactic.
Wow. Just 53%? That’s really surprising to me as I think that content creation is 100% the single most effective SEO strategy – by far.
SEO Fact #21: On average, conversion rates are 10 times higher from search than from social on desktops.
Again, your focus should be on getting traffic from search engines and not that much on driving traffic from social media or similar sources.
SEO Fact #22: On smartphones, conversion rates are 15 times higher from search than social.
Same as above. Climb high on those SERPs please.
SEO Fact #23: Over 58% of marketers who have been using social media for one year or longer have improved search engine rankings.
It’s imminent. Social media is a part of SEO and it’s not to be ignored like it was a few years ago. So don’t ignore it.
SEO Fact #24: Every month there are more than 10.3 billion Google searches, with 78% of U.S. Internet users researching products and services online.
That’s why reviews of products and services are an extremely effective way to drive traffic to your website. Most people would always search for reviews before purchasing a product so if you find a good selling product that doesn’t yet have a review article written for it, you better hurry up and write that review article or someone else will.
SEO Fact #25: Google+ is the highest correlated social factor for SEO ranking.
If you’ve ever wondered which social media to focus which will actually help your rankings then don’t wonder any more – it’s Google+. Shocking right?
Conclusion
As you can see, the basic idea is to rank high on those SERPs – especially the ones generated by Google. Rank high and business will be good. Rank low and you won’t be getting that much out of your website. It’s no wonder that the SEO industry has grown so much and is still growing despite the countless (illogical) claims that SEO is dead.
No it’s not dead, it’s just become more sophisticated. In a nutshell, your main focus should be on content creation, link building, and email marketing. That’s it. Now, that sounds very abstract and the strategies that will work for every niche are different for each of these three sub-fields of SEO, however, as of now, they are, in my opinion, the most important parts of any successful SEO campaign.
Sources:
http://blog.hubspot.com/insiders/seo-facts
https://www.assertive-media.co.uk/blog/10-fun-facts-about-seo
https://www.searchenginejournal.com/24-eye-popping-seo-statistics/42665/