19 Mind-Blowing SEO Stats To Improve Your Inbound Marketing
Let me share a quick story with you.
Back in my junior year of college, I was new to marketing.
I vaguely understood the role of content marketing.
Never mind knowing a thing about SEO.
So I wrote this long blog post as an assignment.
And I thought it was the best thing ever.
After all, I put a week of my time into it.
To my dismay, the post got no pageviews.
Literally zero.
It wasn’t until about a year later (and I finally knew what SEO was) that I realized why my blog post didn’t get any views.
Because if you’re not using the right keywords and writing about a topic that people are searching for on Google, then you’re just wasting your time.
In this resource, you’ll learn about:
- 19 interesting stats that provide useful insight into the world of SEO.
- How users engage with search engines — so you can meet them halfway.
- What you can do to optimize your content and get better SEO rankings.
Alrighty, are you ready?
Let’s jump right into the first SEO stat on the list…
General
SEO Stat #1: 40% of Online Shoppers Start a Product Search With a Search Engine (Statista)
Recent findings from Statista suggest that search engines are the most popular way for online consumers to discover a product or service. With 4 out of 10 people beginning their shopping experience with a search engine like Google, it goes to show how important it is to rank high for organic search while using the right keywords for your paid search ads.
SEO Stat #2: Organic Search Accounts for 53% of All Web Traffic (BrightEdge)
Display ads, paid search, and social are nothing compared to the juggernaut that is organic SEO. According to BrightEdge’s research, 53% of all web traffic is organic. To put that into perspective, the next most dominant source of traffic is “Other” — which only makes up 27% of all traffic.
SEO Stat #3: SEO Provides the Highest-Quality Leads for 60% of Sales Teams (HubSpot)
A 2018 global report from HubSpot shed light on how useful SEO is for sales teams. According to the survey findings, 60% of sales teams say that, among a few other things, their best leads come from content/blog articles.
To us at AutoGrow, this is a “duh” moment. We’ve spent years investing in our production of educational content on our blog, targeting the keywords that attract our audience. And it’s proven to help direct leads to our sales team — and get them signed up as a new client.
SEO Stat #4: Google Has a 92% Search Engine Market Share (Statcounter)
It’s no secret that Google has a near monopoly in search engine market share. As of March 2022, Statcounter finds that 92% of all internet searches are done through Google. As you can infer from this SEO stat, Google should be priority No. 1 when it comes to organic traffic.
Wow. Just look at this chart.
SEO Stat #5: 90.63% of All Content Gets Zero Traffic Through Google (Ahrefs)
Ahrefs, an SEO-obsessed company that offers, you guessed it, SEO tools, did a little analysis on over one billion pages. Surprisingly, they found that only 9.37% of them get any Google traffic. And just 1.25% of pages receive more than 100 visits per month. Pretty pathetic, huh?
When I see this SEO stat, two things come immediately to mind:
- Blog titles are not attractive to the average person.
- The content is low-quality.
To solve these two issues, marketers need to spend more time on writing catchy headlines with high emotional value and focus on writing topics that resonate with their audience. As long as you follow SEO tips for bloggers, it shouldn’t be too difficult to figure out what topics will deliver SEO results.
Plus, building backlinks (something that the majority of pages neglect) will help provide you with a better domain authority — leading to more visibility on search engines.
Speaking of backlinks, let’s check out the next section of SEO stats.
Backlinks
SEO Stat #6: A Single Link Can Cost Up to $1,500 (Siege Media)
Buying links can be a great investment, but it can also be expensive. If you’re going to ask third parties to link back to your website, it can cost you well over a grand per link. Although that sounds high, just think of how many more people will discover your brand.
And by the way, the cost for backlinks depends on your industry, so you very well may not end up having to spend as much as $1,500.
SEO Stat #7: 94% of Blog Posts Have No External Links (Backlinko)
So since Google likes content with backlinks, you’d think everyone would be adding plenty of hyperlinks in their content, right? Well, it turns out that 94% of blog posts don’t even have a single external link, according to Backlinko (fitting name, right?). As you can see, this represents a gigantic opportunity for you to stand out from the crowd.
Just make sure the links you include are from reputable sources. And if you can, always link to the original source of information, like we do. With high-quality external links, Google can more easily identify your niche, and it will improve your domain authority.
SEO Stat #8: 69% of Marketers See Positive Results Stem From Link-Building (Aira)
When Aira surveyed 253 marketers back in 2021, about 7 out of 10 of them said that building links improves their organic search rankings. It’s clear that backlinking is a useful tactic that most marketers see the benefits from.
SEO Stat #9: 60.5% of Marketing Teams Outsource Their Link-Building (uSERP)
Link-building doesn’t exactly happen overnight. Or even in a week for that matter (more on that in the next SEO stat).
You have to do some research, networking, and outreach with owners of websites where you’d like to be featured. No, link-building takes time and some deep knowledge of SEO best practices. No wonder over 60% of marketing teams use agencies, contractors, and freelancers to carry out their link-building efforts, as reported by uSERP.
SEO Stat #10: It Takes 10 Weeks To Move Up One Rank From a Backlink(Moz)
If you get a backlink to your page, you’ll need to wait, on average, 10 weeks to rank one spot higher on search engine result pages, as found by Moz. Sure, backlinks don’t bring instant success. But over time, the SEO boost is well with the wait.
Don’t believe me? Just check out the graph below.
And if you want to see results faster, then consider investing multiple backlinks.
User Behavior
SEO Stat #11: 67.60% of All Clicks Come From the Top Five Search Results (Advanced Web Ranking)
Advanced Web Ranking’s research indicates that any time someone clicks on a search result, there’s a nearly 7 out of 10 chance they’ll click on one of the first five results they see. Moreover, they’ll bypass paid ads (for the most part) and they’ll completely ignore second page results.
This is why most web pages receive no traffic. People don’t go beyond the first page.
SEO Stat #12: 14.1% of All Searches Use Question Keywords (Backlinko)
When people have a question, they often go to Google for an answer. As no surprise, question keywords account for a huge portion (14.1%) of all internet searches, as per Backlinko. Make sure you have a solid FAQs page that will direct traffic to your website when users have a question about your industry or your product/service.
SEO Stat #13: Smartphone Voice Searches Are 3 Times More Likely To Be Local-Based Than Text Searches (Chitika)
When you’re optimizing for mobile voice assistants, it’s essential to factor in local criteria, if it’s applicable to your brand. As Chitika’s study pointed out, these types of search inquiries are 3 times more likely to request local information.
This means that you need to make sure you have a page that provides your phone number, current address, and updated opening hours. On top of that, your Google Places profile must be kept up to date as well. You see, you want this information displayed on the search engine results page — making the buyer’s journey as frictionless as possible (e.g., the user can “click to call” your business).
Furthermore, you must target long-tail keyphrases since voice search users tend to ask full questions. For example, someone might ask, “Siri, where can I buy a new monitor in Springfield, Illinois?” By targeting keywords like these, you’ll be in position to show up on local search results.
SEO Stat #14: 64.82% of Search Inquiries End Without a Click (SparkToro)
SparkToro analyzed 5.1 trillion Google searches and found that nearly two-thirds of those searches resulted in zero clicks. So what does this SEO stat mean to a marketer? Well, it could mean that people are very picky about the title tags they see, or perhaps a lot of people simply read the snippets from the SERP and call it a day. Or perhaps this stat exemplifies the depressingly low attention span among the world’s populace.
Something that really stood out from this study was the difference between click-through rates between desktop and mobile users. Whereas 46.48% of desktop Google searches resulted in zero clicks, that number is up to 77.22% on mobile.
SEO Stat #15: Average First-Page Result Loads In 1.65 Seconds (Backlinko)
It’s long been known that Google penalizes websites that take too long to load. But it’s nice to see some confirmation from Backlinko. According to their research, the average website on the first-page results takes just 1.65 seconds to load. Just so you know, this is quicker than the average time to load across all websites (not just the first page) — creating an opportunity to rank higher against your competitors.
This SEO stat demonstrates the fact that consumers want instant results. And honestly, in 2022, they should.
Actually, Backlinko’s findings corroborate with Digital.com’s survey of 1,250 online shoppers — where 53% of respondents said they expect e-commerce pages to load in 3 seconds or less.
SEO Pro Opinions
SEO Stat #16: 36% of SEO Experts Deem Title Tags as the Most Important Factor in SEO (Databox)
According to survey results from Databox, over a third of marketing professionals say that the title tag is more influential than any other SEO factor. And considering that your page title is what determines if a user finds it click-worthy, this makes sense.
SEO Stat #17: 75% of Marketers Believe SEO Is Helping Them Meet Their Goals (HubSpot)
Marketers today are quite confident that their SEO strategy is working — with 3 out 4 of them telling HubSpot that their SEO efforts are helping them with their marketing goals. Numerous consumer touchpoints — like blog articles, landing pages, and even YouTube videos all rely heavily on SEO for content discovery. Once you execute SEO, the rest of your sales funnel falls into place.
Some of the main tactics companies use to implement SEO are:
- Strategic keywords
- Localization
- Mobile-friendliness
SEO Stat #18: 83.3% of SEO Pros Struggle Proving ROI (GoodFirms)
Trying to prove that SEO produces business results is difficult. After all, things like keyword optimization and editing meta descriptions and title tags are kind of behind the scenes, so to speak. So when GoodFirms surveyed over 100 SEO professionals and companies, 83.3% of them said a top challenge of theirs is proving ROI to stakeholders.
SEO Stat #19: 70% of SEO Pros Prefer SEO Over PPC (Databox)
70% of the SEO professionals that Datbox surveyed stated that SEO is more effective than PPC when it comes to driving sales. Some of the reasons for the preference for SEO are:
- Lower cost
- Longer-lasting results
- Higher-quality leads
The thing about PPC ads is that they require constant funding, and they aren’t always effective at generating clicks from your target audience. But with well-optimized content, you will drive traffic to your website from people who you know are interested in your topics or your product. Plus it only costs you your time (and maybe a little payroll).
Conclusion
Don’t you just love reading about stats?
I know I do.
By taking a deep dive on the research, we’re able to gain a much better understanding of a topic. In this case, SEO.
And we’re able to make inferences about how to approach SEO.
To recap, we looked at everything from general stats, like Google’s search engine market share, to what SEO gurus think of the craft.
With this newfound insight, I hope you feel one step closer to becoming an SEO wizard.
If you’re not quite there yet, then maybe you would like a hand.
In that case, consider delegating all your SEO projects (and other marketing projects, if you want) to AutoGrow. We have team members ready to book a call with you today.
Or if you’d prefer, give us a ring at 1-800-269-3485.
And before you go, let me ask you something.
Which SEO stats were the most surprising to you?
Let me know in the comments below.
Keep AutoGrowin’, stay focused.
