You need SEO. Whether you’re a startup, a solopreneur, a multi-billion company, or a boutique cake shop, search engine optimization has to be part of your strategy.
Yes, there are PPC alternatives and yes, there is social media and influencer marketing and many others. You can mix and match as you please but SEO is the one thing that you should never ignore altogether. Perhaps you decide to start with Google Ads to get sales quickly – that’s perfectly alright. But in the long run nothing has the ROI of SEO, irrespective of the industry you’re in.
I like to say that we are our own success stories. I launched two digital marketing agencies, Copywritech and Idunn, and both of them get 95% of their leads and customers through a mix of SEO and content marketing. That’s it! In the six years I’ve been running my own business, I’ve spent less than $2000 on paid ads – it was a test that taught me SEO is still the best way to go.
Our case studies speak about the success our customers have had with SEO and content marketing strategies we have designed and implemented for them. But I know that, ultimately, third-party, independent numbers are what we all look for to validate hypotheses.
Luckily, there is no shortage of such stats in SEO. Let’s take a look at some of the newest ones:
25 Statistics that Prove Your Business Needs SEO
- 68% of online experiences begin with a search engine. When people need something, they will start their quest with a search. Will they find you?
- The average organic click-through rate (CTR) of the first Google desktop search result is 32%. This means that if you rank first, 32% of people using that keyword will click on your website.
- For mobile users, the average organic CTR is 26.9%.
- Only 0.78% of Google searchers click on the results on the second page. Got some pages ranking on the second page of results? Update that content and add more relevant information to it to push it higher.
- SEO drives 1000%+ more traffic than organic social media! With organic reaches at an all-time low in most social networks, it’s no wonder. If you rely heavily on social media, you need to read this article about why it’s a bad idea to build your house on someone else’s land.
- 67.9% of all search queries contain 4+ words. If you’re a regular here, you know I’m a big advocate for long-tail keywords – they’re not just easier to rank for, but they also have more business value because they can easily be matched with search intent.
- 53.3% off all web traffic comes from organic search. If you’re not investing in SEO, you’re foregoing more than half of your traffic.
- On the other hand, 90.63% of all web pages get no organic traffic whatsoever. This should give you a pretty good idea of how much room for growth there is.
- Not sure which search engine to optimize for? This one’s easy: Google has 91.75% of the worldwide search engine market.
- Microsoft Bing is only at 2.75% of the search engine market. Want to cover all your bases? The odds are in your favor: if you manage to rank in Google SERPs, you will most likely rank in other search engines’ results pages too.
- Not all searches end with a click. 50.3% of searches resulted in no clicks. This means that the user either abandoned the search for various reasons or simply didn’t find any headline that was attractive enough. Pro tip: optimize your headlines for user intent and work on the meta description to attract more clicks on the pages that already rank high in SERPs.
- Aiming for a place in the top 10 results? You should aim higher! Google displays 8.5 organic mobile search results and 8.7 organic desktop search results on page 1.
- SEO isn’t just for meaningless traffic. 60% of marketers say that inbound (SEO, blog content etc.) is their highest quality source of leads. Better yet:
- SEO leads have a huge close rate compared to other tactics: 14.6%.
- 39% of users were influenced by a relevant search.
- No more than 5.7% of pages will rank in the top 10 results within a year of their publication. (No one said it was going to be easy).
- The good news is that if you do rank on the first spot for one keyword, you’ll rank within the top 10 results for 1000+ more keywords. That’s quite the bang for your buck!
- The average page ranking in the top 10 results is more than two years old. SEO is a long-term game!
- 8% of searches are phrased like questions. It may not sound like much, but if you can answer them, you’re in the cards for the coveted position zero! Plus, it’s not about the quantity as much as it is about the quality of the traffic.
- 12.29% of searches have featured snippets in them. Another reason why position zero is such a coveted one.
- The percentages above may not seem too high. But to put them in perspective, you should know that there are 3.5 billion searches on Google every day.
- If you’re a local business, SEO is even more important: 90% of shoppers say they use the internet to find a local business.
- Voice search is set to grow exponentially with voice assistants being built into 1 billion devices. Leverage this trend by writing conversational pieces and using a friendly tone of voice.
- 25% of searches target something other than the top 100 million keywords. One more reason to go long-form and hyper-specific.
- Rethink those dollars spent on paid search ads: only 2.8% of desktop searches result in clicks on a paid result, compared to the 62.2% that result in a click on an organic result.
Final Thoughts
Numbers don’t lie. And they paint a pretty clear picture. If you haven’t given SEO too much thought until now, it’s time you do it. The good news is that there is no deadline for entry. No matter when you start, the ROI will be waiting for you. However, the sooner you start, the faster you’ll see the results. Remember that SEO is a long-term game.
Need help with getting started? My team of expert SEO writers is just a click away – let’s talk!
