Got an “old school” boss who doesn’t understand the power of SEO in 2024? Or maybe a client that isn’t sure about taking the plunge? Use these stats to blow their mind!
FATJOE Survey Stats
In July 2023, FATJOE conducted an internal survey of over 100 SEO and marketing professionals, producing some interesting SEO stats.
With 125 respondents, we’ve taken their most interesting answers as they related to the future of outsourcing SEO and what really matters to SEOs when it comes to content writing and AI content.
80% of SEO professionals consider Link Building to be their main focus for the next 12-24 months.
This is no surprise, as link building is historically the backbone of any good SEO campaign. Nervous or uncertain bosses and clients might be hesitant about link building given its old rep, but this shouldn’t stop you from investing in link building that is done properly without engaging in spammy or manipulative practices.
77% of SEO professionals plan to outsource more in the next 12-24 months.
Many skeptical bosses and clients might want to keep things in-house, but this shows outsourced SEO really is the way to go. Outsourcing SEO deliverables means you can focus on in-house strategy, either for yourself or for your client.
When asked what the most important element of content writing is to them, the top 2 answers were: Expert writers and 100% human content.
There may have been rumblings across the land, but the simple fact is content remains king. Investing in good content is investing in SEO as the two are synonymous, especially with Google’s drive for EEAT, meaning it wants to push only the most reliable, authoritative sites. Proper SEO work coupled with excellent content will demonstrate this.
When asked whether they’d use AI content for their client’s website or link building, 42% said they’d consider it. 30% said they wouldn’t risk it. 28% said yes.
This might appear an odd inclusion given the very muddled results, but that tells an important tale. The emergence of AI content is undoubtedly having a profound effect on SEO, both as it stands and as it might be implemented in years to come. This shouldn’t scare clients off, but it does show the need to work with switched-on forward-thinking SEOs that can help future-proof your site.
With those bonus FATJOE stats out of the way, let’s dive into the rest of them!
Industry Stats
1) 61% of firms say that SEO is essential for “raising awareness,” particularly for new companies and small businesses trying to get the word out.
Many old-school bosses find it challenging to inform their audiences about their enterprise, even if their products and services are excellent. (Backlinko)
2) 89% of marketers in private businesses say that their SEO efforts are successful.
According to these marketers, the most effective form of SEO is keyword and phrase research. This proved the easiest to implement. Companies had middling success in redesigning their sites, generating backlinks and creating compelling content for their audiences. (eMarketer)
3) 73% of in-house marketers agree that SEO provided them with an excellent return on their investment.
Not only this, but more than half concluded that it was the best strategy for online outreach. (eMarketer)
4) 81% of in-house marketers reported that using external SEO agencies helped them to maximize the effectiveness of their search engine optimization efforts.
They stated that using specialists allowed them to bypass the steep learning curve associated with the technical aspects of the practice. It also enabled them to start getting results quickly, instead of waiting weeks and months for things to happen. (eMarketer)
5) 70% of marketers say that SEO is more effective than PPC for driving sales to their business, despite difficulties with tracking.
This is great news for businesses on a budget as SEO can be achieved organically with minimal spend (Databox)
6) SEO costs 67% less per conversion than traditional paid advertising.
For those who are strapped for cash, engaging in organic marketing practices therefore, can ultimately cut business marketing costs by more than half in the long-run. (Demand Metric)
7) The average business spends £389.77 ($497.16) every month on SEO services.
These services include link building, content generation and professional analytics to determine suitable keyword strategies. (Backlinko)
8) 53% of businesses who report spending more than £390 ($500) on SEO each month describe themselves as “extremely satisfied” with the results.
Bear in mind that as mentioned, the average SEO spend is less than this figure, suggesting that the average firm could spend less by concentrating more on SEO basics, like content creation and link building. (Backlinko)
General Search
9) Users enter more than two trillion searches per year on Google.
That’s more than 63,370 searches per second. (Hubspot)
10) Click-through-rate performance of question-based titles is 14.1% higher than non-question titles. Creating inquiry-based content is marginally more popular.
11) 95% of all search traffic goes to websites on the first page of results.
All other pages share the remaining 5%, with the lion’s share of that going to second-page results. Firms benefit most when they concentrate their efforts on getting to the first page. (Digital Synopsis)
12) Google controls 91.98% of search queries worldwide, making it the primary platform for business SEO purposes.
Google also controls YouTube; the second-most used search engine in the world. After Google comes Yahoo!, Bing and Amazon. These sites are substantially less popular than Google. Bing, for instance, controls just 2.55% of the global market. Leading Chinese search engine Baidu has a market share of only 1.44%. Russia’s Yandex is the fifth most popular search engine, with a market share of 0.52% globally. (Oberlo)
13) 80% of purchasers gather information about businesses from content available on the internet, not via advertising.
According to the Content Marketing Institute, companies do best when they attempt to educate their users, rather than trying to sell to them using paid ads. (Content Marketing Institute)
14) Over 50% of keywords are four words or longer.
Many people want answers to specific questions so searches often reflect precise questions. We’ve seen Google, in particular, react to this with their Answer Box & People Also Ask’ boxes within the SERPs. It provides companies with opportunities to answer them by directing users to their sites. (Databox)
15) Approximately 70% of customers visit stores based on information that they find online.
Firms that provide more information can, therefore, can improve conversions from organic online leads. (SEO Expert Brad)
16) Users phrase around 8% of searches as questions, highlighting the importance of information-rich content.
(Moz)
B2B SEO Stats
17) Over 71% of B2B stakeholders begin their research for products with search.
Organic results are still their primary source of information, above and beyond their professional networks. (Google)
18) B2B researchers involved in the buying process are already 57% of the way down their path to a decision by the time that they reach your site.
The opportunity for conversion here is outstanding! (Google)
19) 57% of B2B marketers said that SEO generated more leads than any other form of marketing.
Reasons include widening their sales funnels, increasing visibility, and improving brand authority by appearing close to the top of results. (Hubspot)
20) 42% of B2B stakeholders use a mobile device throughout the entire conversion funnel.
This highlights the importance of having a mobile-friendly website, but more on that later… (Google)
Local SEO Stats
21) Approximately 46% of all searches on Google are for local services.
Opportunities to tap into local demand via search engines, therefore, is substantial. (Bradley Shaw)
22) 80% of local searches lead to a sale.
Restaurants, car mechanics and art and entertainment venues stand to benefit the most, according to research. (Search Engine Watch)
23) 4 out of 5 consumers use search engines to find out more information about local products.
Smartphone users often search for things like store addresses, product availability, opening hours, and directions. Other relevant information includes things like a company’s peak hours. (Google)
24) 18% of local searches result in a sale within one day.
When mobile users are in the vicinity of a service they need, they are much more likely to convert compared to people using tablets or desktop at home. Local SEO, therefore, can increase the revenue of location-dependent firms. (Go-Globe)
25) More than half of all local smartphone search engine users visit a store within 24 hours of doing a relevant search.
Local businesses frequently experience immediate benefits from creating content tailored to the local market. Google found that 34% who searched on desktop or tablet did the same. (Google)
26) 61% of mobile searchers say that they are more likely to get in touch with a local business if it offers a mobile-friendly site.
Customers want simple navigation, an intuitive UI and easy ways to book or pay online. (Bright Local)
SERP Stats
27) 68% of clicks go to the first five websites on the results page. The majority of users ignore results in positions six to ten.
(Hubspot)
28) 70-80% of search users ignore paid results at the top of the page, skipping immediately to organic results.
(Imforza)
29) 31.2% of all search-related clicks to go to the top site.
While there is value to being number two, three or four in results, the biggest winners are always those pages that occupy the top spot. (Moz)
30) The second domain in results attracts 17.6% of results. The seventh only gets 3.5%.
31) Moving up just one place in search results increases the average site’s click-through-rate by 30.8%, according to a study of more than 5 million unique searches.
There are increasing gains to moving up the ranking. The extra traffic you get by moving up the rankings increases for each site you overtake. (Backlinko)
32) Top-ranking pages in Google search results contain 1,447 words, on average.
Subsequent pages tend to contain fewer words. 1,500 words, therefore, appears to be the sweet spot – offering enough information to be useful, but not too much to cause overload. This does depend on the topic so we recommend researching the optimum word count for your specific keyword. (Backlinko)
33) Three-quarters of people who use search never scroll past the first page of results.
If the information they want isn’t immediately available, they give up. Websites on each subsequent page receive progressively less traffic. (Hubspot)
34) YouTube videos ranking on the first page of the SERPs are, on average, 14 minutes and 50 seconds long.
Similarly to blogs, mid-length content performs best. (Backlinko)
35) 94% of clicks on search engine page results go to organic links, not paid advertising, both on Bing and Google.
Website & Review Stats
36) 88% of users say that they trust online review scores as much as the recommendation of a close personal acquaintance.
SEO, therefore, requires building a portfolio of high-scoring reviews to encourage more clicks on page hyperlinks. (Search Engine Land)
37) 79% of users who dislike a company’s site performance say that they are less likely to purchase its products as a result.
Firms, therefore, need to pay close attention to things like page loading speeds, intrusive pop-ups, white space and scrolling. It can all have a real-world impact on SEO performance. (Google)
38) Conversion rates fall by around 12% for every second that a user has to wait for a site to load.
As business sites become faster across the board, the tolerance of slow service continues to fall. (Junto)
39) People only spend an average of 10 seconds on homepages before deciding whether businesses meet their needs or not.
They say you form a first impression in 7 seconds, well you only get 3 more seconds on your homepage so make them count! (Nielsen Norman Group)
40) 93% of all Google traffic is for secure HTTPS sites, not insecure, hacker-prone HTTP sites.
The search giant is publicly targeting 100% HTTPS sites in their search results and punishing sites that don’t use the updated protocol. (Google)
41) More than 55% of business pages have zero inbound links.
This is great news for newbie link builders as even firms that can create a single backlink via SEO put themselves at a considerable advantage. (Ahrefs)
Content Marketing Stats
42) Companies that run blogs get 97% more organic inbound links than those that don’t.
Blogging typically leads to a 424% increase in indexed pages. This relates to our previous stat regarding informational/educational content being more enticing to consumers. (Hubspot)
43) Companies that run content-driven blogs generate 67% more leads each month compared to firms that don’t.
Educational and entertaining blogs provide users with value, encouraging them to engage in businesses they wouldn’t otherwise find. (Demand Metric)
44) 90% of companies now use content marketing strategies, including blogging, video creation and eBooks, to attract organic traffic from the web.
The remainder risks losing valuable prospects to their rivals. (Demand Metric)
45) 88% of bloggers who gate access to their content with lead generation forms report some or strong results from their activities.
53% reported some results whilst 35% reported strong results, such as attracting more visitors to key landing pages. (Orbit Media)
46) Content marketing generates 200% more leads than traditional paid advertising methods.
According to the research, users prefer visibility earned through authority versus money. (Demand Metric)
47) 74% of marketers believe that content creation is the lynchpin for SEO success.
Compared to that, only 30% thought that keywords were the most critical factor determining performance, and around 27% thought backlinks were the priority. (Databox)
48) Blog posts that contain videos generate more backlinks across the internet and receive a 157% increase in search traffic.
Videos are considered to be much more engaging and embedded videos keep users on a webpage for longer. (Search Engine Land)
49) Long-form content receives 77.2% more backlinks than “thin,” short-form content.
Mobile SEO Stats
50) 40% of mobile users will leave a business website if it takes more than three seconds to load.
Google will also punish sites that have short dwell time, moving them down the rankings if the algorithm feels performance isn’t good enough. (Google)
51) 50% of mobile users prefer mobile browsers to mobile apps.
There are still substantial reasons to invest in SEO for mobile, even if developing an in-house app is an option. (Search Engine Land)
52) 87% of smartphone users report using the search functionality on their devices every day.
Users commonly do product-related searches, revealing their “purchase intent”. (Go-Globe)
53) From 2015, users performed more searches on mobile devices than on desktop.
Businesses, therefore, need to focus more on providing an excellent experience for mobile users than ever before if they want to attract fresh leads. (Search Engine Land)
54) There has been a 1.3X increase in mobile searches for “where to buy/find/get” in the past year.
Furthermore, there has been a 2.3X increase in mobile users searching for “restaurants open now” and “stores open now”. Users are demanding timely information that will allow them to purchase pretty much instantaneously. (Google)
55) Voice search now accounts for 20% of all smartphone queries.
Businesses should target keywords that relate to how people speak, not just what they type. (Search Engine Land)
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