The importance of SEO for businesses today means that it plays a key part in the marketing strategies of most companies across the country.
As customers become more comfortable dealing with businesses online, the need for organizations to meet their needs through their digital presence is increasingly important.
Ecommerce as a proportion of all retail sales is expect to rise to 22% by 2023 (from 14% in 2021).
With the pandemic driving even more customers online, it’s become essential for businesses to be effective in reaching out online, and this means using search engine optimization.
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Without the correct strategy for optimizing content for search engines, websites will struggle to rank ahead of their customers and ultimately end up losing out on sales.
We’ve put together 30 of the most eye-opening stats that demonstrate the importance of SEO for organizations today.
1. 68% of online experiences begin with a search engine.
2. Google dominates the search engine market, with a 92% share.
3. Organic search from search engines makes up 53% of all website traffic, more than any other channel.
4. 50% of search queries contain four or more words, indicating the importance of targeting long-tail keywords.
5. SEO drives 1,000%+ more traffic than organic social media.
6. 49% of businesses that invest in SEO spend between $1,000 and $5,000 per month.
7. 61% of marketers say improving their SEO and growing their organic presence is top priority for inbound marketing.
8. Inbound leads generated through SEO cost 62% less than outbound leads.
9. 57% of marketers say that SEO generates more leads than any other marketing initiative.
10. 24% of marketers intend on increasing their content marketing investment.
11. 82% of consumers have a better disposition towards a company if they’ve read their site content (such as a blog).
12. Organizations that blog receive 97% more links to their site.
13. Updating and republishing existing blog posts can increase traffic by over 100%.
14. 61% of consumers have made a purchase after being directly encouraged by a website’s content.
15. 4 out of 5 people ignore paid search results, instead only clicking on organic links.
16. Roughly 8% of queries are framed as questions.
17. Longer articles perform better for SEO—a 7,000+ word post drives almost 4 times more traffic than a 900–1200 word piece.
18. List content receives around 80% more traffic than other types of articles.
19. The first 5 organic results receive 68% of all visits by searchers.
20. Google uses over 200 factors to determine the ranking of their search engine results pages.
21. 46% of all searches on Google are for local businesses and services.
22. One quarter of SMBs have no H1 tags on their site.
23. 87% of smartphone users use a search engine every day.
24. 51% of smartphone users find a new product or service when using search engines on mobile.
25. In order to improve performance, the majority of marketers identified mobile optimization as the key technical SEO priority.
26. 59% of shoppers say that having a positive mobile experience is important in deciding which company to buy from online.
27. Users visit around 5 pages on average every time they visit a website found through a search engine.
28. 60% of smartphone users have contacted a business directly through search results—for example through the “click to call” function.
29. Search engines generate 65% of total ecommerce sessions.
30. Only half of SMBs invest in SEO and 18% say they never will.
Search engine optimization is more important than it’s ever been, and yet too few businesses leverage SEO as a strategy in their marketing plans.
As you can see in these stats, the need for modern organizations to invest in their SEO to help drive attention to their websites and generate leads is crucial in today’s business environment.
Impact offers comprehensive SEO and managed marketing services. For more information, visit our Professional SEO Services page and discover how we can get your strategy on track.
