9 SEO Statistics That Might Surprise You
Having a well-planned, well-executed SEO strategy can seriously boost your business. So why are so many companies still not harnessing the possibilities? It can seem like a baffling concept, but SEO basically helps your business get seen by the right people online. It’s as simple as that. If you don’t already have an SEO strategy in place (or if you’re thinking about how you can do more), here are nine SEO stats that might just convince you…
1. 65% to 70% of all web searches are made using Google
This might not come as a huge shock, but the vast majority of searches are performed on Google. The remaining 30% is shared mostly across Bing and Yahoo.
Due to its market dominance, Google has become the ‘industry standard’ and your SEO campaign needs to pay close attention to its search ranking algorithms and any updates or changes that are made. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that by focusing on achieving a higher ranking on some of the other search engines your business will be more discoverable. These others generally follow the standards Google sets, so you need to know how to prioritize your keywords based on their criteria to achieve high ranking across the board.
2. Google gets over 160 billion searches per month
For a snapshot of just how popular Google is, this statistic says it all. That is a huge quantity of searches performed every single month. No matter what service you need or what question you want to find the answer to, it’s there on Google. And people are looking there first.
That is billions of opportunities to get your business in front of customers, depending on the content you create. You need to seize this opportunity by producing great content loaded with relevant keywords to help boost your visibility to customers that are searching for the services you offer.
3. Half of searches are longer than 4 words
You need to start using some long tail keywords in SEO strategy. Short two-word phrases are no longer cutting the mustard.
Search engines are now so sophisticated that they can link customers with the right information without requiring a well-refined search phrase. Customers simply aren’t spending time sitting around thinking about how to formulate a keyword-rich search on Google in order to return the results they are looking for. Find out what search terms and phrases they are using and incorporate these in your content’s keywords now.
4. Top 4 search results get about 96% of the clicks
You don’t need to be the first result, but research suggests that as long as you are in top four you have a far greater chance of achieving good click-through.
A lot has been made about the importance of being on the ‘first page’ of Google, but it now appears that you need to rank higher than this to see real results. Make sure your SEO strategy is helping to put you in these coveted top four spots, otherwise it’s time for a re-think.
5. About 4 in 10 potential customers research companies before making a buying decision
No matter the type of business, that’s nearly half of all consumers researching a company before they commit to buying a product or booking a service.
You need to be sure you have a positive online presence to take advantage of this and build an appealing overall impression of your business. That way customers can quickly see what you offer and why your company (and not your competition) is the best fit for them.
6. Over 70% of marketers say creation of relevant content is the most effective SEO strategy
More than seven in ten marketers believe that content marketing is more effective than other popular strategies such as keyword research, frequent blogging, and mobile search optimization.
It is still important to get all of these aspects working well together, but interesting, relevant content is the best way to get to the top of search results and engage with customers by giving them the information they are looking for. The key term here is relevant. You can produce all the content you want, but if it is not relevant and helpful to your customers it simply won’t work for your SEO strategy and will be lost in the sea of online information.
7. 1,200 words is the best-ranking length for content
It has been highly publicized that people’s attention spans seem to be growing shorter, usually attributed to an overload of information in the digital world. They just want quick snippets and easily digestible nuggets of information, don’t they?
Well, current trends point towards a very different scenario — longer content is becoming more highly ranked. Customers value expertise and detail when they are researching a product or service, so prioritize longer blog content and keyword-rich ebooks, for example, that give your potential customer lots of interesting content and establish your business as an industry leader.
8. Websites with WordPress blogs get 93% more inbound links
Relevant and interesting information ranks more highly in search results, and one of the ways Google organizes these results is by ranking them based on how many other high-ranking sites link to that page.
Blogs are therefore an important part of your SEO strategy. With blog content you can keep creating fresh, interesting, keyword-rich content without having to continually alter the content on the rest of your website.
9. Nearly 90% of users trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations
Stats have shown that 88% of individuals trust online reviews as if they are personal recommendations from family or friends. That gives you a great opportunity to use reviews as part of your SEO strategy.
Local SEO is a hugely important aspect of the marketing strategies of location-specific businesses. Glowing online feedback will encourage the customer that your business can be trusted, and fresh, regular review content will help push your business up the search rankings, too.
SEO continues to be a critical part of your marketing strategy moving into 2019, and these statistics show how you can refine your approach to get your business where it needs to be.
Originally published at Ground Transportation Integrated and Marketing Solutions.
