30 Key SEO Stats for 2023
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SEO is an important part of any digital marketing strategy, so we put together 30 SEO stats in 2023 to help SEOs understand the current landscape of search, and business owners recognise the importance of an SEO strategy.
We have gathered our favourite statistics from many sources and have broken them down into 5 categories: Overall SEO, Mobile SEO, Voice Search SEO, Local SEO and Video SEO. The SEO stats we’ve gone into are the ones we believe can influence strategies and provide valuable insights.
At Embryo, we take SEO very seriously and it forms an important part of our digital marketing strategy. To learn more about our SEO services feel free to get in touch with our team after you’ve read this blog by phone at 0161 327 2635 or email [email protected].
Six General SEO Stats
The following statistics demonstrate the importance of SEO within a digital marketing strategy. Search engines have seamlessly integrated with our everyday lives, and SEO allows us to take advantage of that. These statistics show that businesses need to optimise their presence on search engines in 2023 because that’s where their customers will be.
- Stat #1 – 68% of online experiences begin with a search engine.
- Stat #2 – Google (+ Google Images) currently holds 92.58% of the total search engine market share, followed by Bing, Yahoo!, Baidu, and YANDEX.
- Stat #3 – 61% of B2B marketers stated that SEO and organic traffic generate more leads than any other marketing initiative.
- Stat #4 – Leads from search engines have a 14.6% close rate, while outbound leads (ex. cold-calling, direct mail, etc.) have a 1.7% close rate.
- Stat #5 – 86% of people ignore paid banner ads, choosing to only click on organic search results.
- Stat #6 – Bounce rates increase by 9% if your website takes 2 seconds to load and 38% if your site takes 5 seconds to load.
Mobile SEO Stats
Google indexes mobile results before they index desktop pages – why? Because more people search on phones than they do on desktops these days. That being said, mobile SEO is no longer a ‘nice to have’ element of a strategy, it’s a necessity. Here are a few stats that explain why.
- Stat #7 – 55% of all worldwide internet traffic comes from mobile devices.
- Stat #8 – More than half of smartphone users have discovered a new company or product while using a search engine on their phone.
- Stat #9 – 51% of internet users access the internet using only their smartphone (no desktop or laptop computer usage).
- Stat #10 – The average person spends between 3 and 4 hours on their phones every day, not including work-related phone use.
- Stat #11 – 53% of mobile website visitors will leave your site if it takes more than 3 seconds to load.
- Stat #12 – Searches including the terms “Where to buy” and “near me” have increased by 200% since 2017.
People spend a lot of their time on their phones, and the average time spent is likely to increase in the years to come. Increase your mobile SEO efforts now, and you’ll continue to reap the rewards with each passing year.
Voice Search SEO Stats
Search has evolved so much over the past decade that users don’t even need to type their queries anymore. Voice search is on the rise, and there are specific ways to get out on top.
- Stat #13 – 40.7% of all answers from voice search are pulled from a Featured Snippet.
- Stat #14 – The average Google voice search result receives 1,199 Facebook shares and 44 Tweets.
- Stat #15 – The average reading level of a voice search result is 9th grade.
- Stat #16 – Voice search results typically load in 4.6 seconds, which is 52% faster than the load time of the average page.
- Stat #17 – The average page Google voice search result contains 2,312 words.
- Stat #18 – Roughly 75% of voice search results are from one of the top 3 desktop ranking pages for a given query.
These stats highlight the importance of high desktop rankings, optimising for featured snippets and a supporting social media strategy to establish your presence in the world of voice search.
Local SEO Stats
Local SEO is a niche part of SEO that allows customers to find businesses close to them. When people are searching for local results, they are likely to be a lot more engaged than typical searchers. Here are some interesting facts about Local SEO:
- Stat #19 – 46% of all searches on Google are for a local business or local service.
- Stat #20 – Local searchers view 3.92 pages per session, significantly higher than traffic from paid search, organic search, or referrals.
- Stat #21 – 25% of small business websites don’t have an H1 tag.
- Stat #22 – A Yelp page is present in the top 5 results for 92% of search queries that contain a city and business category.
- Stat #23 – After searching on a smartphone for something nearby, 76% of people end up visiting the business within 1 day.
- Stat #24 – 28% of local searches result in a purchase.
These statistics help you to start seeing a direct ROI for diving into Local SEO. If done properly, almost every local business can increase footfall and revenue.
Video SEO Stats
Google is always rolling out updates that help reward content with the best ‘experience’ – a lot of the time, videos drastically improve the page experience.
Here are a few stats about videos and their rankings:
- Stat #25 – The number of comments, view count, number of shares, and number of likes have a strong correlation with higher YouTube rankings.
- Stat #26 – First page videos on YouTube are an average length of 14 minutes and 50 seconds.
- Stat #27 – 68.2% of first-page YouTube results are HD videos.
- Stat #28 – Videos that bring in new subscribers tend to rank higher on YouTube.
- Stat #29 – Posts with videos earn more backlinks and see a 157% boost in search traffic.
- Stat #30 – Most marketers are aware of the power of video, and in 2023 91% of businesses said they use video as a part of their marketing strategy.
You can see that video SEO can be split up into two different parts: optimising video for Google and optimising video for YouTube.
Use These Stats to Improve Your SEO in 2023
The statistics listed help demonstrate the importance of SEO in 2023, whilst also giving you guidance on how/where to capitalise. Our SEO team are experts at staying up to date with the industry and using data to drive their strategy decisions.
To learn more about our SEO services feel free to get in touch with our team after you’ve read this blog by phone at 0161 327 2635 or email [email protected]. Alternatively, check out some of our awesome SEO case studies that showcase some great results we’ve generated for our clients.
Sources Used for This Piece
The statistics we used for this post came from all the sources linked below.
