Now is a good time to review some current SEO statistics and leverage them in planning for the future.
Understanding how the data can shape your website into a discoverable site that engages and converts visitors is key to a sound SEO marketing strategy.
To help in the process we have compiled a focused list of SEO statistics to know in 2017. These stats will help you plan and prepare for changes in the upcoming year.
28 SEO Statistics 2017
1. Google has decreased the number of organic blue links displayed as the result of a search from 10 to 8.5, on average.
2. Businesses that have a strong keyword in the business name rank 1.5 spots higher than if there is no keyword in the name.
3. According to Andrey Lipattsev, Search Quality Senior Strategist at Google, high quality content and link building are the two most important signals used by Google to rank your website for search.
4. A Backlinko report revealed that longer content tends to rank higher. The average first page result on Google contains 1,890 words.
5. A July 2015 study by Moz and BuzzSumo analyzed the shares and links of over 1 million articles and found that long form content of over 1,000 words consistently receives more shares and links than shorter form content
6. The Backlinko study also reported that using a single image within content will increase search engine rankings.
7. Marketers see SEO as becoming more effective, with 82% reporting effectiveness is on the rise and 42% of this group stating effectiveness is increasing significantly.
8. Total Organic search visits fell 7% Y/Y in Q2, down from 11% Y/Y growth a year earlier, as organic listings face increased competition from paid search ads, particularly on mobile.
9. 72% of consumers who did a local search visited a store within five miles.
10. 47% of all websites worldwide use a Content Management System (CMS) as their development platform as of December 2016.
11. 58.5% of all websites globally that use a Content Management Systems (CMS) use WordPress as their development platform as of December 2016. The second most popular CMS platform is Joomla at 7.2% marketshare, followed by Drupal at 4.8%. 12. 62% of B2B marketers and 51% of B2C marketers have optimized their blogs for mobile in order to improve SEO.
13. Updating and republishing old blog posts with new content and images can increase organic traffic by as much as 111%.
14. Social media sites accounted for 2.8% of website visits in Q2 2016.
15. Facebook produced 61% of all website visits generated on social media sites in Q3 2016.
16. Google accounts for over 76% of all global desktop search traffic, followed by Bing at 8%, Baidu at 7.5% and Yahoo at 7%.
17. Google accounts for over 94% of all mobile/tablet search traffic globally, followed by Yahoo at 3% and Bing at 1%.
18. Voice searches have increased to 10% of all search volume according to The Internet Trends report, released in June 2016.
19. 27% of all websites globally use WordPress as their development platform as of December 2016
20. Nearly 40% of people search only on a smartphone in an average day.
21. 75% percent of internet use will be mobile in 2017, up slightly from 2016, as a growing number of consumers around the world access the web on smartphones and tablets, media buying agency Zenith forecasts.
22. Google receives over 57,000 searches per second on any given day.
23. Google now handles at least 2 trillion searches per year
24. By 2019, 85% of U.S. internet traffic will be video.
25. Google “near me” searches have increased by two times over the past year.
26. 55% of searchers don’t know which links in the Search Engine Results pages are PPC ads, according to a new survey. And up to 50% of users shown a Search engine Results page screenshot could not identify paid ads.
27. 81% of surveyed marketers have integrated social media marketing with traditional marketing to increase discoverability of their website.
28. In 2016 Google generated $63.11 billion in net digital ad revenues worldwide, an increase of 19.0% over 2015. That represents 32.4% of the worldwide digital ad market, which in 2016 is worth $229.25 billion.
Conclusion:
With the continuous updates and changes to Google’s ranking optimization factors, it is important to review these SEO Statistics for 2017 success. Remember to keep your SEO agile and flexible in 2017, as Google is continuously updating and re-ranking its algorithm based on what users value.