SEO Statistics 2021

Search engine optimization, or SEO, is the way to increase the reach of your business in today’s increasingly digital world. At Lifted Logic, we focus our efforts on White Hat SEO, meaning value-driven content creation, blogging, and clean code. 

With these methods, we can help you get to the top of a given search engine results page (SERP) and keep you there, as opposed to Black Hat SEO that bends rules and manipulates search engines to give a boost that’s quick to fade. But that’s because we’re the best SEO company in Kansas City

Let’s take a quick peek at some SEO statistics that illustrate how important it is to have a strong SEO campaign if you want to generate leads online.

Is SEO worth the investment?

Around here, ROI is the name of the game. If a business website isn’t making you any money, it’s broken- no matter how pretty it is. What kind of return can you expect on your SEO investments? Good SEO can supply leads that convert at an average rate of 14.6%. Compare that to a more traditional marketing tactic like direct mail, which lives at a chilling 1.7% conversion rate. 

A note on Google algorithms and SEO

Google releases up to hundreds of algorithm updates each year. These algorithm updates can affect the way crawlers sort through and rank the billions of pages of content across the internet. These changes can add to or take away deciding factors such as the meaning of a query, relevance of web pages to that query, content quality on a page, how usable the website is, and context. So you would think with these updates and changes that algorithm updates can severely affect SEO best practices. 

Actually, not really. When a digital agency talks about SEO best practices, they’re talking about things that cater to the user experience, not the crawlers. Being up-to-date on the latest Google Search updates is always smart, but users are always going to be the focus. 

Local SEO Statistics

I’m from a small town in rural Kansas, where it wasn’t until recently that people started being able to find information about local businesses on a SERP. Small businesses had zero internet presence. No Facebook page, no Twitter account, no website, nada. These are the businesses still taking out ads in the local paper to let folks know about their weekly specials, rather than posting directly to their followers. Local SEO can help expand your reach to an ever-broadening audience. 

Ever since Google’s Pigeon release in 2014, it’s easier for local businesses to compete with national names. It works by boosting your site by proximity for location-specific searches. 

So, for example, someone who lives near your pizza shop searches “pizza near me.” Your small pizza shop doesn’t have the authority that national chains have when it comes to search, but thanks to that important algorithm update, your business has a better chance of showing up in the search because of your close proximity. To take advantage, you’ve got to have a web presence doing at least some SEO. 

If you’re curious whether it’s important for your small, locally owned business to show up in the local pack of a SERP (or even just the first page!), consider these SEO statistics:

• 46% of all searches on Google are for a local business or local service
• 97% searched online to find a local business, and the same percentage of people find out more about a local company through the internet
• In 2019, 83% of US shoppers used online search before visiting a store
• Nearly half of shoppers said they confirm inventory online before visiting a store
• In the last 2 years, mobile searches for “store open near me” have grown by more than 250%; mobile searches for “where to buy” + “near me” have grown by more than 200%
• More than half of “near me” searches result in a visit to a local store
• After performing a mobile search for something nearby, a whopping 76% of people end up visiting the business within a day
• 28% of local searches result in a purchase

To translate: pretty much everyone is searching online for businesses in 2021. And when someone finds the information they’re looking for online, it can provide them with the accessibility and resources they need to feel confident in making a purchase. 

Voice Search Statistics

I can’t talk about SEO statistics without talking about voice search. With Siri and Google Assistant loaded on pretty much every device you can think of, many people find voice search easier than typing. 

Half of all search queries are voice searches, and it’s changing the landscape of SEO. 

Voice searches are more conversational, so businesses need to use more conversational language on their website to optimize for them. Someone is likely to type “plumber near me” into the search bar, but voice searches are more natural, like: “what’s the nearest plumber?” Why does any of it matter? Let’s find out:

• Mobile users are three times more likely to use voice search (and considering more than half of web traffic worldwide originates from mobile phones, this is a big deal)
• 61% of people age 25-64 say they plan to use voice devices more in the future
• About three-quarters of voice search results are things that rank in the top three results for that query
• 27% of the global online population uses voice search

Here is where our voice search / SEO statistics get a little more interesting. The stat above refers to items that rank in the top three results on a Google SERP. Considering the prevalence of voice search from mobile devices and the fact that there are 127.8 million Android users in the US, ranking high on Google is important. 

HOWEVER…

There are still 100 million iPhone users, and for the skyrocketing number of smart speakers used in American homes, Amazon Echo dominates with nearly 70% of the market. Why does that matter? Because Apple’s Siri and Amazon’s Alexa virtual assistants use Bing search. You want your SEO to work across the board for every different search engine as the landscape of search changes. 

Mobile SEO Statistics

We’re all attached to our cell phones these days. Mindlessly scrolling social media on our phones has replaced paying attention to the shows or movies we’re watching (good thing we can just rewind ). That’s about 275.66 million people your business could potentially reach.  Let’s take a gander at some mobile SEO stats:

• 60% of all Google searches are done via mobile devices, meaning sites that don’t perform well on mobile won’t rank well overall.
• Mobile optimized sites are more trusted by 51% of users, who are likely to avoid companies with a poor mobile website.
• As soon as this year, experts predict mobile to drive 54% of total sales
• More than half of users have found a new company or product while searching on their phone.
• A huge number of smartphone owners use a search engine every single day. It’s about 87%—87% of 275 million is almost 240 million people searching every day.
• Mobile devices account for about 62% of all paid clicks in Google.

With smartphones in so many millions of hands, people are seeing so much more content than they’ve ever been exposed to before. 

So how do you know SEO is working?

There are a lot of analytical tools you can use to measure the success of your SEO campaign. If you’re not sure how to use something like Google Analytics to track your goals, we can teach you. 

There is another factor that has to be taken into account. The SEO statistics I’ve talked about are all proof of how effective SEO is at drawing an audience. But SEO goes hand in hand with conversion rate optimization (CRO). Once people are on your site, they need to be engaged enough to convert into a lead. Your web design, professional development features like fast page load times and compelling animations, and quality copywriting all work together with the SEO driving your traffic to create conversions. 

But in a broader sense, you can tell SEO works by looking at your numbers. Good SEO leads to higher ranking in search engines and higher conversions for your business. Put simply: good SEO, partnered with CRO, can make you more money. It might take a little time for White Hat SEO to kick in, but for most industries and markets, you should expect results in 4 to 6 months when working with an SEO Company. And after 12 months of consistent SEO work, results should be substantially higher. 

You want to set strong (but reasonable) key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure throughout your SEO strategy. Things like an increase in appointment bookings or a higher average amount for purchases are excellent indicators your SEO and CRO are working.

Related: Is My SEO Company Doing a Good Job? →

Drive your business with SEO

Gone are the days of potential customers looking for a business or service in the Yellow Pages. Today, you drive business through good SEO and a solid online presence. You should perform SEO audits of your website to make sure it’s up to par. 

Doing some basic keyword research will arm you with the words and phrases your content should include. Commit to filling your website with copywriting that hits the search terms you need, while informing users about your business. Oh, and did I mention that SEO content needs to be regularly updated to stay relevant?

Sound like a lot? Tap the pros at Lifted Logic

We’re a bunch of nerds who eat, sleep, and breathe SEO. We are a small-but-mighty digital agency in Kansas City, and we serve a small number of new clients each year so we can dedicate our time and effort toward each project (no, we don’t believe in half-assery). 

No matter the size, if your company needs help driving web traffic through great SEO, we’re here to help. We’ve got you covered with high-quality content, superior web development and design, and all the SEO tools needed to ensure that your business grows. 

To get started, contact us or use our free cost calculator tool.

Contact Us  Cost Calculator Tool