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SEO Statistics: 34 SEO Statistics Impacting Your Business In 2021

pwd staff OLIVER WOOD
Oliver Wood

|16th January 2021

In the ever-developing world of search engine optimisation, it is important to keep track of any changes that may impact this online marketing tactic that so many of us put into practice. While its definition stays the same (a tool used to improve the visibility of your website), the way in which it functions is changing every day.

So, what does this mean for you as an SEO user? Essentially, you will need to engage in continuous review and research. It will help ensure that you are up to date and cognisant of how these changes will impact your business.

This is where our list of SEO Statistics in 2021 comes in. Knowing these can only serve to further your understanding of how best to apply SEO practices this year.

Keep reading to find out 34 SEO Statistics that will impact your business in 2021. You’ll want to keep all of these in mind when you and your digital agency review your digital marketing strategy in the new year.

Top SEO Statistics from 2020


  1. The most popular search engine is Google. Google far surpasses other search engines like Bing, Baidu, and Yahoo in terms of users. While Google accounts for over 79% of web search traffic, the latter three account for 7.27%, 6.55%, and 5.06% respectively. Working on your SEO tactics by optimising your content for Google’s algorithms can therefore prove beneficial.
  2. More than 9 out of 10 users will click on a site that they have found on the first page of the search engine results. A staggering 92% of traffic will go to these sites. As such, those who practice SEO should keep visibility on the first page of Google and other search engines at the forefront of their marketing strategies.
  3. Over 60% of marketers credit SEO tactics as the key to online success. As SEO practices grow, so do their potential for the success of your business or website. Online growth, awareness, and traffic all signify SEO success. Visibility equals growth, it’s as simple as that! 82% of people who implemented an SEO strategy claim it has had a positive effect on their business.
  4. Because of this, marketing strategies allocate an average of 41% of their budgets to SEO. As search engine optimisation emerges as a viable and lucrative online marketing strategy, more and more money is being allocated towards SEO services to ensure they are a key expenditure within a digital marketing strategy. SEO is a long-term investment. It is generally being used to increase traffic in the long run, while Google Ads are being used to drive short-term growth.
  5. In fact, 34% of companies spend over $1000 per month on link building. This money goes towards things like reviewing SEO efforts and adding new and increasingly relevant links to business pages. Because what people search for is constantly changing, continuous review and restructuring of content are essential.
  6. Only 30% of clicks go to PPC pages, while the remaining 70% of clicks go to organically sourced pages. PPC marketing works. However, some may say not as well as SEO. Research shows that people are more likely to scroll past advertisements until they find a website on the search engine results page (SERP) that has been found organically. However, we must not forget that PPC has its benefits too and that a good marketing strategy will often make use of both.
  7. A staggering 70% of users have come to trust information sourced online. Now more than ever, business owners need to be strategic about their online presence. Therefore, you should engage in constant content review to make sure that your information on your site is both consistent and up to date. The best way to do this is to partner with a web design company to continuously improve user experience (UX) and content of the website. By regularly updating website design with a focus on UX, it can enhance the validity and authority of your website and your business.
  1. Only 44% of local businesses have claimed their Google My Business listing. Google’s new Pigeon SEO update gives preference on SERPs to businesses in close proximity to the user. What’s more, Google My Business listings, or GMB listings, allow businesses to appear higher up on results pages. So, making use of this is an essential strategy when it comes to local SEO.
  2. 46% of all searches on Google have local intent. This means that many people search for what they need in their area specifically. As such, SEO tactics need to take heed of this and include keywords that specify exactly where their business operates and where one can find its products or services. Again, ensuring your business comes up as one that is registered with Google is important here.
  3. Of these searches with local intent, 28% will result in a purchase. Whether this purchase is over the internet or offline, it is becoming increasingly more likely that people will follow through with a purchase once they find something organically on a search engine results page. This comes back to the fact that people trust in the information that they source online.
  4. 72% of local intent searches result in an in-house visit to the store or business that has been found on the SERP. You’ll want to do all you can to drive motivated traffic towards your business website or offline store. If your page has the ability to be found easily and organically, taking heed of this statistic and doing all you can to improve your SERP rating in a local setting can really contribute towards the visibility of your business.
  5. What’s more, 78% of searches that include local information will result in an offline conversion. This means 78% of people visit and purchase from the physical stores they have found through a local intent online search. Again, we see the importance of exposing your business to potential customers. Allowing for location-specific keywords can do wonders for the growth of your business.

Most Relevant Statistics On Google


  1. Every second, 76 282 Google searches take place. Google is by far the most popular and widely used search engine out there. This statistic means that more than 7 billion Google searches take place per day – amounting to 2.4 trillion searches yearly worldwide. So, optimising your content for Google SERPs is essential. Working together with Google, rather than against it, is key in this regard.
  2. Between 31% and 41% of desktop, Google searches end with no clicks at all. Often, someone can find all the information they are looking for without actually clicking on the title tag of the website. They can find answers to their queries by merely scanning the previews of the top links on Google’s SERPs. This doesn’t mean you won’t garner any traffic though. Instead, you may see an influx of in-store purchases because of this.
  3. Between 500 and 600 changes are made to Google’s search algorithms each year. Again, this shows the importance of continuous review when making use of SEO practices. While these changes are rarely game changers, it is still necessary for the growth of your business to keep investing in SEO link building and content marketing.
  4. 32% of clicks go to the first search result on Google’s SERPs. What’s more, as many as 92% of clicks occur on the first search results page. This further stresses the importance of engaging in SEO tactics that increase the visibility of your website and land it on the first page, or even as the first search result.

Content Marketing SEO Statistics


  1. 57% of SEO experts rank a focus on content creation and content marketing as the best way to generate traffic. Professionals say that a focus on the content that you put out on your website makes a huge difference to whether or not your page will be visible and successful. The second and third best ways to generate traffic are social media marketing and backlinks respectively.
  2. You can increase organic traffic by 111.3% by updating your existing content with new content and images. Improved content means more traffic. This is because what people search for, and how they search for it, changes constantly. optimising your existing content is therefore key, and also works well with search engines that want to provide their users with up-to-date information.
  3. On average, the page 1 results displayed on the SERP will contain 1890 words of content. To rank higher on Google and other search engines, you’ll want to keep this statistic in mind when creating content. The more detail, the better your chances of landing your website on page 1 of the search engine results pages.
  4. Search engines rank websites that regularly update their sites with new content far higher than those that don’t. You can improve indexation rates by more than 434% by regularly updating your site! Updating things like blogs with new content helps you to work together with Google and other sites, resulting in these sites ranking your content higher and indexing it faster.
  5. 72% of marketers say that relevancy is a driving factor of a successful SEO campaign. To help your content rank higher, you need to make sure that it is relevant and valuable to your target audience and industry. Not only does this help verify what your website is about to the search engines, but it is a great way to build natural backlinks to your site.

Keyword SEO Statistics


  1. Long-tail keywords make up 50% of all organic search queries. People are starting to use four or more words to garner the best search results. Specificity is key for websites because of this: make sure your content contains long-tail keywords as well as short-tail ones. They also encourage higher click through rates (3-5% higher!)
  2. Only 8% of searches are formulated as a question. Over time, people have learned that formulating searches as a question will likely lead you to an FAQ or opinion page rather than a directly relevant website. Instead, simple keywords are used to find what is being looked for in 92% of searches. Think “best pizza in London” rather than “where can I find the best pizza in London?”
  3. 0.67% of the keywords are responsible for 60.67% of all searches. This is a staggering statistic. In fact, 92.42% of keywords get ten or less monthly searches. It is crucial, then, that you do your keyword research so as to be sure of new trends in what people are searching for, and how they are wording these searches. Researching how people word their searches is extremely important.

Video Content SEO Statistics


  1. Including a video on your landing page can increase your chance of being on the first SERP by 53%. Users, and therefore search engines, love the inclusion of video on sites. This is because it can increase the authority of the site and allow for more time spent on that particular page.
  2. In 2021, it is expected people’s average amount of time spent watching online videos per day will shoot up to 100 minutes. This further stresses the benefits that come with including video as part of your content. In fact, a study shows that 59% of executives would prefer to watch a video to gain information than to read a text. This is because many people trust the authority of a video over the authority of a piece of text.
  3. Posts with video content also receive more backlinks. Earning backlinks is extremely important when it comes to not only increasing site visibility but also site authority. The more backlinks, the more traffic – as much as a 157% boost in search traffic, in fact. Developing relationships with other sites can be key to boosting your website and business.
  4. Video viewers will retain a message over 9 times more effective than text readers. To really get your point across, a video is a way to go. People are more likely to retain information (and therefore act on the information they have garnered) if they have gained it by means of watching a video. But, don’t forget the importance of text – especially when it comes to keywords and content! Site 5. traffic will function best with a mixture of both text and video.
  5. YouTube is the second largest search engine after Google. Keeping this in mind, you should also try to boost your SEO rankings on YouTube. Video comments, shares, likes, and, of course, views can all help your video rank higher in YouTube’s SERP. So, keeping an eye on these and encouraging people to ‘like’ and ‘share’ your video content is important. The average video on the first page of YouTube is 14 minutes and 50 seconds long.

The Key Takeaways Of These SEO Statistics


The world of search engine optimisation is constantly evolving and growing with new trends, techniques, and methods. Because of this, it is imperative to keep up to date with SEO and make sure that you continuously use best practices. It is wise to keep up to date on SEO trends and statistics each year if you want to improve the growth of both your website as well as your corresponding business. While some businesses are taking all aspects of SEO in-house, most businesses are using a professional SEO services to take care of the technical aspects of SEO that are difficult or time-consuming, such as link building and off-site SEO.

Some key things to take away from this list of SEO Statistics are that, in 2021, a successful SEO marketing strategy will work together with Google, localise its content, ensure its site is mobile-friendly, do keyword research, and include more video.

Keeping in mind the SEO statistics that correspond with these takeaways, then, you can begin to improve your SEO strategies and ultimately help your websites and businesses flourish.