Top 7 SEO Facts in 2023
Are you curious about the state of SEO in 2023? Then look no further.
These are the most interesting SEO stats we think you should know:
- 68% of online experiences begin with a search engine. (BrightEdge)
- 0.63% of Google searchers click on results from the second page. (Backlinko)
- 53.3% of all website traffic comes from organic search. (BrightEdge)
- 92.96% of global traffic comes from Google Search, Google Images, and Google Maps. (SparkToro)
- SEO drives 1,000%+ more traffic than organic social media. (BrightEdge)
- 60% of marketers say that inbound (SEO, blog content, etc.) is their highest quality source of leads. (HubSpot)
- SEO leads have a 14.6% close rate. (HubSpot)
Top SEO Ranking statistics
- 90.63% of pages get no organic search traffic from Google. (Ahrefs)
- The top-ranking page gets the most search traffic only 49% of the time. (Ahrefs)
- Only 5.7% of pages will rank in the top 10 search results within a year of publication. (Ahrefs)
- 7.4% of top-ranking pages don’t have a title tag. (Ahrefs)
- Google rewrites title tags 33.4% of the time. (Ahrefs)
- Google is now 33% more likely to rewrite title tags. (Ahrefs)
- When Google ignores the title tag, it uses the H1 tag 50.76% of the time instead. (Ahrefs)
- Google is 57% more likely to rewrite title tags that are too long. (Ahrefs)
- 25.02% of top-ranking pages don’t have meta descriptions. (Ahrefs)
- 40.61% of pages have meta descriptions that truncate. (Ahrefs)
- Google shows meta descriptions in search results only 37.22% of the time. That rises to 40.35% for fat-head keywords and drops to 34.38% for long-tails. (Ahrefs)
- The average top-ranking page also ranks in the top 10 search results for nearly 1,000 other relevant keywords. (Ahrefs)
- The average page in the top 10 is 2+ years old. (Ahrefs)
- 33% of websites pass the Core Web Vitals threshold. (Ahrefs)
Top Local SEO statistics
If you serve customers locally, you should focus on improving your local search presence so more people can find you. These stats show the importance of good local SEO.
- 30% of all mobile searches are related to location. (Think With Google)
- 76% of people who search on their smartphones for something nearby visit a business within a day. (Think With Google)
- 28% of searches for something nearby result in a purchase. (Think With Google)
- Yelp appears in the top five search results for 92% of Google web queries that include a city and business category. (Fresh Chalk)
- 54% of smartphone users search for business hours, and 53% search for directions to local stores. (Think With Google)
- About 45% of global shoppers buy online and then pick up in-store. (Think With Google)
- “Where to buy” + “near me” mobile queries have grown by over 200% from 2017 to 2019. (Think With Google)
- Mobile searches for “store open near me” (e.g., “grocery store open near me”) have grown by over 250% from 2017 to 2019. (Think With Google)
- Mobile searches for “on sale” + “near me” (e.g., “tires on sale near me”) have grown by over 250% YOY from 2017 to 2019. (Think With Google)
Top Video SEO Facts
We’ve had great success driving customers using video marketing. Are you doing it too? If not, these stats may surprise you.
Top Mobile SEO Facts
Google has moved to mobile-first indexing, and more people are using mobile search. No doubt, mobile SEO is incredibly important.
- 58.99% of all website traffic worldwide comes from mobile phones. (Statista)
- 72.6% of internet users will access the web solely via their smartphones by 2025. (CNBC)
- There are more searches on mobile than on desktop. (Think With Google)
- 51% of smartphone users have discovered a new company or product when conducting a search on their smartphones. (Think With Google)
- 18% of local searches on smartphones lead to a purchase within a day vs. 7% of non-local searches. (Think With Google)
- On average, ranking in position #1 on mobile gets you 6.74% of the clicks, whereas ranking in position #1 on desktop gets you 8.17% of the clicks. (SEOClarity)
- 56% of in-store shoppers used their smartphones to shop or research items while they were in-store. (Think With Google)
Top Voice search Facts
“Hey, Google. What’s the current state of voice search?”
- 40.7% of all voice search answers come from a featured snippet. (Backlinko)
- The typical voice search result is only 29 words in length. (Backlinko)
- Approximately 75% of voice search results rank in the top three for their corresponding queries. (Backlinko)
- The average voice search result has a ninth-grade reading level. (Backlinko)
- Websites with strong “link authority” tend to rank well in voice search. In fact, the average Domain Rating of a Google Home result is 76.8. (Backlinko)
- 48% of consumers are using voice for “general web searches.” (Search Engine Land)
Source: Ahrefs.com
SEO continues to be a vital aspect of digital marketing in 2023. Approximately 68% of online experiences start with a search engine, making visibility on these platforms critical for businesses. Google dominates the search engine market, holding 85.55% of the global share. The volume of searches has also seen significant growth, with numbers increasing from 63,000 searches per second in 2016 to 81,000 in 2020. Despite the importance of backlinks in SEO, an astonishing 95% of pages have zero backlinks. However, the SEO market is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 10% from 2021 to 2023, potentially reaching a value of $77.6 billion. Furthermore, 88% of marketers with an SEO strategy plan to maintain or increase their investment in 2023.
Rex Camposagrado is an SEO Expert & Digital Marketing MBA with over 20 years of experience. An Adjunct Instructor in Digital Marketing and an award-winning SEO receiving a BrightEdge Edgies Award winner for SEO Performance & Results in 2018. He’s worked with small businesses to Fortune 500 companies and enjoys helping companies grow their web presence because when they succeed, he feels that he succeeds as well!
