Whether you have questions about the effectiveness of SEO, or you need a quick stat to impress the boss (or just your Twitter audience), we’ve got you covered.
81% of B2B purchase cycles, and 89% of shoppers, start with a web search. pic.twitter.com/kohsQ3lAJh
— Profound Strategy (@propecta) November 28, 2016
SEO Statistics: Do You Need SEO?
SEO is the number one lead-generating source reported by inbound marketing professionals. (Fractl) 
73% of in-house marketers and 76% of US agencies said SEO provided excellent or good return on investment (ROI). (eMarketer) 
SEO leads have a 14.6% close rate, while outbound leads have a 1.7% close rate. (Search Engine Journal)
Marketers’ most recent #1 priority (66%) for their inbound marketing strategies has been growing SEO/organic presence. (HubSpot)
About 200 million people worldwide use ad blockers. (PageFair)
57% of B2B marketers say SEO has the biggest impact on lead generation. (MDG Advertising)
70% more B2B marketers are creating content today (2015) than they were a year ago. (CMI)
SEO was identified as the #1 most important hard skill for marketers in the 2020s. (Microsoft)
85% of users prefer organic results over ads. (Ignite Visibility)
Organic Search Statistics: Who is Using Search and Why?
68% of organic clicks go to the first 5 organic search results. (AdvancedWebRanking)
87% of people turn to search engines first when they have a question or a need. (Google)
68% of B2B buyers prefer to research online on their own, up from 53% in 2015. (Forrester)
71% of B2B decision makers start the decision making process with a general web search. (Google)
93% of all online experiences start with a search engine. (Forrester)
Featured snippets produce an average 114% CTR boost for the pages they displayed. (HubSpot)
50% of search queries are four words or longer. (WordStream)
More featured snippets appear on SERPs every day. One study demonstrated that 55% of featured snippets were new over the previous 12 months. (Stone Temple)
SEO and Content Marketing Statistics
More than 60% of people expect brands to “provide consumers with information they need when they need it,” but less than half of them feel that brands are delivering. (Google)
SEO-aligned content marketers drive 54% more revenue growth year-over-year. (Aberdeen Group)
73% of major organizations hire someone to manage their content marketing strategy. (Content Marketing Institute)
61% of the most effective B2B content marketers meet with their content team daily or weekly. (Content Marketing Institute)
66% of best-in-class companies involve search in their content creation process from the beginning. (eMarketer)
Marketers rate relevant link building (52%) and relevant content creation (46%) as the most difficult SEO tactics to execute. (Ascend2)
89% of B2B marketers currently use content marketing as part of their marketing strategies. (Content Marketing Institute)
96% of B2B organizations say content marketing is a core part of their marketing strategies. (Regalix)
In 2017, 47% of B2B buyers reported relying more on content marketing to research and make purchasing decisions than they did in 2016. (Demand Gen Report)
63% of users say the meta description in a SERP snippet has the most impact on their decision to click. (Ignite Visibility)
Marketers who align their content to an SEO strategy are 4.8x as likely to have a comprehensive, value-driving content marketing program. (Aberdeen Group)
Types of Content
The average word count of top-ranking content (in Google) is between 1,140 and 1,285 words. (Searchmetrics)
88% of buyers use white papers for research. (G3 Communication)
Another study found that B2B buyers prefer case studies (78%), white papers (77%), and webinars (76%) for researching purchasing decisions. (Demand Gen Report)
B2B brands that blog generate 67% more leads/month than those that don’t. (Inside View)
Long form content of over 1,000 words consistently receives more shares and links than shorter form content. (Moz)
List posts and why posts achieve a higher number of referring domain links than other content formats on average. (Moz)
85% of business executives prefer text-based content over video and/or audio when making business decisions. (MarketingSherpa)
55% of users prefer to see written content in organic search results, over video and images. (Ignite Visibility)
Images and Media
Articles with relevant images get 94% more pageviews and engagement than those without. (MDG Advertising)(Wishpond)
Visual content gets 567% more inbound links than text-only content. (Bandwagon Digital Media)
Content with an image every 75 to 100 words gets twice as many social shares as content with fewer images. (BuzzSumo)
79% of Internet traffic will be video content in one year. (MarketingProfs)
Mobile SEO Statistics
90% of executives use mobile devices to research business purchases. (Google)
Mobile drives, or influences, an average of more than 40% of revenue in leading B2B organizations. (Google)
50% of B2B search queries today are made on smartphones. That figure is expected to grow to 70% by 2020. (Google)
80% of users search the internet on smartphones. (Smart Insights)
More Google searches take place on mobile devices than on computers in 10 countries including the US. (Google)
The number of mobile-only Internet users now exceeds desktop-only users in the U.S. (comScore)
40% of customers have turned to a competitor’s site after a bad mobile experience. (Google)
77% of mobile searches are made where a desktop PC is available. (Google & Nielsen)
51% of B2B researchers who use their mobile devices for product research do so outside of the office. (Google)
B2B purchase rates on mobile devices rose 22% from 2013 to 2015. (Google)
From 2016 to 2017, 52% of B2B decision makers reported placing a higher emphasis on mobile-friendly content. (Demand Gen Report)
Half of search queries will be voice-initiated by 2020. (Marketing Land)
For every one second delay in mobile page load times, conversions can drop by 20%. (Google)
Within the Google app, 20% of searches are voice searches. (Google)
SEO Statistics for the Buyer’s Journey/Account-Based Marketing
2/3 to 90% of the buyer’s journey is complete before a buyer contacts a brand. (Forrester)
Up to 90% of the buyer’s journey is complete before he/she contacts a brand. https://t.co/E5izM7jzy5 pic.twitter.com/QxmkybvrkI
— Profound Strategy (@propecta) November 29, 2016
Google recently experienced 91% growth, over two years, in B2B researchers using mobile search throughout the entire path (not just the initial stages). (Google)
On average, B2B influencers do 12 searches prior to visiting a specific brand’s site. (Google)
Those involved in the B2B buying process are already 57% of the way down the path to a decision before they’ll actually perform an action on a site. (Google)
77% of B2B purchasers say they won’t even speak to a salesperson until they’ve done their own research first. (Corporate Executive Board)
90% of B2B researchers who are online use search specifically to research business purchases. (Google)
67% of the buyer’s journey is now done digitally. (SiriusDecisions)
48% of marketers use dedicated content to support three to five buying stages. (Technology Marketing)
Google Stats
By 2020, fewer users were able to accurately distinguish between paid ads and organic snippets on Google SERPs after Google rolled out favicons for all snippets. (Search Engine Land)