Curious about the state of SEO in 2023? Then look no further.
Below we have selected, checked and ranked a list of up-to-date statistics.
Click to jump to a category or read on for our best SEO stats.
These are the coolest SEO stats we think you should know:
- 68% of online experiences start with a search engine. (clear border)
- 0.63% of Google users click results from the second page. (Backlink)
- 53.3% of all website traffic comes from organic search. (clear border)
- 92.96% of global traffic comes from Google Search, Google Images and Google Maps. (SparkToro)
- SEO generates over 1,000% more traffic than organic social media. (clear edge)
- 60% of marketers say inbound (SEO, blog content, etc.) is their source of the highest quality leads. (Hub Spot)
- SEO leads have a 14.6% close rate. (Hub Spot)
These Google ranking stats may surprise you.
- 90.63% of pages receive no organic search traffic from Google. (ahrefs)
- The top-ranked 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 posting. (ahrefs)
- 7.4% of the top ranking pages do not 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 instead 50.76% of the time. (ahrefs)
- Google is 57% more likely to rewrite title tags that are too long. (ahrefs)
- 25.02% of top-ranking pages have no meta descriptions. (ahrefs)
- 40.61% of pages have meta descriptions that truncate. (ahrefs)
- Google only shows meta descriptions in search results 37.22% of the time. This goes up to 40.35% for fat keywords and down to 34.38% for long tails. (ahrefs)
- The highest-ranking average 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 more than 2 years old. (ahrefs)
- 33% of websites exceed the Core Web Vitals threshold. (ahrefs)
Google claims that backlinks are one of its top three ranking factors. Check out these link stats.
- 66.31% of pages have no backlinks. (ahrefs)
- Most top ranked pages are getting “followed” backlinks from new websites at a rate of +5%-14.5% per month. (ahrefs)
- In general, the more backlinks a page has, the more organic traffic it receives from Google. (ahrefs)
- The average cost to purchase a link is $361.44. (ahrefs)
- The average cost of publishing a paid guest post is $77.80. (ahrefs)
- 73.6% of domains have reciprocal links, which means that some of the sites they link to also link to them. (ahrefs)
- 43.7% of the top ranked pages have reciprocal links. (ahrefs)
- 66.5% of site links over the past nine years are dead. (ahrefs)
- 10.6% of all backlinks to the top 110,000 sites are nofollow. (ahrefs)
- 0.44% of links use “rel=ugc” and 0.01% use rel=”sponsored”. (ahrefs)
Most SEO campaigns start with keyword research. Here are some stats on how people search on Google.
- 94.74% of keywords get 10 monthly searches or less. (ahrefs)
- 0.0008% of keywords get more than 100,000 monthly searches. (ahrefs)
- About 8% of search queries are formulated as questions. (Moz)
- 15% of all searches on Google have never been done before. (Google)
- 91.45% of search volumes in Google Ads Keyword Planner are overrated. (ahrefs)
- Google Ads Keyword Planner overestimates search volumes 54.28% of the time and is approximately accurate 45.22% of the time. (ahrefs)
- 46.08% of clicks in Google Search Console go to hidden terms. (ahrefs)
How much do SEO professionals charge for their services? Are you loading higher or lower than average? Let’s look at the stats.
- 74.71% of SEOs charge a monthly fee for their clients. (ahrefs)
- For monthly down payments, $501–$1,000 per month is the most popular price tier. (ahrefs)
- For hourly prices, $100–$150 per hour is the most popular price tier. (ahrefs)
- For per-project pricing, $501–$1,000 is the most popular price tier. (ahrefs)
- 88.28% of SEOs charge $150 per hour or less for their services. (ahrefs)
- On average, SEOs who have been in business for more than two years charge 39.4% more per hour, 102.41% more for monthly fees, and 275% more for one-time projects than those that have been in business for less than two years. (ahrefs)
- On average, SEOs serving the global market charge 130.74% more than those serving the local market for monthly fees. (ahrefs)
- The median salary for a US-based SEO professional is $60,548 per year. (Backlink)
As an SEO, it’s important to understand where search engines are right now and where they’re going.
- 12.29% of search queries have snippets in search results. (ahrefs)
- The top result in Google’s organic search results has an average CTR of 27.6%. (Backlink)
- The top three Google search results get 54.4% of all clicks. (Backlink)
- There are approximately 3.5 billion searches on Google every day. (Internet real-time statistics)
- 39% of shoppers are influenced by relevant research. (Think with Google)
- 61.5% of desktop searches and 34.4% of mobile searches result in no clicks. (SparkToro)
- Google accounts for approximately 83% of the global search market. (Statesman)
If you serve customers locally, you should focus on improving your local search presence so more people can find you. These statistics 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 smartphone 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 plaster)
- 54% of smartphone users search for business hours and 53% search for directions to local stores. (Think with Google)
- Around 45% of global shoppers shop online and then pick up in-store. (Think with Google)
- “Where to buy” + “near me” mobile queries grew over 200% from 2017 to 2019. (Think With Google)
- Mobile searches for “store near me” (e.g., “grocery store near me”) grew over 250% from 2017 to 2019. (Think With Google)
- Mobile searches for “for sale” + “near me” (e.g., “tires for sale near me”) grew over 250% year-over-year from 2017 to 2019. (Think With Google)
We have had great success in getting customers to use video marketing. Do you do it too? If not, these stats may surprise you.
- The number of comments, views, shares and likes has a strong correlation with higher YouTube rankings. (Backlink)
- 68.2% of YouTube front page results are HD videos. (Backlink)
- The average length of a front page YouTube video is 14 minutes and 50 seconds. (Backlink)
Google has moved to mobile-first indexing and more and more people are using mobile search. Without a doubt, mobile SEO is incredibly important.
- 58.99% of all website traffic worldwide comes from mobile phones. (Statesman)
- By 2025, 72.6% of internet users will access the web exclusively via smartphone. (CNBC)
- There are more searches on mobile than on desktop. (Think with Google)
- 51% of smartphone users have discovered a new company or product by searching on their smartphone. (Think with Google)
- 18% of local smartphone searches lead to a purchase within a day versus 7% of non-local searches. (Think with Google)
- On average, placement in position no. 1 on mobile gets you 6.74% of clicks, while ranking in position #1 gets you 6.74% of clicks. 1 on desktop gets you 8.17% of clicks. (SEOClarity)
- 56% of in-store shoppers have used their smartphone to shop or search for items while in-store. (Think with Google)
“Hey, Google. What is the current state of voice search?”
- 40.7% of all voice search responses come from a featured snippet. (Backlink)
- The typical voice search result is just 29 words long. (Backlink)
- Approximately 75% of voice search results rank in the top three for matching queries. (Backlink)
- The average voice search result has a 6th grade reading level. (Backlink)
- 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. (Backlink)
- 48% of consumers use voice for “general web searches.” (Earth search engine)
Find out more
Check out these resources to learn more about SEO: