10 statistics that demonstrate the value of SEO
Posted by Iain on Thu (17/05/07) at 4:04pm to Web Project Management, Web Design, Search Engine Optimisation, Web Analytics
These statistics source from a compilation of SERPS behaviour studies for which I’ve listed source information at the end of the article. If you disagree with a figure, or have additional figures or sources, please do post them to the discussion.
- 42% of search users click the top-ranking link. 8% click the second-ranking link, and the click-through rate (CTR) continues to drop thereof.
- When these two top-ranking links are artificially switched, the click-through ratio of 42-8% drops to 34-12%, demonstrating the importance of engaging copy in addition to rank position.
- 62% of search users click a link on the first page of search results
- 23% of searches progress to the second page. Presumably the difference between 62% ans 23% stems from searchers trying either another keyword or another engine, or giving up.
- 80% f unsuccessful searches are followed with keyword refinement.
- 41% of searches unsuccessful after the first page choose to refine thir keyword search phrase or their chosen search engine.
- 77% of search users choose organic over paid listing when searching, 67% choose organic search when purchasing.
- When the searcher is purchasing, organic click-through generates 25% higher conversion rates than equivalent Pay-Per-Click (PP) click-through.
- 40% of SEO campaigns aware of their ROI achieve returns in excess of 500%, while only 22% of PPC campaigns were able to achieve this value.
- Daily use of search engines rose from 33% in 2002 to 59% in 2005. The average day in 2005 reported 60 million people using a search engine. As of March 2007, Google accounts for 64% of US searches and 77% of UK searches
The validity of these statistics depend on various experimental factors (i.e. large, representative samples of searchers/searches), and on accurate statistical analysis.
For more in depth analysis, the sources for this article were:
Please post addition figures or sources, or your view, in the comments.
on April 24th, 2009 at 12:57pm
gr8 efforts ‘Iain’…hw cld we get the stats for 2008?
on May 25th, 2009 at 3:08pm
Great article. #2 is especially intriguing. Do you know have any statistics about differences in visitor behavior based on their geography? I recently did a study on conversion rates by U.S. state (http://blog.timothyponce.com/2009/05/comparing-conversion-rates-using-two.html) and found no difference. But as a I have a geography background, it’s hard for me to believe that all search behavior is the same regardless of spatial location.
on May 26th, 2009 at 11:32am
Hi Timothy, I’m not aware of any studies of search behaviour between different geographic locations I’m afraid. Intuition would suggest little difference between US states, little more between say the US and UK, but perhaps there would be differences between geographic locations with substantially different cultures.
on August 16th, 2009 at 2:22pm
[…] excellent article gives some pretty nitty gritty stats for SEO. From intraspin.com, the post “10 statistics that demonstrate the value of SEO” reports […]
on September 10th, 2009 at 2:19pm
Hi! I was surfing and found your blog post… nice! I love your blog.
Cheers! Sandra. R.
on September 29th, 2009 at 9:11pm
I dont have a bone to pick with you on the stats. But I would like to say that you compiling these here, was a real help for a project I’m working on.
So… thanks!
Brian