1. Google Really Is The Only Name In The Game In The U.S.
Google leads the U.S. market by a vast amount. In July 2019, Google processed 9.97 billion search queries. The market leader accounts for 62% of desktop search queries in the States, and 93% of mobile searches. Microsoft Sites (aka Bing) handles about 25%, while Verizon Media (aka Yahoo!) has a market share of about 11%.
2. It’s Also The Only Name In Almost Every Other Country…
As of October 2019, Google maintains an 87% market share globally. In India? It has a 96% market share of desktop searches. Brazil? 95%. Australia? 90%. South Korea? 79%. Japan? 74%. Basically, if you’re trying to rank for search practically anywhere in the world, Google is exclusively what you should be concerning yourself with.
3. ...Except For China
In China, homegrown search engine Baidu dominates the market, with over 61% of total pageviews—and Google trails in fifth place, behind several other Chinese companies. So if you’re looking to rank in China, you’re going to need to think outside of the Google box.
4. Ready To Hear Something Absolutely Devastating About SEO? Of Course You Are
91% of content gets no organic traffic from Google. Ninety-one. No traffic. At all. Think of all those unread pages! But here’s the less-devastating part: according to Ahrefs, there are some solid reasons these pages are overlooked: they’re often frankly terrible, they don’t have any backlinks (which are one of Google’s “top 3 ranking factors”), and they’re packed with info nobody actually wants to search for. So the best way forward if you want to rank on Google: make high-quality content that people are actually looking for and make sure you get some good backlinks. Voila.
5. Marketers Aren’t Investing Enough In SEO—Not By A Long Shot
According to a recent survey conducted by Zazzle Media, 97% of marketers said SEO was important, but less than a quarter of their budgets are spent on this channel, despite knowing that the creation of new content and optimization of existing content are two of the top priorities for maintaining and growing SEO.
6. Auditing Existing Content Can Grow Your SEO Fast
Developing a strong strategy for new content creation is important, but doing an overhaul on existing content can be just as valuable. For one company, an experiment in improving existing content resulted in a 74% increase in search traffic and a 90% increase in conversions from SEO. Another refreshed old content and spiked 260%. That second one feels more fluke-y and less replicable to us, but who knows—it’s possible—and it’s a good reminder that there’s probably a ton of low-hanging SEO fruit on your site already, ripe for the picking.
7. A Lot Of Search Queries Are Longer Than You Might Think
Long-tail keywords make up 50% of search queries. That means half of all search queries out there are four words or longer. They typically have a smaller but consistent monthly search volume, and are often less competitive. According to Data Box, because of their size, blog content is the perfect way to target them.