Key SEO stats 2021

With Google’s algorithms constantly evolving, SEO is always changing. That’s why it’s important to understand the impact of these changes on user behavior and search queries — and to keep track of the latest updates.

We’ve selected the key SEO stats for 2021 across a range of topics, such as:

• The rollback of the update affecting YMYL sites
• Mobile / desktop indexing, as well as Speed Index and Page Speed.
• Mobile-friendly optimization with Mobile-First, including voice search.

What are the key SEO stats for 2021?

SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, is the set of organic search techniques. This refers to all the practices used to position a website on the SERP (Search Engine Results Page).

Among search engines, Google holds 94% of the market share in France. It has developed algorithms to determine the ranking of each piece of content on the results pages. SEO experts therefore constantly monitor their changes and updates to shape their next organic search strategies (technical optimization, Content Marketing, Netlinking).

Search engine rankings

• 75.6% of all searches worldwide happen on Google.

To improve your rankings, you need to follow Google’s rules. Even though the top spots are easier to reach on Yahoo or Bing, companies that rank on Google generally get a better CTR.

• 69,907 — that’s the number of searches performed on Google in one second.

A good ranking on the SERP means better visibility for your business and your products and/or services.

• 50% of searches are made up of 4 words or more.

When it comes to keyword research and keyword optimization, it’s worth knowing that most users don’t search for simple terms. In fact, with the rise of voice search, queries are becoming increasingly specific and conversational.

The work of selecting keywords then becomes even more crucial. To find the right keywords to target, try our SEO content optimization platform Semji for free and discover which queries to prioritize.

• 5 ranking factors on Google

A SEMrush study shows that direct traffic, time spent on the site, the number of pages visited, the bounce rate and the number of referring domains are the 5 ranking factors on Google.

• Republishing old blog posts with updated content can increase traffic by up to 111%.

A Baclinko study proved that updating the content of these blog posts (text and images) led to a considerable increase in traffic. Here’s a good tactic to adopt for 2021!

• 1,890 words. That’s the average number of words in content on the first page.

For Google, content must above all answer a user’s need. A common practice in content marketing is therefore to outdo your competitors by publishing more in-depth and generally longer content.

Click-through rate on Google’s SERP

Comparison between business queries and other queries

Source: Advancedwebranking.com

The latest “Your Money Your Life” update

For sites offering so-called “Your Money Your Life” content, Google is particularly demanding. For example, pages that can give advice on health (taking medication, illnesses, etc.), on financial investments, or banking website pages, are called YMYL pages. On August 1st, Google penalized YMYL sites whose content was deemed unreliable, or not reliable at all.

Out of a total of 300 sites analyzed, here are the sectors that were impacted and whose traffic dropped:

Today, it seems Google has backtracked, as these sites are gradually regaining the traffic they had lost.

Speed Index

The Speed Index is a performance indicator that measures how quickly elements above the fold are displayed. The lower it is, the faster the site. To achieve the best scores, your site must have a speed index below 5,000. Only 5% of French e-commerce sites have an excellent loading speed score.

Page speed and its impact:

• 79% of consumers who experienced performance issues on a site won’t return to it.
• 64% of mobile users won’t wait more than 4 seconds for a page to load.
• 47% of them expect to wait no more than 2 seconds.
• If a site generates €100,000 in profit in 1 day, improving its Page Speed by 1 second would increase that revenue by €7,000 per day.
• 1 second of waiting per page amounts to an 11% loss in visits and a 7% loss in conversions.

Average conversions in relation to page speed:

Below is the conversion rate ( number of buyers relative to the number of visitors) and the bounce rate, all according to Page Speed.

• Page Speed: 2.4 sec
  • Conversion rate: 1.9%
  • Bounce rate: 12.8%
• Page Speed: 3.3 sec
  • Conversion rate: 1.5%
  • Bounce rate: 20%
• Page Speed: 4.2 sec
  • Conversion rate: 1%
  • Bounce rate: 26%
• Page Speed: 5.7 sec
  • Conversion rate: 0.6%
  • Bounce rate: 35%

The takeaway? The longer a page takes to load, the lower the conversion rate — unlike the bounce rate, which increases.

A reduction in Page Speed of 0.4 seconds

would increase traffic by 9%.

For Amazon, a 1 second increase in load time costs 1.6 billion in sales over 1 year.

Improving site speed enables

• 20% increase in organic traffic
• 14% more visits
• Gaining up to two positions on the SERP

Reducing page load times by 50% corresponds to

• 13% more sales
• +9% Conversion Rate

source: Hubspot

The importance of SEO for businesses

• 61% of marketing managers say search engines are excellent marketing tools
• 80% of users search online before going to a store
• 72% of consumers who performed a local search visit a store within an 8 km or 5 km radius
• 1/3 of users buy from a different store than the one they originally planned

Small businesses:

• Only 17% of small businesses invest in SEO
• 25% invest in online marketing
• 71% handle their own marketing instead of delegating to a provider
• 56% say their site is responsive
• 45% use SEO-optimized URLs
• WordPress is used by 27% of webmasters
• 4.6 billion sites use the Yoast Plugin

SEO and media

• Keyword searches generate 3 times more traffic than social media alone
• 2.8% of website visits came from social media
• 61% of those visits come from Facebook alone

Source: websitemagazine.com

Key stats on mobile-first

A study published on “ The Moz Blog” compares the difference in external links across 20,000 different sites, between the desktop and mobile versions. This difference directly impacts the site, since it’s visible to Google and unintentionally changes the user experience. Note that Google now crawls sites in their mobile version.

The Moz study highlights the following stats:

• 42% of sites had the same number of links on the mobile version as on desktop
• 9% had fewer
• 58% had more

Among these sites’ homepages, 7.4% see a drop in external links. Most of these sites have social media sharing links. These links are most often built into a desktop plugin of the site rather than a mobile one. If you’re reading this from a computer, you can spot these links right here — when you hover over the sources in this article. It’s therefore very likely, in this specific case, that we have more links on the desktop version than on mobile.

A closer look at sites with a difference in the number of mobile / desktop links

On average, we see more than double the number of links on a site’s desktop version. What does this imply? Quite simply, completely different indexing depending on the platform used.

Full crawl analysis with ScreamingFrog

• Mobile: 3,280 pages found
• Desktop: 19,696 pages found

With an impressive difference in external links — 75% of links don’t appear on the mobile version.

Google now crawls sites from their mobile version and uses it to index them. If your links aren’t the same on desktop and mobile, you run the risk of some of your pages not being indexed.

Focus on voice search

Press sector

Out of 481 key phrases, Google Assistant answered 288 of them correctly, including:

Only 2 out of 13 earned a Featured Snippet or position zero. For “news”, Google tends to display a carousel instead.

Technology sector

Out of 488 key phrases, Google Assistant answered 86 of them correctly, or 19.2%:

362 key phrases received: “Sorry, I can’t help you with that yet”.

Of the 86 answered, 34 of them were in position zero, including 33 responses with a bulleted list.

Google Assistant doesn’t always read out the results aloud. Unfortunately, we don’t yet know why.

Business sector

Out of 500 key phrases, Google Assistant answered 217 correctly, or 56%:

Google Assistant won’t give an answer to the query “How to start a business?”.

Out of a total of 22 industries and 10,051 key phrases, 5,572 queries found no answer.

In short, the transport, real estate and technology sectors rarely get an answer, unlike health and hospitality.

Source: weareroast.com

This article was written by Semji’s SEO experts. Semji is a SaaS platform that maximizes the ROI of companies’ SEO and Content Marketing content. The solution helps marketing and SEO teams exceed their goals and boost performance on the key aspects of their work: building visibility, pursuing ROI and gaining productivity! Depending on your SEO and Content challenges, various plans are available with a free trial. If you want to reach your goals faster, Semji also offers more personalized support across your different SEO pillars.