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SEO Statistics 2025: 100+ Stats on AI, Keywords, Rankings and More

SEO is evolving fast. AI-generated answers, zero-click results, and stricter ranking signals are reshaping how we optimize for search. In an industry this dynamic, gut instinct isn’t enough.

To help you stay competitive, we’ve rounded up the latest SEO statistics and trends for 2025. Use these insights to guide your strategy, justify your budget, and spot new growth opportunities.

Key SEO Statistics

  1. 70% of all clicks go to the first five organic results. (Advanced Metrics)
  2. About 53% of all website traffic comes from organic search. (SEOInc)
  3. Only 5.8% of search results now return Featured Snippets. (Semrush)
  4. The ROI for SEO spend can be as high as 748%. (First Page Sage)
  5. 36% of product searches begin on Google. (SEO AI)
  6. Mobile searches account for 61.5% of global search traffic. (Digital Silk)
  7. 62% of searchers will disregard a business if they can’t find it online. (Sagapixel)
  8. 61% of B2B marketers agree that SEO and organic traffic bring more leads than other marketing approaches. (Hubspot)
  9. Google still controls 90% of the search engine market share worldwide. (Hubspot)

However, AI is making waves in the organic search industry.

AI in SEO (GEO, AEO, AI Overviews) Statistics

AI is reshaping how search engines work—and how marketers respond. From generative engine optimization to search engine AI overviews and AI content detection, here’s what the numbers say:

  1. AI Overviews reduce click rates by 34%. (Ahrefs)
  2. 63% of websites are receiving AI-sourced traffic. (Ahrefs)
  3. The average ChatGPT user clicks 1.4 external links per visit; Google’s users click 0.6 times per visit. (Momentic Marketing)
  4. AI Overviews have already reached 1.5 billion monthly users. (Google)
  5. Reddit threads, YouTube demos, and forum posts soak up roughly a third of the traffic that AIO leaves behind. (Growth Memo)
  6. 43% of AI Overviews point back to Google. (SERanking)
  7. 7 in 10 searchers never read past the first third of an AIO. (Growth Memo)
  8. Younger mobile users embrace AI answers and social proof, while older searchers still dig for blue links and authority sites. (Growth Memo)
  9. 90% of buyers click through to sources featured in AI Overviews. (TrustRadius)
  10. 66% of consumers believe AI will replace traditional search within 5 years. (Search Engine Land)

Not sure if you’re showing up in AI Overviews? Try Keyword.com’s AI Overview Tracker.

AI’s Broader Impact on SEO and Content

These stats explore how marketers and SEOs are using AI tools, how it changes workflows, and what risks or gains it brings:

  1. 74% of new web pages published in April 2025 included some AI-generated content. (Ahrefs)
  2. 86% of SEO experts have already integrated AI into their workflows to stay competitive. (SEO Clarity)
  3. 37% of SEO professionals use AI to generate meta titles and descriptions. (SEOProfy)
  4. 60% of marketers use tools like ChatGPT or Claude for SEO briefs and ideation.
     (Authority Hacker)
  5. ChatGPT is the top AI tool for marketers (44%), followed by Gemini (15%) and Claude (10%). (Ahrefs) 
  6. AI users report content production 30–50% faster, but rankings don’t always improve. (SEO Profy) 
  7. If your website ranks #1 in Google’s traditional results (blue links), you have a 25% chance of being used as a source in AI Overviews. (ZipTie)
  8. The top 50 domains have 28.9% of all mentions. (Ahrefs)
  9. AI sends 0.1% of total referral traffic. (Ahrefs)
  10. Google sends 345x more traffic than the three main AIs combined. (Ahrefs)

Even though AI referral traffic has not reached its full potential yet, it’s growing fast. Use Keyword.com AI Rank Tracker to stay ahead of the competition.

Keyword and SEO Strategy Statistics

Keywords are foundational to SEO. Here’s what current data reveals about their performance and user behavior:

  1. 8% of search queries are phrased as questions, including words like who, what, where, why, and how. (SEOCopilot)
  2. 91.8% of all search queries contain long-tail keywords. (Backlinko)
  3. Every day, 15% of Google searches are brand new. (WP Beginner)
  4. Pages that are on the first page of Google SERPs typically have about 66 characters on their URLs. (On The Map)
  5. Long-tail keywords deliver around 2.5× higher conversion rates compared to short-tail terms. (Profitworks)
  6. 56% of buyers use queries of 3+ words, with only 7% using one-word searches. (Wordstream)
  7. When hunting for specific products or services, online shoppers usually add “near me” and “where to buy” to their queries. (My Codeless Website)
  8. Title tags with 15-40 characters (short tags) have a higher click-through rate (CTR) of 8.6% than those with longer tags. (On The Map)
  9. Title tags that contain a question word receive 14.1% more clicks (CTR) than those that don’t. (On The Map)

Pro tip: If your content centered around short-tail keywords is underperforming, target long-tail variants to capture higher intent and conversions.

SEO and Content Marketing Statistics 

Which marketing approach should your business focus on: organic SEO, pay-per-click (PPC), or both? Let the data tell you the advantages of SEO, including its return on investment (ROI) rate.

  1. 53% of all website traffic originates from online searches, compared to 15% from paid search. (Bright Edge)
  2. SEO campaigns can recoup the investment as early as six months, with peak results in the second and third years of the campaign. (First Page Sage)
  3. B2B SaaS businesses can enjoy their SEO investment in 7 months, and ecommerce businesses in 16 months. (First Page Sage)
  4. 70% of marketers believe SEO generates better results than PPC campaigns. (Databox)
  5. 86.5% of SEO experts use PPC data to set up SEO campaigns. (Startup Bonsai)
  6. 90% of organizations have a content marketing strategy (Statista)
  7. Content marketing creates three times as many leads as traditional marketing and costs 64% less (Showpad)
  8. High-quality content is the most effective SEO strategy according to 59% of B2C marketers (Forbes)

SEO Agency Statistics

Many businesses are willing to spend a hefty budget to boost their SEO rankings. But how much is the market price for SEO services today? Get the latest insights below.

  1. 25% of companies have a $10,000 – $25,000 budget for in-house SEO. Interestingly, the other 57% (aggregate) only allocate less than $10,000. (Aira)
  2. Most SEO agencies charge $100-$149 per hour, and the higher-end SEO agencies charge $150-$199 per hour. This contributes to an average $3,594 monthly fee for hiring an SEO agency. (Expert Market)
  3. An SEO expert with 2+ years of experience usually asks 40% more per hour than one with less experience. And for a one-off project, they typically ask 275% more. (Payscale)
  4. When hiring an SEO agency, expect to spend $500-$30,000 for an SEO audit and report, $220-$480 for competitor keyword analysis, and $700-$2,000 for local SEO optimization. (Expert Market)
  5. SEO professionals managing the global market usually cost 130% more than those managing the local market. (Comrade Web)

Ranking Statistics

Every brand wants to land in the first position of the SERPs. But does ranking in #1 and #2 really make a big difference?  

  1. A typical CTR earns by the #1 result is 39.8%, 18.7% for the #2 result, and 10.2% for the #3 result. This means the top 3 organic results receive over 68% of clicks. (First Page Sage)
  2. Moving up one position in Google search results can increase your CTR by 2.8% on average. (Backlinko)
  3. 2+ years is the average time needed for a page to rank on the first page of a Google search. To rank in position 1, most pages need 3 years. (On The Map)
  4. Websites listed on page 2 of Google SERPs only get 6% of clicks. (Forbes)

Link Building Statistics

Link building is a time-intensive pillar of SEO, but its payoffs—particularly in rankings and authority—make it a vital strategy.

  1. 94% of online content has zero external backlinks. (Backlinko)
  2. Only 2.2% of content receives backlinks from multiple referring domains. (Backlinko)
  3. Websites ranking in the top 10 Google results have 3.8× more backlinks than lower-ranked sites. (PressWhizz)
  4. Long-form content (3,000+ words) earns 4× more backlinks than short-form content. (PressWhizz)
  5. 32% of link-building specialists can secure a backlink in 1–2 hours; 24% need 3–5 hours. (Superlinks)
  6. Digital PR and high-authority contextual backlinks typically cost between $700–$2,000 per link. (uSERP)
  7. The average paid guest post costs $220, with top-tier quality posts averaging $609. (BuzzStream)
  8. Only 7.6% of sites accepting guest posts are high enough quality to be worth targeting. (BuzzStream)
  9. Most SEOs believe link building is the hardest part of SEO, as noted by 58% in a recent survey. (PressWhizz)
  10. Link-building results begin to show in around 3.1 months for most domains. (DemandSage)
  11. Digital PR gets 433% more popular as link builders gain several years of experience. (Authority Hacker)
  12. AI-powered link-building tools are expected to be adopted by 47% of SEOs in the next year. (Superlinks)

Search Engine Statistics

It’s very common to use “Google” to refer to the action of “searching the internet,” as in “I’m Googling the nearest restaurant.” Although these days, we’re seeing a lot of “I asked ChatGPT”. See how busy Google and AI are processing all the search queries in a day. 

  1. Google is visited 88.6 billion times per month. (SimilarWeb)
  2. Google conducts 90,460 searches per second, tallying up to more than 8.5 billion searches daily. (Internet Live Stats)
  3. A Google user views an average of 8.83 pages per visit. (SimilarWeb)
  4. The average visit duration of Google users in the USA is 11:58 minutes. (PC Mag)
  5. China and the U.S. account for the largest desktop traffic to Bing.com, with 31.43% and 26.7%, respectively. (Statista)
  6. Data privacy is the most important criterion for choosing a search engine in the U.S. (Statista)
  7. The quality of search results is the most common reason for switching search engines. (Statista)
  8. Ecosia, the search engine that plants trees, has 20 million users. (Ecosia)
  9. ChatGPT dominates AI-chatbot referrals with nearly 80% global share, significantly outperforming rivals like Perplexity (11.8%), Bing Copilot (5.2%), and Gemini (2%). (TechRadar)
  10. 27% of U.S. users now rely on AI tools like ChatGPT instead of traditional search engines for routine queries. (Tom’s Guide)
  11. ChatGPT has 400 million weekly active users globally, up from 300 million in late 2024. (Backlinko)
  12. Google’s Gemini reached 350 million monthly active users by March 2025, while ChatGPT surpassed 600 million MAUs. (Business Insider)

Local SEO Statistics

Local search is where online intent meets offline action. Whether it’s “pizza near me” or “accountant open now,” mobile users are constantly looking for businesses close to them—and converting fast. 

  1. 76% of mobile users search for something nearby by adding “visit a business within a day” to their search query. 28% of these searches result in a purchase. (Think with Google)
  2. 82% of smartphone users use the “near me” keyword in their queries to find a local business. (Google)
  3. 46% of all Google searches are for local businesses or services. (SEO Round Table)
  4. 18% of local mobile searches lead to a sale within one day. (Search Engine Land)
  5. 78% of local mobile searches result in offline purchases. (Search Engine Land)
  6. 80% of local mobile searches convert (Search Engine Watch)
  7. Google My Business elements are the number one local ranking factor (Moz)
  8. 90% of marketers believe that reviews impact local pack rankings (Moz)
  9. Nearly 80% of marketers agree that the SERPs serve as a one-stop shop for local searchers (Moz)
  10. 76% of people who conduct a local search on their smartphone visit a physical place within 24 hours, and 28% of those searches result in a purchase (Think With Google)

Video SEO Statistics

Watching a product demo is much more engaging than reading the explanation texts. No wonder content containing video is so valuable for SEO.

  1. YouTube is the second most viewed website on the internet. (Hootsuite)
  2. Pages that contain videos gain a 157% boost in organic traffic and backlinks. (Bright Cove)
  3. Embedding videos in blogs can increase overall conversion by 2x. (Bright Cove)
  4. Users spend 2 minutes longer on pages that have videos. (Comsocre)
  5. Videos are 50x more likely to be organically ranked than text-based results. (Forrester)
  6. Video search results generate a 41% higher CTR than text-based content. (AimClear)
  7. Videos increase organic search traffic by 41% for businesses using them. (Vidico). 
  8. Websites that include video content are 30 times more likely to rank on Google. (Rev)

Mobile SEO Statistics

Mobile search is a force to be reckoned with. In most cases, it even surpasses the desktop search performance.

  1. Mobile searches contribute to 63% of Google’s US organic search traffic and more than 50% of Google’s global traffic. (Merkleinc and Think with Google)
  2. 51% of mobile users find a new product or company when searching with their smartphone. (Google)
  3. 30% of all mobile searches are related to location. (Think with Google)
  4. Websites that rank #1 on SERPs have a CTR of 27.7% for mobile—a higher CTR than desktop search at 19.3%. (SEO Clarity)
  5. Search results on mobile receive 85.8% more impressions than the results on desktop. (SEO Clarity)
  6. On average, Google shows 8.5 organic search results on page 1 for mobile search and 8.7 for desktop search. (Search Metrics)
  7. Mobile searches account for 59.57% of global search traffic (Statcounter)
  8. Voice searches now account for 20% of the queries on mobile (Search Engine Land)
  9. About 20% of searches in Google’s mobile app are voice searches (Think With Google) 
  10. People use Google Lens to answer 8 billion questions every month. (Google)
  11. SEO offers around 20% more traffic opportunities than PPC ads on both mobile and desktop (Moz)

What These SEO Stats Mean for Your 2025 Strategy

From AI disrupting how traffic flows to long-tail keywords proving their worth in conversions, one thing’s clear: SEO is no longer about just ranking. It’s about relevance, speed, and adaptability.

If you want to stay ahead, don’t just analyze these trends—act on them. With Keyword.com, you can monitor shifts in AI visibility, rankings, and competitive gaps—all in real time.

Start your journey to SEO growth today.