Have you ever wondered how a tweet, post or TikTok goes viral? I recently sat down with Ja Rule, celebrity rapper turned entrepreneur and investor, to discuss the psychology behind viral content as part of the interview for my upcoming book “The Psychology of a Website.”

Ja Rule’s recent viral commercial for Papa Cristo’s Greek restaurant cemented Ja Rule’s reputation as someone who has cracked the code to viral content while supporting a small business owner affected by the recent pandemic. 

While it can seem like viral posts receive millions of shares because of blind luck or timing, Ja Rule uncovers that social media hits can be replicated if you understand human psychology. In an exclusive interview on his new ICONN Live app, Ja Rule shared his formula for viral content. 

No 1. Know your audience

In the search for viral fame, it’s crucial to keep your audience at the forefront of your process. What type of content will resonate with them? What will they value?

If you fail to think about your audience, your content could send them mixed messages. For example, if your brand caters to a business professional audience, publishing joke content may miss the mark. You want to push the envelope enough to get the attention that leads to a reaction, but not go too far and risk turning your audience away.

No 2. Create a spectacle 

Viral content becomes a sensation because it triggers an emotional reaction. Whether that be excitement or laughter, content that gets an emotional response compels the user to like and share. As Ja Rule put it, “the more shocking, the more chance you have to go viral.”

Keeping your audience in mind, how can you create a spectacle they will remember? After you, you need to find a way to stand out. Think about what sort of slightly controversial or outside-the-box content will get your audience to hit, share, like, and comment without turning anybody off. 

No 3. Make it tasteful

While making a spectacle will get you attention, Ja Rule cautions to make sure you do it with taste, that “there’s a thin line between tasteful, cool and funny and distasteful or turnoff.” Don’t cause a spectacle just for the sake of getting attention, such as “cloud chasing.” Make sure your content stays on brand and aligns with your audience’s values. 

Before you post, ask yourself these three questions: Is this content right for my audience? Is it unique and different to be considered a spectacle worth paying attention to? And lastly, is it tasteful and on brand?

Follow these steps and you can go viral like Ja Rule. 

Update: Republished June 2020 with updated statistics where available.

You already know that having a prominent online presence supported by an effective SEO strategy is indispensable. People are searching for your business, and you need to make sure they find you online. The Internet, however, is a virtually endless resource with millions of search inquiries leading consumers to different places.

More than often, an online experience begins with a web search. Yet, how do you make sure people searching for companies and services like yours land on your website, and not someone else’s? One thing you can be certain of is that you’ll need to make a case to prove the value of SEO to be able to direct any of your company’s resources – or client’s resources – to site audits, content marketing, technical optimization, local, and backlink strategies.

With updates being done to Google’s search engine algorithm continuously, deciding to craft (an execute on) an SEO strategy sounds like a lot of work. How do you convince your boss or client that it’s worth it? Is keeping up with Google really that important? Yes. Being on Google’s good side, and making it to the front page, will impact your business tremendously. And what about other search engines? What is the value of being searchable? Do you show up online?

To help you make a better case for SEO to justify the value of organic search, I’ve compiled a list of eye-opening SEO statistics about organic search, Google facts, and the Internet at large. Be free to use them, tweet them, embed them, or insert them into your own presentation.

Check them out, and show them to your boss:

Globally, Google’s search market share reaches 92%

Source: StatCounter , 2020

To no surprise, Google is the leading search engine worldwide. Anyone you’re trying to reach, anywhere they might be, Google is your best bet towards generating an impression of your product and brand across borders. Except in China and a few other countries, Google is the dominant search engine. Other search engines get a smaller share of consumer traffic, which you can see in our Global Search Engine Market Share infographic. 

As of June 2020, Google owns 88% of the search engine market share in the US

Source: StatCounter

In the US, people use Google more than Bing, Yahoo, and all the other search engines combined. The term “Google it” is popular for a reason. In a study conducted by ComScore, out of a total of 17.5 billion searches conducted in one month, 11.2 billion of them were conducted through Google. Bing follows second with just 3.7 billion, and Yahoo with 2.2 billion.

There are more than 3.8 million Google searches conducted each minute

Source: SEO Tribunal, 2018

Have you Googled something today? With over 5.6 billion searches conducted a day, odds are that you have. It might have been that very search that led you here. Back when Google launched in 1995, users were conducting just 500,000 searches per day. Today, this statistic has more than quadrupled. The growth of organic search traffic has been growing consistently.

When Google went down for 5 minutes, global Internet traffic dropped by a whopping 40%

Source: CNET, 2013

It seems like the Internet really does revolve around Google. In 2013, Google’s services were unavailable for only 5 minutes due to an outage, and web traffic dropped by 40%. Google is the heart and soul of the Internet. How important is your Google presence and global web traffic? Very.

15% of all Google searches are being searched for the first time

Source: Search Engine Land, 2017

How does Google answer questions that have never been asked before? Through extensive indexing, site crawling and millions of search precedents. Never before asked queries are more common than you’d think. Marketers should think about how to fashion their content strategy so that they find the right balance between targeting ultra-competitive, established keywords as well as the less popular queries that are ‘on the rise.’ Use Google Trends to find these niche golden nuggets.

High-quality content and link building are the two most important signals used by Google to rank your website for search

Source: Search Engine Watch, 2016

There’s definitely a correlation between longer content and Google ranking. Moz’s study found that the most popular pages had over 35,000 words and generated more than 800 links. Google prefers well-written and longer content over those that are more superficial and short. Don’t get lazy on that blog! Articles over 1,000 words might just fare better SEO wise.

On the first page alone, the first five organic results account for 67.6% of all the clicks.

Source: Impact , 2020

Does anyone ever go to the second page of Google? Very rarely. Your website’s ranking in search results is of utmost importance for traffic. If visitors aren’t even scrolling past the first five results on the SERP, you have to use SEO to try to rank in those positions.

53% of website traffic comes from organic search results

Source: BrightEdge, 2019

How are people getting to your site? They’re Googling their way there. Chances are, more than half of your web traffic started with a search. According to a study conducted by BrightEdge, over 40% of revenue is captured through organic search traffic. Social only accounts for merely 10% of web traffic, and paid search just 10%.

Users focus on organic search results 94% of the time

Source: Search Engine Watch, 2012

There is good news for those reluctant to invest in a Google Ads account. According to Search Engine Watch, organic results fare better than paid ads. The higher you rank, the more clicks you get, and paid ads don’t count. Users tend to ignore the advertisements on top of the page and go straight to the organic search results listed first.

Updating existing content with fresh content can increase organic traffic by 111.3%

Source: Safari Digital, 2019

Update blog content, sit back and watch the impact this will have on your SEO. Old blog posts can still have valuable content so don’t put those to waste! Optimizing older articles ensures that all your content will help rank your website higher on Google while giving your audiences updated information. In fact, this is an article we are updating to be able to give you the top SEO tips and statistics of 2020!

Web-users exposed to slow loading times will conduct fewer searches on average

Source: Google, 2009

This is according to studies conducted at Google using their search engine. Speed matters. Even after rectifying a low speed, users will be reluctant to return to your website. Get rid of anything that hinders your website’s speed. Music players, flashy graphics, and unnecessarily large images will stagnate loading time. Google has a few tips on how to fix a slow website.

63% of Google’s US organic search traffic originated from mobile devices 

Source: Merkleinc,2020

Smartphones and tablets have become the new prime way to communicate and access information. According to The Verge, more people are searching on mobile devices than ever before. Google has updated its SEO algorithm based on the increase in smartphone and tablet usage. In the world of mobile-first indexing, a website that isn’t optimized for mobile is missing out on ranking opportunities.

88% percent of smartphone users are using their device to conduct a search on Google

Source: Think With Google, 2014

In company with the previous statistic, is the fact that the majority of cellphone users use their phones to conduct searches. According to the report Understanding Consumers’ Local Search Behavior, 88% of smartphones perform searches, making the need for a mobile-friendly website crucial. People are searching on the go, and are looking for local results. Google is looking to provide the most practical, precise and relevant local search results through their regularly updated mobile-friendly ranking algorithm. Make sure to optimize your local listings with a smart local search marketing plan.

 

 

Sites that did not switch to mobile-friendly platforms were hit with a hefty 50%+ traffic reduction penalty. 

Source: Gist, 2019

According to a study conducted by BrightEdge shortly after Google’s mobile algorithm update in 2017, the presence of non-mobile friendly websites on the first 3 pages of Google began to fade fast. Over 20,000 websites were tested and scored for mobile-friendliness, and then had their ranks recorded. A 21% decrease in ranking was found for those URLs scoring low in mobile-friendliness.

88% of searches for local businesses on a mobile device either call or visit the business within 24 hours.

Source: Nectafy, 2019

Having a mobile-friendly website is super important because people searching on their phones are more likely to visit your store or call on that very day. While 50% of mobile phone users will visit your store after conducting a search, only 34% of users searching on tablets and computers will do so.

18% of local smartphone searches led to a purchase within a day

Source: Think with Google, 2014

In contrast, only 7% of non-local searches lead to purchases on the same day. Capturing the local search market through SEO is a smart strategy. Potential customers and clients are searching, so you have to lure them to your website. If you have a locally-focused business, you need to show up highly on Google Maps, and other local directories.

Local searches result in purchases 28% of the time

Source: Search Engine Land, 2020

People aren’t just Googling the latest cat video. They’re looking for the best store, the best product and the best service near them, and for them. With the power to Google, consumers are behind the wheel of their purchases and investments, and as we’ve learned, they never really go past the first page. So does “the best decision” = a high Google search ranking? To an extent, absolutely.

Hope the list is helpful! Have I missed any other important SEO statistics? Please drop me a note in the comments below.

COVID-19 has forced us to rearrange many of our routines and habits. We go to the store less, stay home more, and do our best to make the most of the “new normal” environment. 

Consumption and search are a part of our daily lives, and have inevitably been affected by Coronavirus. As we navigate these unprecedented times, how can you adapt your digital strategy to keep up with consumer shifts and spot emerging opportunities? 

In a recent webinar hosted by Brightedge, thought leaders from leading consumer brands weighed in on search and consumer trends, and how businesses can pivot their SEO strategy to soften the impact of COVID-19. These were the main takeaways from their research and expert advice.

Prepare for a Flattening of the Weekday Curve

If you do marketing for an ecommerce business, you may be familiar with the “weekday curve”: while customers are busy going out and catching up on errands over the weekend, sales drop. Spending then picks back up on weekdays, hence the “weekday curve.”

Among other changes around what people are buying, when people are shopping has been affected by COVID-19 as well. Whereas weekends used to be for going out and spending in stores, they are now largely spent inside. The result is a peak in ecommerce search terms on weekends, reversing the prior trend of weekday peaks. 

Looking at the Google Trends chart for “exercise bike,” the peaks during the month of May all happened on weekends. 

What’s the takeaway from this new spending trend? If you weren’t running Google Ads and Amazon ads on weekends, now would be the time to start. Analyze search trends for your keywords and increase ad spend during times of the week where customers are searching most, to increase your likelihood of getting seen.

Pay Attention to Shifts in Consumer Spending

Ken Shults, VP of Strategic Innovation at BrightEdge took a look at search trends in a range of industries to gauge how consumer interests have shifted since the onset of Coronavirus, and how industries can prepare accordingly. 

Shults broke the industries into four categories: Rebounding, Accelerating, Recovering, and Stabilizing. 

Rebounding industries took an initial hit at the onset of COVID-19, but by week 7 began rebounding once consumers began to adjust to lifestyle changes. Industries in this category include apparel, beauty, and IT Networking. Shults recommended that businesses in these industries “focus on winning categories.’ For instance, clothing brands may tone down marketing for professional wear and instead focus on casual clothing lines. 

Accelerating industries were flat from the onset of COVID-19, and have since accelerated. Businesses in this category include digital marketing, pet adoption, and garden and patio. Shults recommends to “pour on the gas,” capturing your market’s attention while these shifts are still fresh.

Recovering industries took the biggest hit in the beginning, and are now slowly leveling off. Industries in this category include concerts, hotels, and wealth management. Shults recommends that these businesses “transform and prepare,” pivoting to digital strategies and preparing for an uptick in demand once lockdown restrictions ease up.

Finally, Stabilizing industries saw an uptick in searches, and have since dropped, but are still much higher than pre-COVID figures. Industries in the stabilizing category include gaming, grocery, and IT security. According to Shults this increased demand is here to stay, and businesses need to adopt digital strategies to keep up with demand. 

Coronavirus didn’t impact industries uniformly, so it’s crucial to look at trends in your specific industry to get insight as to how you should be shifting your digital strategy now to prepare for a post-COVID-19 landscape.

Let the New Buyer Journey Inform Your SEO Strategy

Your customers are not finding and buying products the same way they did before COVID-19. People aren’t leaving their homes, meaning the buyer journey has moved almost completely online. As the brand, you have to make sure you’re letting customers know what their purchasing options are, and guiding them along the path to purchase.

Carlos Spallarossa, Director of Paid Search and SEO at L’Oreal, and Justin Abrams, Senior Solutions Consultant at BrightEdge, outlined the new COVID-19 customer journey and how brands can adapt.

Consideration: The consideration phase of the consumer journey has become tainted with uncertainty. Consumers are hesitant to leave their homes, and are unsure whether they’ll be able to properly research and purchase their desired products safely. This is the brand’s opportunity to add content to their site that reassures customers and makes them aware of their buying options.

Exploration: Whereas your customers were used to being able to try on products in-store, their browsing must now be limited to shopping online. Carlos Spallarossa recommends mirroring the “hyperpersonal in-store experience,” offering to send product samples for customers to try at home. Customers may be searching with keywords like “contact-free” and “virtual,” so make sure your website is optimized for those searches.

Comparison: Once they’ve narrowed down what products they want, your customers likely still need to weigh their options. To compensate for not being able to browse products physically, customers are spending much more time researching products. This is the opportunity for brands to introduce virtual try-on tools so customers can make an informed decision on their purchase. Make sure your site is updated with relevant keywords like “virtual try-on” and “virtual test drive.”

Test: They’re almost ready to make the purchase, so now it’s time to seal the deal with an off-line test. Spallarossa gives the example of trying on the items that were sent in the sample kit, and Justin Abrams gave the example of going to the mall for a contact-free test drive.

Purchase: If brands accommodate customers throughout the buyer journey, the purchase stage is an ecstatic experience for customers. Their initial purchasing fears were quelled by a seamless buying process, and they found the perfect product without hardly leaving the house.  

Learn to Spot Immediate Content Opportunities

As the buyer journey has experienced a dramatic digital shift, customers are spending more time researching and testing before making a purchase. Customers are asking questions about your product, solutions, and brand, and this is your opportunity to guide them towards the purchase.

When performing keyword research, look for high-value, long-tail keywords that get to the heart of what your customers are looking for. If your site doesn’t have an FAQ section yet, make sure to add one and include questions that address Coronavirus-related concerns. 

During the webinar, Justin Abrams remarked “more isn’t necessarily more,” and recommended optimizing content for quality over quantity. Publish useful how-to guides, tutorials, and informational content to capture your audience’s attention. Even if they’re not ready to buy right now, by providing valuable content you will be helping them prepare for making the purchase after COVID-19 passes. 

Prepare your Search Strategy for the Post-COVID World

Taking a quote from Search Engine Journal, “if you want consumers to choose you, they first must trust you.” By adding high-quality, helpful content to your website now, you will be gaining the trust of your customers for increased demand in a post-Coronavirus world.

While the long-lasting effects of COVID-19 remain unknown, we can use the SEO insights and strategies in our arsenal right now to pivot and prepare for further changes in customer journeys and content opportunities. 

 

This blog post was originally published on the Digital Summit blog.

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This article was originally written in 2018 and has been updated with new data for 2020.

When we originally wrote this article in 2018, the stats for global search engine market share looked far different than they do today in 2020.

As you can see, a lot can change in International SEO in 2 years. It’s easy to get overly-focused on Google when there are other search engines that capture market share around the world.

In this post, we’ll share the percentage of market penetration of individual search engines across the top 15 GDP countries.

Our Methodology:

A list of the 15 nations with the largest nominal GDPs in the world (as of 2020) was compiled. StatCounter was then utilized to calculate the percentage of search engine market penetration within those nations. The resulting percentages were rounded to the nearest tenth and the top 5-6 search engines were reported.

According to the web analytics service, StatCounter, its tracking code is installed on more than 2 million sites globally. “These sites cover various activities and geographic locations. Every month, we record billions of page views to these sites. For each page view, we analyze the browser/operating system/screen resolution used and we establish if the page view is from a mobile device. For our search engine stats, we analyze every page view referred by a search engine…No artificial weightings are used. We remove bot activity and make a small adjustment to our browser stats for prerendering in Google Chrome. Aside from those adjustments, we publish the data as we record it.” – StatCounter FAQ

 

We chose not to utilize ComScore for this exercise, which uses a different tracking methodology, relying more on user panels. ComScore data shows higher market shares for Bing/Yahoo! in the US.

 

Summary:

Within the United States Google continues to lead the pack, with a 16% increase since 2010. Bing and Yahoo make up the majority of the resulting percentages with a combined approximate 12% of market share. Although, compared to the other nations on this list, Google has a higher penetration in 9 other countries. In China, Google makes up a measly 1.5% of market share with search engine Baidu taking the lion’s share at 70%. In fact, Google places 4th after Shenma, Haosou and Sogou. Yahoo! continues to demonstrate a strong presence in Japan.

 

If Eastern Europe is a strong market for your brand, make sure to pay attention to Yandex, which is the search engine market leader in Russia, although Google has a 45% search market share as the 2nd highest. Nonetheless, with over 92% market share, Google dominates the search engine landscape in most of the top GDP nations in the world, including India, Germany, Mexico, Spain, Brazil, Italy and Australia.

 

When you’re thinking globally, Google is a great start. But, depending on your market, you might find that you need to pivot your SEO efforts into a different search engine altogether, such as Bing, Baidu, or Yandex, to capture the largest amount of traffic. Use the data below as a reference when determining your next global SEO strategy.

 

1. United States

Google: 88.24%

Bing: 6.45%

Yahoo!: 3.61%

DuckDuckGo: 1.33%

MSN: 0.06%

Other: 0.13%

 

2. China

Baidu: 68.66%

Shenma: 4.54%

Haosou: 2.44%

Sogou: 21.10%

Google: 1.56%

Other: 1.55%

 

3. Japan

Google: 74.99%

Yahoo!: 18.76%

Bing: 5.75%

Baidu: 0.21%

DuckDuckGo: 0.14%

Yandex: 0.04%

 

4. Germany

Google: 94.46%

Bing: 2.99%

Ecosia: 0.66%

Yahoo!: 0.59%

DuckDuckGo: 0.58%

T-Online: 0.25%

 

5. United Kingdom

Google: 93.02%

Bing: 4.41%

Yahoo!: 1.45%

DuckDuckGo: 0.58%

Ecosia: 0.35%

Yandex: 0.03%

 

6. France

Google: 92.35%

Bing: 3.66%

Yahoo!: 1.41%

Ecosia: 1.15%

DuckDuckGo: 0.35%

Qwant: 0.84%

 

7. India

Google: 98.75%

Bing: 0.74%

Yahoo!: 0.42%

DuckDuckGo: 0.08%

Yandex: 0.01%

 

8. Italy

Google: 98.73%

Bing: 0.74%

Yahoo!: 0.42%

DuckDuckGo: 0.08%

Yandex Ru: 0.01%

Ecosia: 0.01%

 

9. Brazil

Google: 97.39%

Bing: 1.3%

Yahoo!: 1.12%

DuckDuckGo: 0.10%

Ecosia: 0.04%

Yandex: 0.02%

 

10. Canada

Google: 92.21%

Bing: 4.54%

Yahoo!: 2.03%

DuckDuckGo: 0.86%

Ecosia: 0.13%

MSN: 0.08%

 

11. South Korea

Google: 76.56%

Naver: 17.51%

Bing: 2.03%

Yahoo!: 1.86%

Other: 1.13%

Baidu: 0.39%

 

12. Russia

Google: 51.68%

Yandex: 45.27%

Mail.ru: 2.09%

Bing: 0.37%

Yahoo!: 0.24%

DuckDuckGo: 0.22%

 

13. Spain

Google: 96.58%

Bing: 2.07%

Yahoo!: 0.80%

DuckDuckGo: 0.25%

Ecosia: 0.22%

Yandex: 0.03%

 

14. Australia

Google: 94.75%

Bing: 3.45%

Yahoo!: 0.78%

Baidu: 0.06%

DuckDuckGo: 0.63% 

Ecosia: 0.21%

 

15. Mexico

Google: 96.70%

Bing: 2.04%

Yahoo!: 0.88%

DuckDuckGo: 0.15%

MSN: 0.05%

Ecosia: 0.14%

 

Want more statistics? Check out 18 Eye-Opening SEO Statistics to Prove the Value of Organic Search.