Organic search experienced its most impressive visit growth in more than 2 years according to Merkle’s Digital Marketing Report for Q4 2017. The total number of site visits gained through organic search increased by more than 6% in the last quarter of 2017.
Boost in organic mobile search
When you specifically focus on mobile search, it witnessed an even higher annual growth rate of 15%. Google dominated the mobile search market, at least within the US. Mobile accounted for 56% of all site visits in Q4 of Google which was far beyond those of Google’s competitors. Google drew 96% of all site visits through mobile organic search in Q4 of 2017. It generated 42% of organic site visits from Bing and 18% through Yahoo.
Growth of organic fast isn’t as fast through other channels
All organic search visits through Google were more than 8% through 2017 and comprised 92% of organic search visits in Q4 OF 2017. During this time period, paid search clicks dropped from 19% year over year to 8%.
Inspite of the growth in organic search in the last quarter of 2017, there was a decline in the total share of site visits created through organic search. Merkle stated that email, social and display advertising offered more growth in Q4.
Organic search is still ahead of social media
The share of site visits produced via organic search was 24% in Q4 of 2017, down by 2% from last year. However, it is still far ahead of site visits which are generated through social media. Social media platforms created only 3.3% of all site visits in Q4 of 2017.
