114 Search Engine Marketing Statistics 2026 Report: Trends + Growth

Planning to scale your coaching business? A good search strategy can help you with that. The right promos and campaigns can lead you to your dream clients faster. 

But with all the advice online, how do you know which tactics actually work? 

That’s where search engine marketing statistics come in. 

Hard figures help you make informed marketing decisions. They show you how other people fare, so you get an idea of the chances you have when you try out a strategy.

You don’t have to be an expert. Just recognize its importance and have a strategy to take advantage of free traffic sources. That’s what this article is all about.

This guide shares all the important SEM statistics and insights you need to come up with your own digital marketing plans. Plus, learn about how global search engines work and what they can do for your business.

Let’s talk numbers, search trends, and technical SEO statistics.

Key Search Engine Marketing Statistics (Quick Summary)

Need a quick peek at search engine marketing statistics? Here’s a snapshot of facts for reference, this 2025: 

1. Online presence: About 82% of Internet users aged 18-64 have used a search engine or web portal (Datareportal, 2023).
2. Market share: Google dominates the market with a share of 89.57% (StatCounter Global Stats, 2025).
3. Ad spend: Search advertising spending is projected to grow at over 8.3% CAGR by 2029 (Research and Markets, 2025).
4. AI for traffic: Video SEO and local SEO statistics for 2025 show AI in search boosts traffic by 75% (HubSpot, 2023).
5. Search users: Google handles more than 9.5 million searches per minute (Google, 2025). 
6. AI in search: AI Overviews appear in about 13% of Google searches (Semrush, 2025).
7. Zero-click results: 80% of users get results on the search page without clicking (Financial Times, 2025).
8. Impact on clicks: AI Overviews lessen clicks (New York Post, 2025).
9. Location-based search: More people do local search queries, increasing by 100% YoY (Google, 2022).
10. Voice-powered search: 20.5% of users do voice searches (Datareportal, 2024).

What Is Search Engine Marketing?

Search engine marketing (SEM) is a form of digital marketing that gets you traffic for your websites through search engine results pages. You use paid ads to show up in Google search results and help people find your coaching services. 

What this means for you is higher visibility and more leads. When potential clients look up keywords related to coaching, your niche, and offers, they can be easily directed to your pages.

Difference between SEO vs SEM vs SMM

When thinking about marketing strategies for your coaching business, you’ll come across SEO, SEM, and SMM. This bunch of letters is key to increasing your reach and showing up where your audience is. The only difference lies in how.

Here are the definitions of SEO, SEM, and SMM, and how they differ:

• SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is about getting free, organic traffic by ranking better in search results.
• SEM (Search Engine Marketing) is about paying for ads to show up quickly for coaching search terms.
• SMM (Social Media Marketing) is promoting content and offers through social media platforms like Meta or TikTok.

In short, SEO helps you rank naturally. SEM gives you instant visibility. SMM taps into social platforms for reach. 

Learn more about SEO marketing statistics and social media marketing statistics to guide your business plans.

Difference between search engine marketing vs SEO

Both search engine marketing statistics and SEO aim to drive traffic and clients. 

• SEO is for long-term visibility using organic search. It takes more time but builds sustainable traffic for your sites.
• SEM costs money per click but gives quick results. While you can drive visits with paid search, it still relies on what you actually have on your pages to get conversions.

A good strategy would be to invest in SEO while also running SEM campaigns so you can achieve both immediate and future goals.

Search Engine Marketing Statistics

When is the best time to get into SEM? The answer is NOW. 

Get into a data-driven approach to your coaching practice. Start your coaching business based on facts and proven stats about strategies that work.

Knowing the list of SEO statistics helps coaches prioritize. Seeing real numbers gives you confidence that SEM makes a difference.

Here are some SEM data and ranking statistics you can start with:

Search engine market share by country and globally

Here are global search engine market share numbers to take note of:

1. Global internet users: 5.56 billion people are using the internet, 67.9% of the global population (Statista, 2025).
2. Global market share: Google holds about 90% market share worldwide (StatCounter Global Stats, 2025). 
3. Second top search engine: Bing follows at 4% globally (StatCounter Global Stats, 2025).
4. Other key players: Aside from Google and Bing, other top search engines are Yandex, Yahoo!, DuckDuckGo, and Baidu (StatCounter Global Stats, 2025).
5. Not Google-dominated countries: Google is not a top search engine in South Korea, China and Russia (StatCounter Global Stats, 2025).
6. China market share: China’s preferred search engine is Baidu with 56.23% market share (StatCounter Global Stats, 2025).
7. Russia market share: Yandex holds 73.43% of the market share in Russia(StatCounter Global Stats, 2025).
8. US market share: Google has the biggest search market share in the US at 86.06%, followed by Bing at 7.67% (StatCounter Global Stats, 2025).
9. US internet users: There are about 322 million internet users in the US (Statista, 2025).
10. South Korea market share: Naver has a 51.79% market share, while Google only has 40.71%  (StatCounter Global Stats, 2025).
11. Referral traffic: In the US, Google’s referral traffic share is 63.4 % (MOZ and SparkToro, 2024).
12. Mobile search: Google has 93% market share for mobile marketing and searches, followed by Yandex at 2% (StatCounter Global Stats, 2025).

14 Search engine marketing facts

Here are helpful local SEO stats and marketing statistics you need to know:

Facts about the relevance of search in the SEO industry:

Will investing in a SEM and SEO campaign really matter? If you’re looking for an audience, this is your playground. Here are some stats showing the growing need for search:

1. Query volume: There are over 5 trillion searches done every year on Google (Google, 2025).
2. Frequency of searching: An estimate of 9.5 million Google searches happens per minute (Google, 2025).
3. Location-based search: Local intent searches on Google Maps for “shopping near me” increased by 100%+ year over year worldwide (Google, 2022).
4. Voice-powered search: 20.5% of people use voice search around the world (Datareportal, 2024).
5. Device: There are about 5.78 billion unique mobile phone users around the world (Datareportal, 2025). 

Facts about SEO and SEM ads:

The numbers look good for SEO and SEM with market growth and continued ad spending. It shows that people trust paid search campaigns and the results they deliver.

6. SEO market: The SEO industry statistics show the global SEO market is projected to grow to $143.9 billion by 2030 (Research and Markets, 2025).
7. Paid search spend: Search ad spend is expected to reach $483.5B by 2029 (Exploding Topics, 2025).
8. Google ad revenue: Google earned about $84.74 billion by Q2 2024, with $64.62 billion coming from ads alone (Alphabet, 2024).
9. Bing ad revenue: Bing’s ad revenue grew by 21% at the end of its fiscal year (Microsoft, 2025). 

Facts about client search habits:

If you’re going to use SEM for your coaching business, it’s good to know what kind of online experiences clients expect. Even before they book a call, make sure you’re already building rapport.

10. Branded search: About 44% of Google searches are branded (SparkToro, 2024). 
11. Personalized experiences: More than 70% of clients expect personalized interactions from companies. 76% feel frustrated when this doesn’t happen (McKinsey & Company, 2021).
12. Verification: 74% of users check sites for reviews before making decisions (Brightlocal, 2025).
13. Bad reviews: 94% of consumers avoid a business after reading a bad review (ReviewTrackers, 2025).
14. Conversion rate: The median Google Ads conversion rate across all industries is 3.42% (Databox, 2023).

Search Engine Marketing Examples

SEM is an interesting field to explore. With the right moves and tools, you can realize your dreams of reach, traffic and client conversions. It also gives you the opportunity to creatively test and maximize the results you get.

Let’s explore how SEM shows up in real campaigns, strategies, and techniques to help coaching brands stand out.

Search engine campaign case studies

Here’s how other businesses did their SEM strategies and the results they got: 

Case study #1: Clinical Partners

Know your audience and use SEM to be where they are in their customer journey. 

• Problem: Capture audiences with medical queries to complete their ADHD assessments
• Data: 75% of users have asked a medical question on Google, looking for information and advice (SEO Works, 2025).
• Solution: Separate campaigns for potential leads who are just inquiring and are further along their journey
• Results: Conversion rate of 6.15% with 13,000 clicks and 800 conversions (SEO Works, 2025).

The average conversion rate for search ads is 4-6%, showing specific targeting works (Databox, 2025).

Case study #2: EMILY

Google’s Shopping ads help you show up and secure purchases. 

• Problem: Show off branded merch and gain new member sign-ups for their fitness franchising
• Data: Google Shopping ads have a higher conversion rate (+30%) vs. text ads (AMA, 2025).
• Solution: Creating Google Shopping Ads by product type and by franchise location
• Results: 2.7x increase in product-related leads and 60% lower cost-per-click vs. standard display ads (ERM Group, 2025). 

Shopping ads drive engagements, making up 85% of clicks on all Google ad campaigns (WifiTalents, 2025).

Case study #3: E-Commerce company

An American E-Commerce business wants to triple its conversions while maintaining a target ROAS. 

• Problem: Extensive product line, while loose audience segments, limited ways to scale campaigns, and high ROAS targets (300%)
• Data: PMax can help manage costs while maintaining conversions. Average Cost Per Click (CPC) is at $0.68, lower than Google Search’s $0.85 (GROAS AI, 2025).
• Solution: Using Performance Max campaigns, audience segmentation, and creative optimization
• Results: 3x conversions, reduced costs by 4-6x, exceeded 300% ROAS target (Play Media, 2023).

PMAX is effective in reaching ROAS targets with a typical target completion rates of 95-116% (Smarter Ecommerce, 2025).

Case study #4: Automotive comparison site

Keywords dictate where and when you show up. Understanding which keywords to bid for makes a difference.

• Problem: A highly competitive market makes it hard to get leads without spending a big marketing budget
• Data: Long-tail keywords that are 10-15 words long get 1.76x more clicks than single-word queries (Backlinko, 2025).
• Solution: Using a range of Google campaigns, changing CTA, and having monthly reviews to determine long-tail keywords that are trending but less competitive
• Results: Higher click-through rate of 12.5% and an 8% conversion rate for 35,000 conversions (SEO Works, 2025). 

These results match other long-tail keyword stats:

• They have a higher average conversion rate of 36%, better than the conversion rate of the highest-performing landing pages with 11.45% (Embryo, 2025).
• Long-tail keywords make up 70% of all search queries, and 92% of all keywords typed into search engines are long-tail in nature (Singlegrain, 2025).
• If you want to be targeted for voice search, 82% of voice searches use long-tail keywords (Embryo, 2025).

Search engine strategies

Make the most out of search trends and technologies. Discover how to improve SEM and SEO strategies to increase paid and organic search results with important SEO statistics and strategies.

Here are strategies you can apply to improve SEO performance:

1. Test broad match keywords: Cast a wider net to reach more people. Broad match keywords can drive a 186% increase in impressions and 29% more clicks (GrowthIQ Digital, 2024).
2. Use AI-powered campaigns: Smart bidding with the help of AI showed a 30% improved ROI, 20% higher CTR, and 25-45% lower costs (SEO Sandwich, 2025). You don’t have to watch your bids when machine learning adjusts for you constantly.
3. Perform A/B testing: Find out what actually makes people click, A or B. 58% of companies conduct such experiments for conversion rate optimization (Invesp, 2025).
4. Explore Demand Gen: Engage leads with photos, videos, and other dynamic formats. This campaign gets 40% more engagements than standard text ads (Faber Cre8tive, 2025).

Search engine marketing techniques

Improving your ad campaigns and content depends on what marketing techniques you’ll use. Here are tactics you can use to promote your services based on hard facts:

Marketing technique #1: Optimize for mobile

Mobile SEO statistics show just how much people search on their phones. Whether it’s SEO or SEM, make sure your strategies work for mobile.

• 64.35% of web traffic comes from mobile (SOAX, 2025).
• 73.16% of all Google visitors come from mobile accounts (Semrush, 2025).
• 27% of voice searching is done with mobile devices (Global Web Index, 2025).
• Mobile holds 53.59% of the entire search engine market share globally (StatCounter Global Stats, 2025).

Marketing technique #2: Think in terms of voice search

With the rising popularity of voice search, search is now more conversational. People use voice assistants daily to find information hands-free.

• Over 58% of clients search for local businesses with voice search (DemandSage, 2024).
• Just in the US, 153.5 million people are projected to use voice assistants like Siri (Statista, 2025).
• Voice search results load 52% faster than the average load time of pages, making it a quicker option to get answers (Backlinko, 2025).
• 40.7% of all voice search answers come from a Feature Snippet (Backlinko, 2025).
• 70.4% of voice search result pages are HTTPS websites (Backlinko, 2025).
• Voice search results have an average of 29 words only (Backlinko, 2025).
• 75% of voice search results are from one of the top 3 ranking pages on desktop for a query (Backlinko, 2025).

Marketing technique #3: Use video content

Video SEO statistics show that videos affect how people see and engage with you. Improve your site’s SEO when you include videos and other media. 

• 89% of businesses use video for marketing, with 95% believing they are a key to their strategies (Wyzowl, 2025).
• 41% of marketers saw that videos help customers understand their product or service, and 33% say videos bring in more leads (HubSpot, 2023).
• 82% of marketers say videos increase website traffic (Wyzowl, 2025).
• 21% of marketers claim short-form videos get the highest ROI for businesses (HubSpot, 2025).
• Video content has a 41% higher CTR than text-only pages (SagaPixel, 2025).
• Including videos on landing pages can increase conversion rates by up to 86% (HubSpot, 2023).
• Websites with video content have an average conversion rate of 4.8% vs. those without at 2.9% (Brightcove, 2025).
• The average time on pages with videos is at 6 minutes vs. non-video pages at 3 minutes (Wistia, 2022).

Marketing technique #4: Drive local conversions

With “near me” searches increasing, tap audiences that are around you. Market yourself as a local coach and find clients within your community. 

• 46% of Google queries have local intent. That’s roughly 3.2 billion daily queries (SEO design in Chicago, 2025). 
• About 28% of local searches end in a purchase (SEO design in Chicago, 2025).
• 50% of users visit a store within the day of their local search (DemandSage, 2024).
• 8 out of 10 US customers search for local businesses online at least once a week (SOCi, 2025).
• 72% of people use Google to find local businesses (SEO Profy, 2025).
• 42% of customers read online reviews when looking for local businesses (Brightlocal, 2025).
• 21% of US consumers use local searches to find businesses daily, with 32% doing so multiple times in a week (Statista, 2025).

Marketing technique #5: Professional business profile

Clients look for coaches they can trust. Show people that you are a respectable entity with a strong business profile.

• 70% of people are more likely to visit a business with a complete Google Business Profile (Google).
• Clients see companies as 2.7x more reputable if they have a complete Business Profile on Google Maps and Search (Google).
• Verified Google Business profile gets an average of 66 direction requests per month (Birdeye, 2025).
• 24% of verified businesses get more than 50 calls monthly (Birdeye, 2025).

Marketing technique #6: Links matter

Should you build links or bother with link authority and backlinks? The answer is yes. Make it easy for you to appear on search engines. 

• 89% of link builders believe no-follow links impact rankings (AuthorityHackers, 2024). 
• URLs with terms related to a keyword have a 45% higher CTR than those without a relevant keyword (Backlinko, 2025).
• Top Google pages have 3.8x more backlinks than lower-ranked ones (Backlinko, 2025).
• 96% of Google’s top 10 sites have more than 1,000 links from unique domains (SearchEngineLand, 2025). 

Why Search Engine Marketing Is Important

Here are some reasons SEM is crucial for coaches, backed with stats:

1. Starting the customer journey: 68% of online activities start with a search engine. (DemandSage, 2025).
2. High intent, high return: You can reach people who’re actively looking for coaching services. Businesses earn $2 for every dollar spent on Google Ads (Wordstream, 2025). 
3. Better brand awareness: Paid search ads increase impressions and brand awareness by 80% even if users don’t click (Google Study, 2024).
4. Leads to brand discovery: 32.8% discover new brands via search engines (Datareportal, 2025).
5. Cost-efficient: You only get charged when someone pays for your ad. SEM can cost 50% less than traditional advertising (Wordstream, 2025).
6. Great for local visibility: SEM helps you find clients locally. Over 75% of “near me” searchers visit a local store within 24 hours (Sampark Infoways, 2021).
7. Measurable results: Real-time tracking of metrics means you can adjust your marketing strategies immediately. This caused a 30% jump in organic traffic and 40% in conversions (Buzzboard, 2024).
8. Flexible ad formats available: You can adapt formats to your coaching niche and audience. Text ads get the most clicks at 49%, followed by Shopping ads at 31% and video ads at 16% (Digital Third Coast, 2025).
9. Audience targeting: You can target specific audiences by keywords, location, demographics, and behavior. Ads with behavioral targeting increased engagement by 50% compared to generic ads (Cropink, 2025).
10. Instant visibility: Clients can easily find your listing at the top as a paid search. Top searches get 7% more clicks and a CTR of over 27% compared to second and lower search results (Asset Digital Communications, 2025). 
11. Adopting early: Getting into AI trends in SEM now means you learn new standards first (NoGood: Growth Marketing Agency, 2025).
12. Leads to purchases: 65% of people click on ads when they’re ready to purchase (Wordstream, 2025).

Search engine marketing advantages and disadvantages

Want to know if SEM is for you? Before you jump in, get clear on its pros and cons. Check out this list:

Advantages:

1. Quick and scalable results: Build and launch campaigns with just a few clicks. Test and improve ads in weeks, not years.
2. Complete control over the budget: Spend strategically on ads. Dictate your total budget and even bids. 
3. Good for small businesses: Get yourself noticed even if you’re not a big brand. Show up on search with quality ads and copies.
4. Works with SEO: SEM + SEO = sustained traffic. Grow on both fronts.
5. Data-driven decisions: Learn from your SEM metrics, and refine your strategies and offers quickly.

Disadvantages:

1. Financial investment: It can be costly when you’re starting out, until you optimize your SEO ROI.
2. Needs ongoing optimization: You need someone to constantly test and improve (e.g., keywords, assets, bidding strategy) to get the most out of your campaigns.
3. Needs training: It can be intimidating to jump in right away. You’d need to learn about different marketing channels so you can use them easily.
4. Always changing: Shifts in the landscape make new rules every time. For example, AI shifts have already disrupted old SEM patterns.
5. Too much reliance limits growth: If you depend on ads only to drive traffic, you’re not building towards your future.

Dive into digital marketing further to explore its other areas. Check out digital marketing industry statistics to get you started.

Why search engine is important

A search engine is an online system that helps users find information on the internet. It crawls through web pages, indexes them in a large database, and then ranks them based on search intent relevance.

Search engines are the reason you can access anything online. They’re why your coaching clients can find you even if they’re on the other side of the globe. 

Here are some reasons search engines matter, with organic search traffic stats to back them up:

1. Helps people find information: They are the starting point of 93% of online queries (Zipdo, 2025). People use them to find answers, products, services, and solutions
2. Reaches a large number of users: It helps get information across to a big audience fast. Just on Google, people make 13.6 billion searches each day (Winning SERP, 2025). 
3. Dictate what’s relevant or not: It sorts data based on what searchers really need. Your goal is to appear on the first page because 75% of users never click past it (Zipdo, 2025).
4. Begins the customer journey: 73% of all purchase decisions start with a Google search in the US (Amazio Blog, 2025).

What Are Search Engines Examples?

Search engines help you get found. Here are six common ones:

1. Google: Most dominant search engine globally. Currently has the largest ad reach for SEM.
2. Bing: Growing market shares and with lower ad costs.
3. Yandex: Most popular in Russia and nearby regions. 
4. Yahoo!: Despite its decline, it still holds some shares in the market.
5. DuckDuckGo: Search engine that’s privacy-first. An alternative that’s growing slowly.
6. Baidu: Widely used in China. Can be relevant to you if your audience includes Mandarin-speaking clients.

Why Google search engine is the best

Here are some reasons why Google stands out:

1. Many users globally: With about 90% of the market share, Google has 4.77 billion people (DemandSage, 2025).
2. Strong standing in the US: Google’s market share is around 90% in the US (SQ Magazine, 2025).
3. Greatly used: People make over 5.9 million Google searches a minute (Winning SERP, 2025).
4. Used by businesses: 80% of businesses around the world use Google Ads (GrabOn, 2025).
5. Has shopping ad features: Google Shopping Ads capture 76.4% of US retail search ad spend and 85.3% of Google Ads clicks (DemandSage, 2025).
6. Gemini AI gives value: Google’s Gemini-powered AI overview boosts impressions by 49% and revenue by 12% (The Wall Street Journal, 2025).
7. Well-programmed algorithm: Google uses over 200 factors in its algorithm for ranking websites (Backlinko, 2025).
8. Prioritizes user experience: High-quality content, page experience, and links ranked as the top three ranking factors of Google’s search results (Search Engine Journal, 2023).
9. Good for brand discovery: More than 50% of customers use Google to discover or find a new brand (Think with Google).
10. Proven track record: 63% of people have clicked on a Google ad (Global Search Network, 2025). 

Which search engine is the best and why? 

Google is the best option if you’re looking at reach, features, and integration. Alternatives like Bing with cheaper advertising costs and less competition can also be an option. 

Your choice depends on your coaching goals and where your audiences are. Set your own success metrics. From there, get to know your dream clients and their customer journey online. The key is being present where they are, so you can drive them to find you.

Future of Search Engine Marketing

As the way people search evolves, so does SEM. Expect growth in AI and SEO usage as businesses embrace data-driven strategies.

The following search statistics will help you understand upcoming changes in algorithms and automation:

1. Using AI tools for marketing: 37.5% of businesses use AI for keyword research (AuthorityHacker, 2025). Meanwhile, 67% of small businesses use AI for content and SEO (Semrush, 2025).
2. Automations: 75% of marketers use AI tools to be more efficient in doing manual tasks like meta-tag optimization (Hubspot, 2025).
3. Increased ad spending: Global search ad spending is expected to reach around $261B by 2028 (Statista, 2024).
4. AI and news traffic: ChatGPT news queries have surged 212% in the past 18 months (Similar Web, 2025).
5. AI referrals: ChatGPT referrals to publishers skyrocketed 25x, with Reuters and NY Post topping the list
6. AI in search: Google answers appear via AI Overviews in 13% of searches (Semrush, 2025).
7. Increasing zero-click search results: People get the answers they need from the search results page themselves. Up to 80% of users rely on zero-click search results for at least 40% of the queries (Financial Times, 2025).
8. Impact on clicks: AI Overviews reduce click traffic, causing huge zero-click volume (New York Post, 2025).
9. Stopping traffic: Google Zero increases zero-click searches from 56% to 69% (New York Post, 2025).
10. Decreasing ad market share: Predictions show that Google’s U.S. search ad market share is likely to dip below 50% in 2025 onwards (The Wall Street Journal, 2025).

How to Use Search Engine Marketing Statistics for Growth

Ready to use SEM data to your advantage? Know how you can leverage these numbers when starting your coaching business.

Here’s how a list of SEO statistics and SEM data can give you an edge in making smarter, data-based marketing decisions:

1. Replicate wins: Review the stats and choose which platforms to use based on the numbers.
2. Consider your reach: Higher market share means more audiences present on those search engines.
3. Calculate your budget: You can use growth trends and benchmarks on costs per action to identify a budget that gets you results.
4. Use AI tools with proven value: Explore AI-focused campaigns like Performance Max and Demand Generation that have already worked for others.
5. Optimize based on analytics: Evaluate your own results and tweak campaigns based on what you find.

Leverage other statistical data on affiliate marketing, content marketing and email marketing to round out your strategies.

How search engine marketing works

SEM works like an auction. You bid on search terms that prospective clients use. Your ad then shows up when they search and pays when they click.

With this visibility, they will hopefully get to your coaching landing page.

As time goes on, you can refine your strategy (e.g., keywords, match types, assets) to get the best results. You can also use AI to optimize bidding, copies, and targeting so you can focus on your offer and messaging.

Knowledge Is Power

Search engine marketing statistics buff up your decision-making. You’re not only marketing on a whim. You have the data to back up your actions. 

Smart and strategic. That’s what builds a successful business.

Continue down the path of strong business decisions by learning how to create a Magic Pill offer that taps into what clients really need and get enough quality leads with your Lead Generation Machine.

The result? A highly scalable, highly profitable business. 

Be in the know and create the business of your dreams. No more guesswork. Just a proven system that’s helped hundreds of other coaches.

Grab the 3-Step Blueprint and Become a Highly-Paid Coach.