How long is the average Google search?
When some business owners think about search engine optimization (SEO), they want to focus on singular keywords. They have narrowed things down to one term that they think describes the core of their business. Maybe they sell “guitars” or they help people plan “vacations” or they offer “garbage” pick-up services. The specific business can differ dramatically from one case to the next, but the business owner is still focused on just one keyword: guitars, vacations or garbage, in the hypothetical example above.
But is this actually how people are going to use Google when searching for those products or services? Probably not. The average person who is looking to buy a guitar doesn’t just type the word “guitars” into Google, and the same is true with a person looking for guitar lessons. They’re going to use more words to get more specific search results. What does the average look like?
3 to 4 words
Some studies have considered this and they found that mobile users were most likely to use three or four words. This was demonstrated in 39.9% of cases using mobile devices. The same general trend holds true for desktop searches, at 38.2%.
Three or four words are useful to a consumer because it helps them to refine their search and be a bit more specific. They may be looking for “restaurants near me” or they could be searching for “affordable guitar lessons.” Either way, by using modifiers, they are more likely to get search results that will actually be beneficial to them.
How often do people use long searches?
The study in question examined keyword strings all the way up to 11 or more words. It did find that this was relatively uncommon. It only happens in 1.5% of instances on mobile devices and in 3.5% of desktop searches.
Part of the reason for this is that people running long searches are usually looking for very specific information. They may be copying and pasting an entire quote or a section of text into Google. This isn’t a very common way to run a search and it won’t help a business get organic web traffic because the user has such a singular focus and a specific goal.
Where should your focus be?
It can still be beneficial to optimize for one or two keywords. That was the second largest category in the study, at 31% for mobile devices and 31.6% for desktop searches. But it’s important to remember that it’s more likely that users will type in three to four words, and it’s very unlikely they will type in long keyword strings. By maintaining this mindset while determining what keywords to use, you can get the best results from your SEO efforts. If you’d like to learn more about how this works, just get in touch with us at Content Customs.
