Over 50% of Local Business Websites Receive Less Than 500 Visits Per Month via @MattGSouthern
A study of Google Analytics for local businesses finds that their websites attract an average of 414 monthly users, with 50% of traffic coming from organic search.
BrightLocal analyzed Google Analytics data from over 11,000 websites to determine benchmarks for local business websites across different industries.
Here’s a look at some key findings from the study.
Average Number of Visitors Per Month
On the lower end of the spectrum – 13% of local businesses receive fewer than 100 visitors to their sites each month, while 55% receive fewer than 500. On the higher end, 20% of businesses receive more than 1500 monthly visitors to their site, and 15% receive over 2500 visitors.
Those numbers vary across countries and industries. Industries with the most website visitors include car dealerships, hotels, restaurants, entertainment, and local stores. It may be disappointing to learn that websites in the marketing industry are among the least visited each month.
“Websites for businesses focusing on cleaning, marketing, and alternative therapies receive the lowest number of visitors each month. This could be attributed to a lower volume of need (more people will be looking for a bar than a cleaner on a regular basis!), with many businesses receiving low volumes of users, and the most successful bringing up the average from the other end.”
Traffic Sources
Local business websites receive 50% of their traffic from organic search, with 37% coming from direct visits. The average local business receives no email, paid, or display sessions each month. Less than 5% of traffic to local business websites comes from social media.
Again, these numbers vary by industry, with some industries receiving a greater share of their traffic coming from organic search compared to others.
Websites in the medical, education, real estate, and hotel industries have the highest proportion of traffic coming from organic. The marketing industry is at the lower end of the scale in this area as well, though BrightLocal suggests that may be because marketers are more familiar with other channels.
“At the other end of the scale, marketing businesses receive just 29% of traffic from organic sources. While this may seem shocking at first glance, it’s likely to be because marketers are more familiar with the other channels, and have higher usage of these – thus pushing down the proportion allocated to organic.”
Other Interesting Findings
Here’s a rundown of other interesting pieces of data from the study:
- The average local business’s website receives 2.17 pages per session.
- Mobile-only visitors visit an average of just 1.88 pages per session.
- 54% of websites don’t have goals set up in Google Analytics.
- Local businesses receive an average of 1,099 pageviews per month.
- The average session on a local business’s website is 96 seconds.
- The average bounce rate for local businesses is 60.23%.
- Websites in the marketing industry have the highest bounce rate.
See the full study here.
