With 2024 well underway, we can look back on what’s happened and make our best guesses at what the future has in store for us.
The COVID-19 pandemic is mostly behind us and the AI revolution has begun. This is the year ChatGPT gained fame (and infamy), with many workers fearing AI will replace them.
If you have a website — whether you’re a business owner, blogger or course creator — it helps to understand the online landscape of 2024.
To keep up with consumer demand and competitive opportunities: First, build your awareness. This roundup delivers website statistics and facts to keep you up to date in 2024.
Website statistics on traffic and SEO
In April 2023, there were over 5.18 billion internet users — over 64% of the world’s population. With this vast number of people online, it should come as no surprise that 4.8 billion people (59.9% of the global population) have social media accounts.
Web traffic data is considered the second most important metric to determine whether content marketing efforts are successful.
In terms of importance, web traffic is beaten only by sales numbers.
If you own a business, you can capitalize on the online landscape in two main ways: Paid ads and SEO (search engine optimization).
In 2022, business owners were expected to spend up to $164.6 billion putting ads on search engines. That amount is expected to grow to $190.5 billion by 2024. Evidently, entrepreneurs recognize the value of online advertising.
SEO is also booming: 29% of surveyed marketers reported using a search-optimized company website or blog to attract and convert leads. Among marketers who already leverage SEO, 88% plan to maintain or increase their efforts next year.
Speaking of search engines, Google reigns supreme as the top choice (to no one’s surprise) in almost every country where it’s not banned. Google’s market share of search engine traffic is over 85%.
The ever-present Google search engine also holds the title of most visited website, with 83.9 billion visits in April 2023. Hence, it’s imperative to meet Google’s content standards if you’re considering an SEO strategy for your business.
Use Google Analytics to check up on your website’s SEO health. You’ll find useful statistics, such as your website’s bounce rate. Looking to up your SEO game? Check out our guide to the best SEO tools in 2024.
YouTube follows closely behind Google for most visits. It clocked 71 billion in November 2022. In late 2022, YouTube surpassed Netflix as the top streaming platform in the U.S.; the popularity of YouTube highlights the impact of video content.
Statistics about website usage
What are the nuts and bolts holding most websites together? Globally, WordPress comes out on top of every other option. The WordPress content management system powers over 43% of all websites.
How many websites are there?
Over 1.12 billion websites currently populate the World Wide Web.
Don’t let that number intimidate you: A whopping 82% of these websites are inactive. These inactive websites generate minimal to zero traffic and aren’t updated or maintained. That leaves just about 200 million websites that are actively maintained and visited.
Despite the number of inactive websites, the business of website creation is not going out of style. In fact: Every three seconds, a new website is launched.
If you’re creating an online platform for your business, consider using Bluehost’s website builder to easily put together a business website.
In the wake of a global pandemic, many brick-and-mortar businesses had to set up an online storefront or risk dying out. Among small businesses, 71% had a website by 2021. And the business owners that didn’t have a website? Well, 44% planned to make one that year.
In 2023, 28% of all business takes place online.
That percentage is even higher in some industries. By December 2021, almost 60% of B2B businesses in retail and entertainment had adopted an eCommerce business model.
How much does having a website increase business?
Globally, the average rate of conversion for websites is 3.68%. That means that for every 100 visitors, three or four will respond to a call to action (CTA), such as “subscribe now.”
With this number in mind, note that 43% of small business owners are looking to invest in their website’s performance in 2024. It takes careful, consistent effort to snag even those three or four potential customers online.
Website facts about design and development
Having a website is half the battle. To help your website’s visitors navigate from a landing page to checkout, you need great website design. Your website’s visual elements help shape your visitors’ first impressions, which are crucial to the success of any website.
Take a look at the following website facts about first impressions.
- The average website visitor spends just 54 seconds on a single page: It may seem like plenty of time to make an impression with your homepage, but consider the next point.
- A solid 42% of website visitors reported that they leave websites that aren’t functional enough for them, and 40% of users take accessibility into account. This illustrates the importance of responsive design — building a website with different browser capabilities and screen sizes in mind. So, make sure your website is user-friendly on all major devices.
- Half of internet users evaluate website design as they decide how they feel about a business. And 31% of online customers state that user experience should be a priority in website design.
What is the price of good design? The average cost for basic website design ranges from $2,000 to $9,000. As you’d expect, this figure varies depending on individual web designers and agencies. As with most things, you get what you pay for.
If you’re in need of web design services with outstanding value, request a consultation with the web design team at Bluehost.
Website content statistics
To help your online business stand out from a sea of competition, you’ll need to apply strategic digital marketing efforts.
Content marketing is still a popular way to increase brand visibility, grow an audience and nurture leads. A 2022 survey of content marketing professionals showed that almost 50% expected an increase in their content budget over the next year.
But you can’t just spend big without a formal plan and expect to see results. Concentrate your content marketing efforts carefully, like the best marketers do. According to a report by the Content Marketing Institute, 73% of respondents had a content marketing strategy.
But which type of content should you focus on?
According to a 2023 report by HubSpot, online marketers stated that video content generated the greatest return on investment out of all content formats. Video got 25% of votes, followed by images and blog posts at 12% and 9%, respectively.
What do people say about videos? Online consumers rated video content as the most helpful for making a purchase decision.
The aforementioned HubSpot report also revealed that 50% of surveyed marketers are creating and sharing video content, and 24% of them plan to invest more in video than in any other type of content. The use of video media for marketing is set to continue.
Keep the value of video in mind when planning a content strategy for your website.
Website security statistics
Being on the World Wide Web comes with risks, especially for people with business websites.
Fraud is a major concern in eCommerce. In a 2022 survey of online merchants, 43% of respondents reported they dealt with phishing, pharming or whaling fraud. In another study, 34% of respondents said they fell victim to “friendly fraud,” formally known as first-party misuse.
Almost 60% of eCommerce merchants reported a surge in online payment fraud in 2022, and 56% identified an increase in refund abuse. Card testing and identity theft were common, each impacting a third of online merchants surveyed.
This kind of cybercrime can be challenging to prevent, but companies are fighting back. In 2021, approximately $36.7 billion was spent globally on eCommerce fraud detection and prevention. Researchers predict that by 2027, such spending will reach $100 billion.
Website security is inevitably linked to data privacy. While there is a growing concern for data privacy on social media platforms such as TikTok, research shows that consumers are becoming more lax about protecting their data if they are promised a personalized experience and rewards.
Statista research indicates that almost 75% of online users would share their gender to get better service. And roughly 65% would share their birth dates and email.
But it makes sense to assume internet users draw the line when it comes to sharing photographs or their real-time location. That’s not exactly the case.
The promise of discounts or loyalty rewards resulted in a much higher willingness to share personal information and preferences.
Specifically, 93% of online users were likely to share their personal information for discounts and coupons, and 90% were willing to share their personal info for loyalty rewards.
If you’re a website owner, make sure your hosting provider places a great importance on security. For example: On many shared hosting plans, Bluehost offers free SSL certificates, domain privacy and malware scanning.
Mobile website statistics
It should come as no surprise that mobile usage is on a steady rise. In fact, many use a mobile browser as their primary browser. In November 2022, the most popular mobile browser was Google Chrome, with a market share of 66%.
Mobile devices (excluding tablets) account for almost 57% of webpage views globally, as of early 2023. Granted, North America still skews slightly towards desktops (53.12%) for now.
As you’d expect, a lot of eCommerce sales are conducted on mobile devices. In 2021, during the COVID-19 pandemic, mobile website shopping increased by 48%.
Shrewd business owners understand that and have moved accordingly. Among small businesses surveyed in 2021, 32% reported having a mobile app, and 42% planned to create one.
Mobile-first design and optimization are strategic tactics for increasing web traffic. In fact, 64% of SEO marketers stated that mobile optimization is an effective investment.
Among the top nine trends that marketers use in their 2024 strategies, mobile-friendly website design finished a close second place, gaining 32% of marketers’ votes. It follows just after short-form video content, which tops the ranking at 33% of all votes.
Website statistics on performance
We all know how frustrating a slowly loading website is. Sometimes, it’s enough to make us leave a website altogether and never go back. While this is a minor inconvenience for the casual internet user, slow load times can seriously hurt the bottom lines of online businesses.
In a 2022 study by Portent, researchers revealed that for eCommerce, a website that loads in one second has a 2.5 times higher conversion rate than a website that loads in five seconds. The research also revealed the ideal range of load times.
To maximize your conversion rate, your website should load in one to two seconds.
While this might seem like a tall order, there are many things you can do to improve the performance of your website.
For one, you can choose a web host that optimizes for performance, like Bluehost. Even on shared hosting plans, you’ll get resource protection to ensure that other websites on your shared server don’t limit your website’s speed.
You can also upgrade your shared hosting plan to VPS hosting or dedicated hosting. It will prevent your target audience from having a bad experience while browsing your website, and therefore saves you money in the long run.
Final thoughts: Top website statistics you need to know in 2024
This year has been an interesting one indeed. With a global pandemic behind us and an AI revolution playing out in real time, one fact remains constant: Having an online presence is vital for businesses.
Maybe you’re considering making a website to earn your slice of profit from the World Wide Web. Or maybe you’re established online, and growth is the next step. It all comes back to making your website the best it can be.
To maximize your chances of success, use the best tools, web host and content management system for your business goals. If you want a great eCommerce solution, launch your online store using WooCommerce for WordPress. Pair that with Bluehost, which has hosting tailored to WooCommerce and 24/7 eCommerce support every step of the way.
Statistics about websites: FAQs
The average bounce rate for eCommerce and retail websites is 20% to 45%. In contrast, the average bounce rate for blogs is 65% to 90%.
Consider this as well: Regarding traffic from emails, the average bounce rate is 35%. But for traffic from social media, the average bounce rate is 54%.
In conclusion, a good bounce rate is determined based on your competitors, industry, traffic sources and types of pages.
One of the best tools for traffic measurement is Google Analytics, which has features such as real-time activity reporting and user exploration. The basic version is free, but you can gain advanced features on a premium subscription.
Other useful tools include Ahrefs, Similarweb, Semrush and Sitechecker.
Before you splurge on high-level traffic measurement tools, check if your web host provides any. For example, Bluehost provides AWStats and Webalizer to help you monitor your visitor stats.
Google is the most popular search engine for desktop users, with a market share of approximately 85.53%. Its closest competitors are Bing and Yahoo; they lag far behind, with market shares of 8.23% and 2.44%, respectively.
Among mobile users, Google is even more dominant — its market share in April 2023 was 94.92%.
To gain the trust of your customers, make sure your website is up to scratch. This means paying attention to web design, security, website content and speed.
To improve the credibility of your web content, use trustworthy sources and fact-check any information you’re providing to customers.
Limit banner advertising and affiliate links on your website, as too many may arouse the suspicion of some website visitors.