January 17, 2012
This article shows the number of Google search results for the search “intitle:[state] seo,” per each person, in each state. Below the graphic you’ll find the individual numbers showing how many results there are per state (without any population size adjustments). The purpose of this information is to give you an idea of how many locally targeted SEO pages, companies, and search results there are compared to the number of people in your state.
Example
Search: intitle:Utah SEO
Number of Results: 1,970,000
Population: 2,763,885
So for Utah, there are .71 Google results (that have “Utah” and “SEO” in the title tag) per person. So there are more people in Utah than results targeting “Utah SEO.” For New Mexico, it appears there are about 8x more results targeting New Mexico SEO than there are people in the state. The “New Mexico” outlier could be explained by the potential for a large number of sites with title tags that are actually targeting just “Mexico” + “SEO” and perhaps “New” was being used in a different part of the page or title tag so it was flagged and added to the results.
Report Data
This is not a scientific report, as there are likely caveats to this method as some companies have more than 1 page with their state and SEO in the title tag. But you should still consider these potential duplicate pages from a single company as competition, as every page is competing for a top 10 spot in the search results. Another thing to keep in mind is that while some states may have fewer SEO pages per person compared to other states, it is not saying it would be more or less difficult in these states to rank top 10 for local SEO phrases. This report simply shows the number of Google results for the search: “intitle:[state] seo” per person in each state as of 01/17/12 based on 2010 Census data.
| State | Population – Census 2010 | Google page Results for “intitle:state seo” | # of Results per person in state |
| alabama | 4,779,736 | 2,040,000 | 0.43 |
| alaska | 710,231 | 1,370,000 | 1.93 |
| arizona | 6,392,017 | 2,120,000 | 0.33 |
| arkansas | 2,915,918 | 1,250,000 | 0.43 |
| california | 37,253,956 | 14,700,000 | 0.39 |
| colorado | 5,029,196 | 2,750,000 | 0.55 |
| connecticut | 3,574,097 | 1,110,000 | 0.31 |
| delaware | 897,934 | 692,000 | 0.77 |
| florida | 18,801,310 | 8,850,000 | 0.47 |
| georgia | 9,687,653 | 3,180,000 | 0.33 |
| hawaii | 1,360,301 | 1,770,000 | 1.30 |
| idaho | 1,567,582 | 983,000 | 0.63 |
| illinois | 12,830,632 | 5,380,000 | 0.42 |
| indiana | 6,483,802 | 1,900,000 | 0.29 |
| iowa | 3,046,355 | 1,510,000 | 0.50 |
| kansas | 2,853,118 | 1,890,000 | 0.66 |
| kentucky | 4,339,367 | 1,360,000 | 0.31 |
| louisiana | 4,533,372 | 1,100,000 | 0.24 |
| maine | 1,328,361 | 1,480,000 | 1.11 |
| maryland | 5,773,552 | 2,120,000 | 0.37 |
| massachusetts | 6,547,629 | 2,430,000 | 0.37 |
| michigan | 9,883,640 | 3,980,000 | 0.40 |
| minnesota | 5,303,925 | 2,580,000 | 0.49 |
| mississippi | 2,967,297 | 857,000 | 0.29 |
| missouri | 5,988,927 | 1,790,000 | 0.30 |
| montana | 989,415 | 1,570,000 | 1.59 |
| nebraska | 1,826,341 | 1,030,000 | 0.56 |
| nevada | 2,700,551 | 1,190,000 | 0.44 |
| new hampshire | 1,316,470 | 267,000 | 0.20 |
| new jersey | 8,791,894 | 27,600,000 | 3.14 |
| new mexico | 2,059,179 | 16,400,000 | 7.96 |
| new york | 19,378,102 | 41,800,000 | 2.16 |
| north carolina | 9,535,483 | 4,780,000 | 0.50 |
| north dakota | 672,591 | 97,900 | 0.15 |
| ohio | 11,536,504 | 4,360,000 | 0.38 |
| oklahoma | 3,751,351 | 1,730,000 | 0.46 |
| oregon | 3,831,074 | 2,050,000 | 0.54 |
| pennsylvania | 12,702,379 | 2,700,000 | 0.21 |
| rhode island | 1,052,567 | 38,800 | 0.04 |
| south carolina | 4,625,364 | 3,470,000 | 0.75 |
| south dakota | 814,180 | 93,300 | 0.11 |
| tennessee | 6,346,105 | 1,420,000 | 0.22 |
| texas | 25,145,561 | 11,800,000 | 0.47 |
| utah | 2,763,885 | 1,970,000 | 0.71 |
| vermont | 625,741 | 677,000 | 1.08 |
| virginia | 8,001,024 | 3,640,000 | 0.45 |
| washington | 6,724,540 | 7,190,000 | 1.07 |
| west virginia | 1,852,994 | 2,940,000 | 1.59 |
| wisconsin | 5,686,986 | 1,610,000 | 0.28 |
| wyoming | 563,626 | 620,000 | 1.10 |
Population data sources
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