When creating content for Chicago SEO, it is helpful to anticipate what your audience from Chicago will ask in the search engine for your product and or service serving Chicago.
Overall Traffic Sources from Chicago:
Organic Search: ~ 70%
Direct: ~ 18%
Other: ~ 8%
Social Media: ~ 4% *Typical Website Data from Chicago
For most established businesses in Chicago, the majority of web traffic comes from search results and direct visits from Chicago. Social media is not a significant source from Chicago.
To verify, research your competitors in Chicago; if they lack a substantial social media presence throughout Chicago and yet are ranking higher than you, social media is unlikely a factor in your rankings for Chicago.
What's the CPC Trajectory in Chicago?
Cost-Per-Click rates are skyrocketing throughout Chicago:
Cost Per Click:
Paid Ads: (Increasing Costs)
Organic Search Results: (No Cost) *Typical Adword Data around Chicago
The area of "Chicago" requires a relatively high competitive bid for online ads. Since the Cost-Per-Click (CPC) for Paid Ads keep increasing in Chicago, it remains more cost-effective to prioritize Organic SEO over Paid Ads for Chicago.
To verify, use Google's Keyword Planner to research Chicago as a keyword along with your product(s) or service(s).
Thus, Chicago is a good example of when focusing on organic SEO is more affordable than paid online ads.
Why do Mobile visitors from Chicago matter?
Website Visitors Worldwide Desktop vs. Mobile vs. Tablet
User Device:
Desktop
Mobile
Tablet
*Source: StatCounter GlobalStats
The majority of visitors from Chicago use a mobile device to access websites.
Therefore, consider optimizing your website for mobile devices to accommodate your Chicago visitors.
Make it mobile-friendly.
Mobile-friendly websites consist of web pages that are responsive to the Chicago visitors' phone screen size.
Also, the source-code is normally reduced to only use what is necessary on smaller screens.
By reducing the website's source-code and file sizes, it improves the load times in Chicago.
Thus, Mobile-friendly websites typically improve the Page Speed for your Chicago visitors.
Why Page Speed Matters for Chicago SEO?
When do Chicago visitors quickly leave (Bounce)?
Page Load Time:
Probability of Bounce:
1s to 3s
+32%
1s to 5s
+90%
1s to 6s
+106%
1s to 10s
+123%
*Source: thinkwithGoogle
A faster Page Speed correlates to a lower bounce rate from Chicago. A lower bounce rate is better for your Chicago SEO over time.
To make your website Mobile-friendly, use Google's SEO tools starting with PageSpeed Insights.
Since Google is the predominantly used search engine in Chicago, consider using Google's SEO tools such as PageSpeed Insights.
What is the Trajectory for Chicago SEO?
Is your website Mobile-Friendly for 2025 and beyond?
Desktop vs Mobile vs Tablet
Web Traffic Market Share Worldwide:
2011
2014
2017
2020
2023
100%
75%
50%
25%
0%
6000
6000
6000
6000
6000
6000
6000
6000
6000
6000
6000
6000
6000
6000
6000
User Device:
Desktop
Mobile
Tablet
*Source: StatCounter GlobalStats
For each passing year, more users from Chicago are using mobile devices for web browsing.
Is your website already Mobile-Friendly for your online visitors from Chicago?
To check, use Google's PageSpeed Insights and see if your scores are 90 or above.
PageSpeed Scoring for your visitors from Chicago
Interpreting the Scoring for Websites serving Chicago
Above is a typical example of scoring for Google PageSpeed Insights. The scores are assigned in the following four categories:
1. Performance
2. Accessibility
3. Best Practices
4. SEO
For any scores less than 100, the tool will inform you of ways to improve your score.
For each category, Google recommends achieving a Mobile score of 90 - 100 to ensure a user-friendly / mobile-friendly experience for your Chicago visitors.
To clarify, high or low scores do not necessarily reflect search engine rankings in Chicago. Instead, the scores correlate to index ability and bounce rates, which could affect rankings.
Website Add-ons for Chicago SEO
Self-Help tools to Promote Trust and Traffic
To improve bounce rates, certain seals or badges promote trust and can help your Chicago visitors stay on your site:
If applicable, you should check if your company is eligible for these free seals or badges. If so, they are easy to add on your website(s).
Where's the Audience beyond Chicago?
Identify your Geographic Keywords surrounding Chicago
The keyword "Chicago" is one of the top geographically targeted SEO keywords.
Due to this competition, Chicago SEO can be challenging to achieve, depending on the targeted industry in Chicago.
Therefore, consider expanding your reach beyond Chicago as well.
For local SEO outside of Chicago, identify and extract keywords from the region(s) that your business serves beyond Chicago.
If your business serves multiple regions surrounding Chicago, review the cities there that are most served neighboring Chicago.
Nevertheless, you should still limit and prioritize geographic keywords around Chicago to reduce the Bounce Rate.
SEO Vendors from Chicago
How to choose the right SEO vendors from Chicago?
The following should be factors in evaluating potential SEO vendors from Chicago:
Ability to rank high on Google for own keywords (ex. Chicago SEO)
