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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

Census and Wikipedia

About the Author:Senior SEO Analyst at Red Olive Design. I started out developing sites and helping with SEO. While I am now solely focused on SEO services, I still love a little coding. I graduated from the University of Utah with a degree in Psychology, and go figure, I didn’t need it for my career. If you are interested in learning SEO, I recommend you study websites that currently rank well, view their source code, view their link profile, study how they structure their urls, content, and navigation. Spend less time trying to discover the latest gimmick or trick. You might also consider checking for SEO companies in your area that might offer training or internship programs.

Follow me on twitter at @redoliveryan