Small Business Trends and Stats 2022

Entertainment

2,544

This means that over the past 4 years, most of the websites within our client list managed to expand their visitor base.

But interest in all things small business marketing appears to be growing over the years. Keyword stats indicate that small business owners try to embrace all the up-and-coming trends:

• Searches for digital marketing services surged by 1,500% (especially fast during the pandemic).
• Interest in creating short videos for small businesses grew by 420%.
• 600% more people were looking up free text message marketing in 2022 than in 2018.

2,593

“Small business is the backbone of our economy”—almost no US president has gone a term without reciting this phrase.

Veterinary

Category

Average monthly values

So, if you’re one of those 34,000 (monthly search volume) folks Googling “small business ideas”, the insights below can help you make a more informed decision.

Financial Services

This might imply that the social media audience spike of some small business categories can’t simply be tied to their advertising efforts. Or, they manage to pull off social media campaigns that bring a very targeted and relevant audience that stays and engages with their content. 

Are You Ready to Start a New Business?

8

19,497

In fact, in most cases, we’ve seen posting frequency decrease, and by significant margins:

• On Facebook, 60% of the categories we analyzed reduced the number of their posts by an average of 50%.
• On Twitter, these numbers are even higher: around 75% of the small business categories started publishing 65% (on average) fewer posts.

Small business categories with the biggest spikes in social media engagement

2,214

1896%

673

But what about searches around small business specifically?

If small business is the backbone of the US economy, the right marketing strategy is the backbone of your small business’ success. 

منبع

676%

5,984

Telecommunications

instagram

304%

440,364

2,175

2,957

Higher Education

Education Management

Gambling & Casinos

As you can see, the actual growth in the number of small businesses and interest in starting them has indeed increased over the years. So Google searches often pre-empt the actual leap into the world of entrepreneurship.

What Are the Hottest Small Business Types?

Armed with data we pulled from our clients’ sites (insights taken from various Semrush tools), we also managed to track some general success patterns. We analyzed everything from their traffic growth trends to organic and social media performance over time—all to see which small business categories manage to do better online.

Exploring searches around opening a business

In fact, searches surrounding the financial side of running a small business saw the biggest increase in interest over the past 4 years:

• “Small business stimulus” and “small business grants Ohio” keywords saw a 2,500% and 2,000% increase in searches, respectively. 
• Even such high-volume searches as “small business grants” saw triple-digit YoY growth.

Entertainment

medical courier

55,075

Vending machines appear to be gaining the biggest traction, as the category broke into the second spot of most-searched small businesses.

79%

Information Technology 

Food & Beverages

29

Although impressive, this is not the biggest jump to date.

1,449

1,360%

vending machine

1

603%

3,448

137%

2724%

Insurance

11

261.29%

127,338,8

Change

laundromat

Marketing & Advertising

While general interest in starting a small business is spiking, its distribution is not even as some businesses get more traction than others.

3,518

13%

Apparel & Fashion

Median number of organic keywords where domain ranks in top 10

52

The “Etsy, cleaning, boutique” triad is present—fully or partially—across each state’s top 3. There are some exceptions, though:

• In exactly half the states, coffee shops also make it into the top 3 most searched small business categories.

• Montana and Vermont searchers also consider delivery services as a potential undertaking.

What Are Americans Concerned About When Thinking of Opening a Small Business? 

28,364

Sites within the leisure and entertainment spheres have seen the biggest traffic surge. 

power washing

51,162

Building Materials

So, we’ve explored which small business site categories have the largest share of high-ranking organic keywords.

42

Queries related to “starting a boutique” have always had the largest share of all small business related searches, but the rest of the top three kept changing over time:

Media Production

The “marketing ideas for small business” keyword—the most searched term within the category—gets around 1,200 monthly searches. This is much lower than all the administrative and operations-related terms.

104.76%

189%

15

Change

1657%

37,994

As per our findings, as of 2022, Online Media accounts have the highest posting frequency on both Twitter and Facebook. However, this doesn’t seem to have given their audience growth a push.

0

301%

Growth 2019

2,327

Law & Government

Online Media

Online Media

147%

135.86%

37,622

1

2,145

So we used our keyword and more particularly search volume intel to explore some trends of interest within the realm of small business and:

• See whether Americans’ interest in small business ventures has seen some YoY shifts and whether it’s subject to any patterns;
• Understand which business types spike more curiosity;
• Explore any local (state-by-state) specifics.

appliance repair

If you are curious and impatient to launch a new small venture, we hope this study helped to assess the digital landscape of all things small business.

1,075

3,339

E-learning

16%

92,563

Average Twitter likes + replies + retweets 2022

43,525

Indeed, the US economy has always been known for its reliance on smaller enterprises:

sticker

2

Top 10 Fastest-Growing Small Business Site Categories (2017-2022)

Change

Average Twitter likes + replies + retweets 2018

314

17,212

365.42%

Food & Beverages

10,116

Half of all the small business related searches have to do with the financial side of things—from grants to loans, people research any help they can get.

12%

20

100,686

Keyword

73%

21%

tanning

17,600%

63420%

Publishing

3210%

5530%

28,606

1,540

Building Materials

41%

Entertainment

Building Materials

That’s why search volume stats can reveal what really matters to Americans when they are thinking of opening a small business.

7%

Financial Services

Keyword

Stats across regions, however, can vary a lot, so we took a more granular look at the most popular small business categories within each US state.

You may think that it’s all because organic strategies aren’t working so well on either Facebook or Twitter. 

247%

45,581

934

Music

But the market has space for everyone, only you have to know how to go about it.

1,239

12

6,627

1,839

Food & Beverages

218

38

Small Business Categories With the Biggest Facebook Activity Growth 

2

Real Estate

138%

Change

274

While it’s individual small businesses and their teams that are behind the successes, we can still track some category-specific patterns.

Small business categories with the biggest audience growth 

5652%

What do people do, though, when they want to open a new business?

Furniture

47%

3

48%

Information Technology & Services

Capitalizing on hobbies is also popular—starting an Etsy business looks attractive to almost one-fifth of all the searchers.

Average Facebook audience 2022

162.65%

69,237

Consumer Goods

2,214

9,379

Utilities

5,813

Consumer Goods

If we look at overall patterns across site categories, on average, small business domains we analyzed have the top organic rankings for approximately 8,000 keywords. 

Which Small Business Category Gets the Biggest Social Media Traction?

264,689

Twitter comes with similar patterns, only growth figures are more modest.

Change

Real Estate

-1%