Keyword Search Volume measures the number of people searching for a specific keyword or phrase over a set time. It is an invaluable tool for search engine optimisation (SEO).
When building a new website, drawing more traffic to your site, or creating a marketing campaign, it is essential to consider keyword search volume.
Let’s take a closer look at how you can use keyword search volume to improve your SEO.
Who uses Keyword Search Volume?
SEO marketers will use keyword search volume to search the popularity and competitiveness of a keyword. They can use the data to inform their strategy for the best keywords to drive traffic to a website.
Research suggests that search engines drive 93% of online traffic. A marketing professional aims to ensure they guide those searchers in the right direction.
How Do Keywords Work?
It is more complicated than using appropriate keywords, and expecting a page to rank high as the quality of the content is just as important. However, keywords give Googlebot and other search engine crawlers information about the webpage.
This information allows the crawlers to index the page in the search engine database. If a page is indexed correctly, the search engine will show the page in a user’s search results.
You can see that keywords are vital for securing excellent SEO and signposting your potential audience to your pages.
How do I know if a keyword is good?
There isn’t one easy answer to this question as it is all relative, but a few metrics are helpful to know.
For most companies, other than large corporates, it makes sense to choose keywords with a minimum of 100-1000 searches per month but avoid keywords with over 100,000 searches per month.
There are some crucial factors to consider:
- Keyword search volume varies depending on the sector.
- Very high search volume means you will have a lot of competition in search.
- A rarely searched keyword may block people from finding your page.
- When researching keywords, bear in mind your budget and the website’s size.
- Large corporates have a bigger budget to spend on highly competitive keywords to stay ahead of the competition.
It makes sense to choose a mix of low volume and medium volume keywords. These more niche keywords will have less competition to rank in search.
Keep in mind that the higher the volume, the more competition you will be up against in SERPS.
Smaller websites should avoid keywords with search volumes over 100,000 as they are unlikely to rank against the big giants.
Focus instead on keywords with volumes between 100-1000 and a few between 10,000-100,000.
What are Seasonal and Evergreen Keywords
Evergreen keywords are words searched for consistently over time. “How do I make a latte?” is a question that could apply to any time of year.
Seasonal keywords are sensitive to the season, such as summer-related words, winter-related words or celebration words. For example, “Where can I buy a Christmas tree?” is a question that will only have a high search volume in December.
How do I Find Monthly Search Volume for Keywords?
The first thing to do is use your knowledge to think about what people are looking to find when they input keywords into a search engine. This intent is crucial as a start point.
Fortunately, it isn’t guesswork as there are tools that can help select search terms.
Some free tools that can help you with these insights are Google Trends, Google Keyword Planner, Google Search Console and Keyword Sheeter.
Local Keyword Search Volume
Local keyword research focuses on finding keywords that people search for when looking for local products and services. If your business relies on local custom, this is important to drive potential customers to your site.
Think about the services you offer and the local intent before checking search volumes. So, for a plumbing company in Essex, the local intent might be “boiler installation in Essex” (a specific service that customers will search for) rather than “plumbers in Essex” (too general) or “Worcester boiler in Essex” (focussed on suppliers).
You can use the tools to research the volume for local keywords to ensure you choose the right ones. Choose options to type in the postcode or specific location to start tracking on a national, regional, or local level.
How to find out if Keyword Search Volume is working?
As with all SEO, it is essential to track the performance of your pages. Even though you have selected keywords with a reasonable volume, they may not lead to clicks.
The Position Tracking tool on Google Console can help you monitor your search ranking, traffic and help you see your performance compared to your competitors.
