What is Search Volume and How to Use It

Keyword Search Volume

To bring us up to speed, keyword search volume is simply the number of searches for any given keyword, over a certain period of time. This gives marketers a steer as to the volume and popularity for a search, and how competitive it is. In short, it’s a signal for how much traffic is driven by that single keyword or phrase. The bottom line? Choose the right keywords.

Some keywords are popular year-round, while others can vary by season. For example, the seasonal variation might be seen leading up to national holidays signaled by high-volume searches like “Christmas gifts”, “Mother’s Day gift ideas” or “summer holiday destinations”. News, current affairs, or popular culture can also change the online landscape. Just remember, many factors play a role in which keywords are popular or trending, and it changes all the time.

Using It to Improve Website Stats

Search volume is important because, in the pursuit of search engine ranking, it offers one of the best strategies to attract new visitor traffic. It’s not only about serving your existing clients but attracting new customers to your website or online business.

How can you do this? You need to include well-researched target keywords and phrases with high search volume in your content, in order to drive visitors to your website or blog posts. If you’ve ever wondered, how do search engines work? This is the answer.

It’s also important to keep your chosen keywords relevant and topical, in line with your content, to help your new audience find exactly what they’re looking for, and to build trust.

Be ruthless too. You should remember that, even if you believe your keywords are excellent, if they don’t rank highly according to what visitors are looking for, the traffic will be small. Likewise, if you target only keywords which carry an enormously high search volume, the search engine results will be very competitive, and your content might struggle to be seen against bigger competitors.

How it Affects PPC

While we won’t linger on this for too long, since it’s not part of everyone’s SEO strategy, if you do explore PPC advertising, search volume is important too. It’s worth remembering that high-volume and, essentially, popular search terms will usually be more competitive and therefore more expensive for potential advertisers, as there is commercial incentive to reach a big audience.

If you’re working for a huge organization with an unlimited budget, this may not be a concern, but rarely is that the case. With most companies, big and small, trying to cut spending and use resources and budget efficiently, it’s important to research keywords well. In fact, you should be able to strike a balance between reasonably popular search terms of a moderate search volume with possibly less expense attached (if you advertised), while still being targeted and relevant.

Start Using Search Volume Data

There are many great online tools that offer search volume data and you can even try a variety to see which suits you and your web tracking needs. Typically, you can search for results locally, i.e. in the country, you want to target, or open up to a broader global search.

Some of the best tools are SEM Rush, Moz Keyword Explorer, and Google Keyword Planner, the latter of which is good because it runs as part of the Google AdWords interface. This makes it even easier to set up advertising campaigns targeting chosen keywords if you ever decide to do this. These tools offer a range of features and are easy to understand, use, and then apply straight away.

Content is Everything

Don’t forget, with all the big discussions on search volumes and ways to increase website stats, it still comes down to your content. You can have a great SEO strategy or spend a huge amount of money in AdWords, but the results won’t be as good if your content isn’t up to standard.

Any digital marketer will verify that the methods above will drive new traffic to your website, but the content will keep them there, or encourage them to explore your blog, sign up to a newsletter, get in contact or purchase a product.

So, even before you think about search volume and optimizing content with those well-chosen, targeted keywords, make sure you keep things in mind for your content, and that it’s always original, informative, relevant, and make the point of updating it regularly.

Domain Authority, Your Secret Weapon

In the competitive world of search engine ranking and web tracking, another point to consider is domain authority. This is a metric evaluating the strength of a website based on factors such as external links which point to your website, and where those links come from.

Depending on other aspects like the size of your business or website, and how long you’ve been operating, this isn’t something you can change overnight. However, you should be aware of building your domain authority moving forward, while nevertheless focusing on keywords, building external links and referrals, and developing your all-encompassing SEO strategy over time. It’s certainly complex and, if you want more detail around the question, how do search engines work, we created a handy guide.

What We Know to Improve SEO

Regardless of your specific goals or how they might change in the future, monitoring search volume and targeting keywords within your industry is a sure way to earn higher website stats and help drive the right kind of traffic to your content. This will make your web tracking efforts all the more worthwhile.

By being smart and balancing search volume with good competitor targeting, and scope for good-value keyword advertising if you choose to, you can optimize your content to capitalize on existing search volume and see a real benefit.

Helping drive more organic traffic to your website is what we do, all centered around how to improve SEO. If you’d like help to develop your search volume strategy and how it integrates into your digital marketing plan, please get in touch for a consultation to find out how we can help you.