Google report search volume as a statistic
July 21st, 2008 by Dan Roberts A few weeks ago Google finally converted their statistics for search volume in adword keyword analysis from an almost useless and misleading bar into actual numbers. This one change has given us a huge help in making crucial decisions about which keyword phrases truly meet our needs. By looking for a phrase what over a 12 month timeframe has had x amount of search volume, and then comparing that to how much competition exists for that phrase to another phrase, it is possible to find those hidden gems that have reasonable search traffic but significantly less sites targeting the phrase. The fact that Google now report physical numbers has taken the guessing and approximation out of the process.
The old bar system used by Google to show search volumes made it very difficult to pick up these gems. For example, the phrase “business speakers” generates an average of 2,900 searches over 12 months, but also has very high competitor numbers targeting that keyword in adwords campaigns (which we assume they are also doing with their onsite optimisation for organic results). In contrast, the term “business keynote speaker” generates 880 search on average over the last 12 months and has significantly relative lower volume. Targeting the latter term will be both cheaper in adwords campaigns and easier in organic optimisation and potentially lead you to more traffic than joining the melee for the larger search term. In fact, we can even make some meaningful forecasts around this data - such as, if we get 3% of the search volume for our spend we would potentially pick up 27 searches, and not just 27 random searches, but 27 very qualified searches - fill your calendar with these 27 engagements and you will be very busy! Ascertaining this would have been almost impossible using the previous bar system with Google because in fact the largest search term in this area is actually “motivational speaker” which has on average 60,500 searches. In this scale the difference between 2,900 searches and 880 searches is insignificant and hence indiscernible under the old Google bar system - we probably would have overlooked a excellent opportunity.
Certainly it is not a perfect tool to use, but it becomes much more useful when you become adept at the art of discernment when considering all the different factors and the new Google reporting of actual search volume has gone a massive way to making this easier.
The Google website gives a few other key considerations for this change - all of which make sense:
- Knowing approximate physical searches allows you to plan your budget more accurately around your selected terms
- Keywords can be selected that are most likely to return quality leads within your budget
- You can better create ad groups around keywords you find relevant and more closely target your ads and landing pages
Finally a few other points to consider when using this tool:
- The location and language targeting of your adwords account will influence the search volume. If you are using the keyowrd tool from within your Google adwords campaign be aware that your country campaign and language settings will determine the results. On the other hand if your are using the external keyword tool you will need to set the appropriate language and country settings - ignore these at your peril, you will end up optimising your site for vacation when you are targeting the UK “holiday” market.
- The match type of your keyword has a big influence on the search volume that Google calculates. You need to learn the difference between match, broad and phrase keywords as these influences the variations of your keywords that will display your ads or rank you in organic results.
- The approximate search volume as reported by this tool shows the search volume statistics for the last calendar month whereas the approximate average search volume column shows the average monthly search volume over a “recent” 12 month period.