Google Search Volume Disparities
-
Hello,
I have been researching search volumes for awhlie now for key terms related to my industry, as well as working towards better rankings for those terms that have higher search volumes using on-page optimization, external link anchor texts, etc. The only tool I use for this research is the Google keyword tool.
Today when I was looking at the keyword difficulty for a particular term (first time I
had used this tool in my SEOMOZ account), I saw how the search volumes are listed for both broad and exact match from Google's API. As I said I've based my strategies around results from Google's keyword tool, but now I see that, for a particular term that I have been focused on, there are 15,000 searches for "broad" match and 91 for "exact" match. I just checked the keyword tool at Google and there is apparently no way to set a keyword up to search for its "exact" match search statistics. Is this only available using their API?I'm on the floor here. Does this mean I've been optimizing for a term that has less than
a hundred searches a month as opposed to 15,000? If so, can anyone here reccommend any search volume tool that can deliver a higher degree of accuracy so I can make better
judgements regarding how I will spend my time and effort regarding SEO (and in fact,
to some degree, my budget for PPC)?Any help provided will be much appreciated.
Mike
-
Glad it helped Mike. Lots of theories and beliefs about long tail. What I've found on several client sites is follow these rules to increase the number of long tail phrases you're found for each page:
- Designate two primary phrases, 2 or three words each
- Designate two or three highly related secondary phrases, 2, 3 or 4 words each
- Seed the page Title & h1 with the two primaries
- Seed the URL with one of the primaries
- Integrate each of the primaries into the content area descriptive text at least twice each in exact match sequence.
- Integrate each of the secondaries into the content area descriptive text at least once in exact match sequence.
- Use partials of those phrases at least once each in the content area descriptive text
- Of course the more content you write, the more you can seed phrases, but only where it makes sense to readers.
- Write the content in a high quality way that really sounds human
- Tightly group pages of content based on phrase relationships
When I follow these guidelines, I typically see 30% or more increase in total phrases a site is found for. Of course it's not exact science since there are so many factors in SEO. But doing it this way, where the content really comes across naturally written can result in exponential long tail phrases you didn't intentionally try to focus on figuring out beforehand.
-
I found the section in the keyword tool were you can select the match type. I use firefox/mac however and it does not show up unless you first enter something into the "include terms" section there in that left hand column. I noticed on firefox/pc it is there automatically. Thanks for pointing that out to me. Analytics has always been a weak spot in my efforts, I shall work on that. Thanks for the advice and the quick response Alan.
I also need to learn more about long tail phrases and their implications for SEO. Can you recommend any good resources that could tell me more about that?
Mike
-
mreisbeck
In the Google Keyword Tool screen, below the "categories" choices, there's an option box on the left sidebar to choose broad, exact, phrase or a combination of those.
That being said, every situation is unique - so what Google reports as a low volume exact match may be highly valuable if the majority of people searching for that phrase do so in broad phrases or "long tail" phrases. So don't be so quick to completely discount a phrase just from that data. What do your visitor conversion statistics tell you? Call to action and conversion tracking data is vital in helping make the best decisions in this kind of situation.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
How come when I create a keyword list, the volume of that keyword per month is not displayed? It is only displayed once the keyword is selected.
Why do we no longer have the ability to view keywords in a list with all of its data? VdhmGmQ
Keyword Research | | solitude15577990 -
Keyword Research for Low Volume Keywords
Hey friends, I'm looking for a little keyword research direction here, specifically for keywords and phrases with low search volume. I'm just going to give a recent example: I just finished a piece of content on customer experience. I began the process with some keyword research. Based on Moz's keyword explorer, "customer experience" has a monthly volume of 2.9k-4.3k. Sweet. So I move onto related queries and longer tail phrases to narrow my content approach. But just about any relevant phrase shows either a volume of 0-10 or 11-50 and very similar difficulty metrics, making it tough to choose a direction. So "what is customer experience" shows a monthly volume of 0-10. SEM Rush reports ~350 searches a month. I understand SEM Rush uses broader match, but I guess what I'm asking is: how do I perform keyword research with such minuscule volumes and such little data to differentiate? I've looked at Russ Jones' answer to a similar question here on how Keyword Explorer works: https://mza.bundledseo.com/community/q/what-is-a-good-keyword-volume-score ... but I still don't have a ton of clarity. Any advice would be awesome!
Keyword Research | | brooksmanley0 -
How does Google treat special characters in titles?
Seems like a stupid question, but one that I never really gave much thought about before. How exactly does Google treat special characters in titles? Do they all get seen as spaces? e.g. Does Awesome Product - OptionA/OptionB/OptionC available get seen the same way as **Awesome Product - OptionA, OptionB, **OptionC available ? Or even **Awesome Product - OptionA OptionB **OptionC available ? Or will Google see the first title as **OptionA/OptionB/OptionC **being a whole "keyword" due to there being no space between them? Like I've always just assumed that with apostrophised words will be seen as keyword s. And when using commas, there's always a space after the comma anyway. Are all "special characters" treated the same?
Keyword Research | | Ria_0 -
Competitive Search Terms?
Does Moz provide a way to see what search terms are generating traffic on competitive sites? Thanks!
Keyword Research | | jmueller08230 -
How long is the google sandbox these days?
Hello, We have a site that is in the google sandbox www.thewealthymind(dot)com How long is the sandbox these days?
Keyword Research | | BobGW0 -
Acne related keywords in Google.fr
Hello everyone, I am setting up a website with domainname.fr to rank in google.fr with Acne related keywords. Can anyone give me Competitive keywords which can bring more than 10K visitors per month?? Help will be very much appreciated. P.S: Actually, my uncle is having an offline acne product shop in France. He asked me to setup a website in Google.fr so that he can make some money.
Keyword Research | | artemmin0 -
Can i get some insight as to why this is #1 on google?
So... our results keep slipping little by little. I am trying to understand the rhyme and reason to it all (aren't we all?)
Keyword Research | | CassisGroup
Since Penguin, one website seems to have strongly benefited from the update. And I can't seem to understand why except maybe for the lack of seo efforts which resulted in no bad efforts.
Search for "chaussures grandes tailles" in google.FR, you will find what I am talking about. This is what I seemed to have gathered. The #1 result has the KW in both their title and description is using blatant keyword stuffing (ie just astring of keyword with no phrase structure), has done little with links or optimization, does have 300 facebook fans (but they seem to have been bought according to the last 3 months activity). Text is very limited on their site. They have a lower authority than other websites.They are also a newcomer as far as the market goes. It is important to note, that they also rank #1 on many of the related field keyword or top 3. So according to google this is a "winning" website as of now.and that is why it grabbed my attention. The #2 results, is a big website, equivalent to zappos or the like, seems to have redone their optimization following penguin and to me seems to do a pretty good job at writing "natural" content for the user, not for google, as much as possible without killing their seo chances. Their authority should be good, and tons of people are linking to them. They also do use a lot of PR blog/article.(legit ones though I am not sure about before). They invest heavily in adwords and ads altogether (tv/radio/etc..). They are the big guy but are not specialized on this keyword. The lower results, are not as representative, a mish mash of good and bad but all are specialized stores in this market including mine. They all get some ranking on some of the major keywords but not nearly as much as that #1 website which is killing it all (see semrush for more on it). So I thought I would focus on these 2 top (neither of which are mine) to start a conversation.Though feel free to comment if you have any hindsight on any of them. Can anyone explain to me why the #1 can possibly be #1? I would love to hear everyone's opinion on the matter.
I fully understand that in the long run that #1 might not be #1 forever, but then again it has been several months now at least and the longer that last, the more likely they are to gain new (possibly repeat) customers...0 -
Logging out of Google vs. &PWS=0 ?
I typically append &pws=0 to my Google queries when I'm gathering results to share with a client. I recently sat in on another digital marketing firms presentation to the client, and they made a big deal about how their search engineers had conducted all the searched by "painstaking logging out of google, using a fresh browser, etc..." In my mind I was thinking that it was either a search engineer wasting time, or some hyperbole to impress the client. But I didn't really know for sure. Is &pws=0 actually equivellent to using a completely annonymous browser. For fun, I ran some queries under incognito on chrome running off a thumbdrive, and compared them to &PWS=0 results from my everday browswer while logged into google. I couldn't see any difference, but in my quick informal test, I also didn't find any difference between a personal SERP and a &PWS=0 SERP, so maybe I just didn't try the right query. Any thoughts?
Keyword Research | | crvw0