To switch high-ranking keyword for one with higher volume?
-
I have a client who already ranks very well for the keyword "odor removal service" (#3 average rank). I'd like to use this as my primary keyword phrase, but the search volume is not very high (avg. monthly search of 90). A similar keyword phrase like "odor eliminator" has a search vol. of 4400 and the same competitiveness. Even its long-tail derivatives like "natural odor eliminator" still have a much higher volume (360) and would be a more accurate description of the service.
In cases like this where you are already ranking well for a relevant keyword (but are still not generating much traffic), is it worth losing that keyword ranking in the hopes of ranking better for a keyword with higher volumes. Just to be clear, I'm not referring to a secondary keyword, but to the main keyword phrase around which we'll be building primary and secondary related keywords.
Thanks for any feedback.
-
If you have great content and a competitive service, do not fear competition. Because, where there is a lot of competition there is usually a lot of money changing hands - and ranking lower in higher competition will often yield more traffic and more sales than playing for peanuts. And, many times when comparing high search volume to low search volume, the same strong competitors are in both places.
So, I just decide where I want to be and attack. For "odor removal service" and "odor eliminator" , I would attack them both with one page and as much energy as I can put into it.
-
Good point about intent. So far i've spent more time on the first 3 but not as much on the last two (intent).
-
Search volume is only one factor that you should consider when analyzing keywords. At a minimum, we look at the following during keyword research.
- Search volume
- Keyword difficulty (Using Moz's Keyword Difficulty tool)
- Relevance (How relevant is the query to the client's business, website, products, or services? This is a subjective number that we score as a percentage.)
- Searcher intent - There are lots of different ways to classify user intent. See this, this, and this for more info.
- Google's perception of user intent - Analyze the SERPs to see what types of results appear for that query.
The last two are key for your issue. Take a look at the SERPs. Every result for "odor eliminator" is for a product rather than a service, and the top ranking sites are powerful brand sites like amazon.com, walmart.com, and homedepot.com. On the other hand, if someone searches "odor removal service," they are clearly not looking for a product. If my assumptions are correct, that query is 100% relevant to what your client is offering.
My advice is to focus on the more relevant, less competitive keyword in this particular case. .
-
Hi Jon,
The answer might seem pretty straightforward, but sometimes looks can be deceiving. On the one hand, it seems to make sense to target keywords that are both higher search volume and describe the service more accurately. On the other hand, it can be painful to leave something behind that is currently doing well.
The simple truth is that even a lower ranking for a higher volume search term can be better than a high ranking for a low search volume one. If you were able to rank the smaller search term in 3rd place, there's no reason you can't do the same for a larger term with equal competitiveness. Just let your customer know they are likely to experience slightly lower traffic for a short duration while you sort it out. They should be understanding and down the road they will thank you for creating a better end result for them.
It will probably be better if your new approach is a better descriptor of the business, as this is more likely to create higher conversion levels moving forward (targeted traffic is worth its' weight in gold).
Just be prepared to do some hard work in the near future!
Best of luck!
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
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
-
I'm monitoring the organic keywords for a website, what do their organic keywords tell me?
Should the keywords they already rank well for make good topics for them to exploring in the future?
Keyword Research | | RonkeIR0 -
Hard to rank difficulty level 25 - 35 keywords for brand new blog?
For the brand new blog, Is it hard to rank keywords using difficulty level 25 - 35 keywords?
Keyword Research | | OECSL20190 -
Different audiences with same keywords
**How do wedding venue owners Google for a "restroom trailer rental" different than someone who is planning out their own event? I want to give venues an exclusive offer. Any tips on how they search for it different than regular users? **
Keyword Research | | Joseph-Green-SEO0 -
Keyword optimisation
I have a few questions regarding keywords that we are wanting to optimize on our site. This may be a bit basic so if this had already been answered elsewhere let me know. Question 1: How many time can I refer to the one word on different pages on the site ? Is there any rules around this? In theory the keywords we are looking to include will be relevant to these pages. **Question 2: ** Should I use different variation of the key word or is the one variant fine? Question 3: Looking at the search terms people use from google analytics to get to our site, there is a lot of people using the phrase “sliding windows New Zealand. Should I write this on the page exactly as “sliding doors New Zealand “ or is “sliding doors” fine? Its just that the former phrase doesn't really work with our communication. I look forward to your advice!
Keyword Research | | aplnzjune180 -
Big drop in rankings, any explanation ?
Hi everybody, I've been working on the subdomain http://fr.mt.com since a few month and on the last crawl on the keyword "accessoire de mesure" i had a big drop from rank 3 to not in top 50 and I cant figure why. Here is the page : http://fr.mt.com/fr/fr/home/products/Laboratory_Analytics_Browse/Meter_family_page/Meter_Accessor.html - PA : 30 DA : 71 I did an on page report to get a grade and i got... A on this keyword. I know this page is not perfect (lack of content) but in my opinion it still relevant on this keyword. Do you have any idea of what happened ? Thanks in advance for your answers
Keyword Research | | EnjinFrance0 -
Bulk keyword competition tool?
The SEOmoz Keyword Difficulty tool is great, but the 5 keyword limit is too small. I need a tool that will allow checking the organic competition level of 100's of keywords (to help in selecting blog topics). Anyone know of such a tool?
Keyword Research | | AdamThompson1 -
Question on keyword rankings
Hi everyone Within our campaign it says that we rank number 35 for a specific keyword in Google in the Unites States but when we google the specific keyword we come up as number two on the first page. Can you help me understand what the current rank is based on as well as how it's results can be different from our Google search? Thank you.
Keyword Research | | DRTBA0 -
Most Important Keyword Term
Question about a sites most important keyword term. So lets say you have a website and your most important keyword term is "Blue Widgets", you also have a page named "blue-widgets.htm". What do we do with our index page in this instance? Especially for the title tag? Should I put "Blue Widgets" in the title tags of both pages? I'm guessing this would be a duplicate meta tag error? Any feedback would be greatly appreciated!
Keyword Research | | TRICORSystems
Thanks
-Brandon0