Keyword research is one of those things that most of us hate to do but know we have to in order to get traffic to our site. I have seen a lot of internet marketing blogs that recommend to run wordtracker and/or google adwords external to do keyword research. It is recommended so often that many believe these tools to be accurate. The first part of this post is nothing more than a preliminary SEO session I recently made with a client. The final part gives two "tips" on how to verify keyword volume....use them as you want....
This happens to nearly everyone who has been doing internet marketing for any amount of time....
- You are researching keywords looking for a possible "in" into a market.Â
- Â You just happen to run across a keyword that is getting a decent volume of traffic that doesn't look to have much competition. Â
- You jump, banking that the keyword research done is accurate enough.
- You throw resources such as time and sometimes money into your site. Â
- Your site makes it to the top 10 and then....NOTHING. No traffic.
Ironically, sometimes the keyword data is so screwed that what looked to be a decent keyword with a large volume of traffic (1,000+ per month) only gets 1-5 visits a day...even if it is ranked #1.
Why You Shouldn't Trust Google, Wordtracker or Any Other Keyword Research Tool for traffic data
It only takes you to get burned once or twice to get burned. Â Then you start looking for other avenues to verify the source.
This was the case a week ago when I was doing preliminary SEO research for a company that I am working with. Â The company made Trust Accounting Software, had the trust and authority of google, but over the past few months had made no sales and (according to them) had made very few leads either. I decided to dig deep into their data to find out why. Â Were they getting any meritable traffic?
My first stop was Compete.com
I use compete.com as a way to quickly check on the traffic for a site. Â This only works in vertical markets though and you only get U.S. traffic. Â Still, it is a quick way to check for traffic for the site and what keywords are getting to the site.
The traffic for the site in question wasn't great from a broad perspective but was targeted. Â Notice how they literally dropped off the face of the map, traffic wise, last month after having nearly 1,000 visits for 3 consecutive months before. Â
The 2 main keyword driving this traffic?...
- Estate Tax Software
- Trust Accounting Software
From experience, I could guesstimate that the traffic was coming more or less from pay per click ads or some form of advertising other than organic listings because of the roller coaster dips and rises in the results. Â I would need to verify it.....
Doing a quick google search for the above keywords, I found that the company didn't rank for estate tax software in the first 10 pages but did rank for trust accounting software (#3). Â What this told me is that either they were recently bumped for estate tax software or they were, once again getting their traffic via adwords.
I would go to the next step....
Next Stop: Google Adwords ExternalÂ
The results of doing a keyword search show that trust accounting software should be a fairly lucrative proposition. Â If you look at average CPC, $11.63 demonstrates that this keyword is most likely a "buy" keyword... Â And given the fact that this company was/is ranking #3 for this term, it couldn't account for the precipitous dropoff in traffic. Â
Time to do a little more digging...
I head back to compete.com and this time, check out the traffic for the #1 websites for both keywords to see if there is a descrepency in traffic volume....What I am most interested in seeing is the traffic results for trust accounting software, since the company in question IS ranking for that keyword.
So, now you tell me.....
If Google is saying that Trust Accounting Software is getting approximately 1,000 search queries a month (or 33 visits a day) but the #1 ranking website for that keyword is NOT getting enough results to even be a suitable metric, who is right?
Did you Know?
Awhile back, AOL metric data was leaked which gave an approximation as to how much a search query was worth in regards to traffic volume. Â Here is what they came up with:
- #1 Ranking website took 40.1% of the search query traffic.....
- #2 Ranking website took 11.9% of the search traffic...
- #3 Ranking website took 8.5% of the traffic
- #4 website took 6.1% of the traffic share...
- #5 ranked website took 4.9%
- All the other websites (and advertisers) took the rest....28.5%
The reality that nearly all DIY marketing websites have to deal with is the inaccuracy of the supposed "keyword research tools" that are given out by the entities who have a vested interest in padding the stats.
In other words, just as in the case above, although Google claims that approximately 1,000 people searched for accounting trust software, doesn't necessarily mean that it is true.
NOT knowing will cost you time and effort...
Now imagine for a second....you are hunting for an "in" into the banking niche....you run into this keyword, see that not only does it have a bit of traffic going to it, but that also the average CPC is $10.00+ (which isn't a good assessment for average cost per click on the content network...but that is another story for another time...). Â
You build your website....you spend the time building the links....you reach the top 20....then the top 10.....then after a little more work, you manage to snag #1...then NO TRAFFIC....
That is the conundrum that the average internet marketer faces when they place their stock in 1-2 keyword research tools.
So...now what? If the research tools are skewed, how can you determine accurate traffic volume???Â
Look, I am not saying to abandon hope for keyword research tools. Â What I am saying is that digging out the nuggets out of your research data and finding the keywords that will most likely convert is easy if you do it the right way.
And my client, who spent a good chunk of time and effort trying to rank for this keyword is now going to have to tear apart his initial strategy and formulate something better...after all, he figured if he could rank for this keyword, that gets NO traffic despite what Google claims, that he could suspend or lower his PPC campaign (on a side note, for those of you wondering why he wouldn't know this already, he didn't keep data to measure what worked and what didn't work...)
Just for the Heck of it, Let's Take a look at what wordtracker says....
Zikes....Now that is a bit more sobering. Â
Google Claims 1,000 queries per month....and Wordtracker gives an average of one search a day....and the search isn't even an exact query string.
It is partially why I typically attack large markets with competition....I know that they have traffic and it is all a matter of having the patience while you are doing the things to make you rank.
2 Sure-fire Tactics to get More Accurate Results the Next Time You Do Keyword Research...
Saying that keyword research tools are bunk is one thing. But if the tools that are supposed to give internet marketing strategies leverage are inaccurate, what would you do? Â Here are two tactics that I use....
The first one will cost ya though.....
Tactic #1-Mock Pay-Per-Click Campaigns Designed to Determine Traffic Volume...
Don't laugh. Â I can feel the groaning coming through the computer right now. Â After all, most of you reading this haven't considered doing a PPC campaign because you don't want to spend the money on it.
If  Time is indeed Money....how much is your time worth?  Would 2 months of optimization and link building be worth a couple hundred bucks and a 1-2 week test?  I don't know....for me, my time is worth WAY MORE than a couple hundred buck....plus if I can get indisputably data out of the deal in regards to my market, why the heck not??
The reality is that most businesses can get the most bang for their buck without spending an inordinant amount of time building content and performing search engine marketing strategies.  As internet marketing goes, there is simply not a better way to accurately determine real search volume....period....
How to work this internet marketing tactic....
- Build a landing page.  If you intend on selling something, have a "buy" button on the page.  The "buy" button will go to a under construction page, an opt-in form to collect data.  The important thing here isn't your page though...it is a good way to study how people will react to your page and will help you determine if the keyword is worth the time to rank it organically.
- Set up a PPC campaign. Â Have it run for at least a week for variance reasons. Â Make the ad unappealing if you want, if you are just testing for volume. Â Make it appealing if you are also testing for conversion as well.
- Make sure that the ad stays on the first page during the test. Â
- Depending on what your ultimate goal is, you can probably expect a .05-.10% CTR (from my personal data).  More importantly though, google will tell you the total ad impressions per day......and the ad impressions is the total search query volume for the keyword.  It doesn't get much more accurate than that.
What I like about this tactic is if you play it right, you can verify traffic AND conversion ratio, which can help you modify and build strategies around how to implement and attack the keyword.
Of course, the keyword volume may not be what you thought it would be. Â In this case, you have saved yourself valuable time and resources and can concentrate on a different keyword.
Tactic #2 Finally...How to Use Wikipedia for something that is actually useful...
This is for those of you who don't want to spend the $100-300 or simply don't have it, here is another tactic I use. Â For me, this is a great way to quickly determine traffic volume that is fairly accurate.
Just like in my last post, the ezine article case study, I will use any data that may help verify my keyword research that another site can give me.
Using Wikipedia to determine Traffic Volume
For this, we will implement a free tool that will help us determine search volume for keywords in which wikipedia is in the top 3 results. Â You can check this tool out here....Wikipedia keyword volume tool
Just to illustrate how powerful this is, let's find a keyword in which wikipedia is #1 at....let's use internet marketing...
Google claims that this search term got searched for 843,000 last month.  Using the leaked AOL data from a few years ago that estimates a #1 ranking gets roughly 40.1% of the search volume, we can see that the actual traffic volume is off by nearly 15,000 searches.  Ouch...
This search tool can help you get a better indication of actual search volume without using tactic #1 and spending a bunch of money testing. Â Â And because Wikipedia currently ranks in the top 3 for hundreds (if not thousands) of keywords, this can be an easy way to justify traffic volume when comparing them to other traffic research tools.
Final Thoughts
Getting accurate keyword research results is a mixed bag of trial or error. Â If there is one thing that I hope someone will get from this post is to not put all of your keyword research into one basket. Â You should be using a variety of sites and marketing strategies to verify that the keyword that you are about to invest a ton of time into will produce the results, traffic wise that you are hoping for.
What methods do you use to do your keyword research?
Other blurbs that may tickle your fancy
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