Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Keywords with no search volume
-
Hi there!
What are your thoughts on optimizing pages for keywords that have no search volume (using the Keyword Planner)? I'm not sure it should be done, since optimizing for keywords that no one searches for is kind of useless, right? Or should I do it hoping that sometime in the future the keyword will have a surge on searches?
Thanks!
-
Yes, you should/can, especially for longtail, which may have almost no volume in AdPlanner. I worked for an e-commerce site that had a few people hitting for a certain longtail term, but those customers knew what they wanted, converted at a higher rate, and spent the big bucks.
It's also worth noting that Google gets 3.5 billion searches per day (and trending up) and 16-20% of those searches are brand-new, never been searched for before.
-
Then you'll need to go off the data you have. The keyword planner is still a good tool to use, it just can't be 100% trusted. You can also play with the Google auto-suggest (waterfall) that pops up as you type things in. The suggestions are based on search volume.
There are also keyword research tools out there that can help. SEMRush, SpyFu, etc.
Also look at competitor sites that already sell the product. See what they are targeting in their title tags and H1s.
-
Hey there sararufo,
Instead of focusing on keyword search volume, I'd recommend thinking through the process a person might go through to research and purchase the product, then ensuring that you A) have the content they're likely to want to see in the research process and B) are using the language that they might use to conduct research--shifting the focus on the searcher's intent more than the keyword itself.
A good place to start your research would be to look at the brands/publishers ranking for the head terms in your space to get a sense of how they, and likely customers, are talking about a type of product. You can then put the ranking page into Keyword Planner in the 'Landing Page' field to see what keywords Google associates the page with.
You can also put your head terms into a tool like Ubersuggest or Keywordtool.io to find long tail queries related to your topic and use that data to make your page even better for users.
Hope that helps you get started!
-Trung
-
Thanks for your answer!
Let's say we're developing a new product that we've never sold before. We're setting up a new page for the product and doing some keyword research for the optimization. In this case, Analytics is not setup (an issue we can't currently solve), we only have Webmaster Tools. But since we've never sold the product we don't really have useful data that we can use...
-
It's important to look at webmaster and analytics data for this. The keyword planner isn't exactly accurate. I see traffic coming from keywords all the time that don't have a search volume in keyword planner, or have a vastly different number in keyword planner when compared to the data I get other places.
I think it takes a bit more digging than that, and you also need to consider the long-tail effect from the keywords you're optimizing for.
Asking some of the clients of the business how they search or look for your products can be very helpful.
With that being said, keywords with high volume in the keyword planner do usually offer much more traffic, but also much more competition.
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
-
Is it a bad idea to hyphenate keywords?
Hello, my understanding was that Google reads hyphens in keywords as spaces, but if that's accurate how come keywords with hyphens that I research with Keyword Explorer — for instance, hospital-acquired infections — rank lower when I include the hyphen? If the hyphen hurts SEO, do I have to remove them all from the blog or page in question? Removing hyphens means a blog or page will have punctuation errors, which is irritating to an editor, but I don't want to sacrifice the effectiveness of keywords, either. Thanks, in advance, for your response!
Keyword Research | | SallieJ0 -
Has the keyword planner search volume metric gone crazy?
I use the search volume found in keyword planner to score and weight my keywords in a similar way as Rand showed us in this WBF. This week I've found that in many cases suddenly the singular and plural version of the keyword have the same search volume. This seems crazy to me as singular and plural is not the same, the intent is different but more importantly they behave very differently from each other when looking at their track record in Adwords (impressions, clicks, conversions, CTR, CVR etc...all different). For example, here's a screenshot of 4 keywords (singular and plural versions of 2 phrases) with search volume captured a couple of months ago. Now here's another screenshot of the same keywords taken from Keyword planner today. Any ideas why this would be happening? Does it makes sense to you? It just seems buggy to me. Thanks!
Keyword Research | | E_F0 -
Keyword ranking by word order
If we have a keyword with 2 words like "SSL Audit". Will it rank in the same position the other way "Audit SSL" ?
Keyword Research | | Cistrust.com0 -
Longtail keyword definition seems fuzzy?
So we all know about longtail keyword vs. short tail. However, it seems that the definition is a bit inconsistant. Some people say longtail keywords are keywords that get very low amounts of traffic, others that they are key phrases with 2 or more words. And others add to this that they have high conversion rate but describe specific features, product, service, model # etc. In an ideal model I suppose all of these things would be true. As keyword length increases, traffic tends to decrease, keyword is more specific pointing at features, model#, specific product etc and therefore the conversion rate is a bit higher as well. However, the data isn't a perfect curve. I will see keywords that get 18,000 searches but have 4 words. And then I will see single word key phrases that get <10 -20 searches a month. What am I to consider these? Its like they fit half the criteria. Any comments on this would be helpful and appreciated. I suppose the real question I am after is - it seems like the real definition of a long tail keyword cant be any of the above traits of a long tail keyword. How do you really define a long tail keyword in all circumstances (without it being this subjective idealized definition based on a perfect model) and where would the keyword circumstances (lots of words but high traffic, and low traffic but 1 word) fall in the graph? Center?
Keyword Research | | eastco0 -
Ignore keywords that have no data in the Google Keyword Tool?
Hello, There are some keywords that have no monthly search data in the Google Keyword Tool. In many cases, this is because there have been very few searches for the keyword. Would you recommend focusing on other keywords that do have search data in the Google Keyword Tool? Perhaps focusing too far out on the long tail of search results can be less productive than focusing on keywords that have proven that at least some people care about them. What do you think? Thanks!
Keyword Research | | nyc-seo0 -
Global Search Count
If I ranked top on google for a keyword for Exact Local Search Count say 2000.How much of the Exact Global Search Count of 4000 contribute to Exact Local Search Count
Keyword Research | | Frost0 -
Is there an ideal ratio of keyword difficulty to search volume?
I used the keyword research tool to pull data on potential keywords, the report returns a percentage to represent the competition and difficulty of a keyword. Is there an ideal ratio of percent difficulty to search volume
Keyword Research | | AdviceElle0 -
How do search engines score "nested" keywords?
I use "nested" for lack of a better term; what I mean is keyword phrases that contain other keyword phrases. For example, if I have a page that is extremely well optimized (on-page) for the phrase "old silver coins", is that page by default also extremely well optimized (on-page) for the phrase "silver coins"? Or does google understand that I am optimizing for the longer phrase "old silver coins" and somehow exclude me from contention for the sub-phrase "silver coins"? I understand that this gets more complicated when talking about backlinks (off-page), but the same general question remains. If I am getting good backlinks for "old silver coins", am I also getting good backlinks for "silver coins" at the same time? I do understand that "silver coins" may be more competitive than "old silver coins" and so my page may not rank the same for the two phrases. But I am really curious if there is some kind of multiplier effect with nested keyword phrases like the example I have provided, or whether google somehow only credits for the full phrase and not for any sub-phrases contained therein. Any insight would be greatly appreciated! (And sorry if this has been addressed already. I have looked around the site and have googled this question, but haven't found anything useful yet.) Thanks. BONUS QUESTION: Are the answers to my questions above exactly the same when discussing singular versus plural keywords ("coins" versus "coin")? After all, that is a "nested case just like my examples above. On the other hand, I can see there being some special treatment of singular and plural.
Keyword Research | | Kp2221