What is search volume?

Search volume is fluid and will change depending on the tool you use. Here's what to know about the SEO metric

Hello and welcome back. Shelby here with a look at search volume.

Longtime subscribers will remember this edition from last summer. But as longtime subscribers also know, we’re team evergreen SEO. (We’ll be back next Monday with a fresh edition – scroll to the end to see next week’s topic.)

Collaboration! Photo by KOBU Agency on Unsplash

As with everything in SEO, take this with the grain of salt. Search volume is fluid and will change depending on the tool you use, the geographical location you’re in or the attitude of Google (no, I’m not kidding). 

In this issue: 

1. Definitions of key terms 

2. Understanding high and low volume 

3. Can search volume help identify story opportunities?

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THE 101

What exactly is search volume?

Search volume refers to the number of people searching for a specific keyword during a selected period of time.

It is usually measured by months, and most keyword research tools use the average value based on the last 12 months. However, that number will change based on geographical location, changes to the way we live or major news events. 

Where does search volume come from? Typically, third-party platforms or tools will scrape data from Google Keyword Planner, a tool that is part of the Google Ads platform, or Bing Keyword Planner. 

Why does it matter? Search volume of a keyword is really one of the most important SEO metrics – it is the number of people who are searching this specific keyword every month.

Understanding search volume for keywords can help:

• Prioritize story ideas and editorial calendars; 

• Understand the search trends of a specific keyword;

• Estimate the potential traffic you can expect to see if you target this keyword.

Search volume gives you an idea of whether a keyword is really popular, relatively popular, searched regularly or has absolutely no search volume and is not worth your time. 

However, it’s important to know search volume will fluctuate based on the tool you use (for example, this is how SEMRush measures volume), seasonality, consumer behaviour or the program that scrapes the data.

SEOs for years have been wondering whether Google Keyword Planner’s data is even worth relying on. So, keep your journalistic instincts in your back pocket while you perform your keyword research.

What is “good” search volume for a keyword?

Good search volume doesn’t exist. 

As much as we talk about search volume as a metric, we can’t just easily describe search volume as “good” or “bad.” 

In fact, search volume is a bad predictor of search traffic. 

The reason is directly related to our caveat: search volume cannot be fully trusted. Just because a keyword has low search volume doesn’t mean it is a bad keyword. The intent of the keyword – what people are actually looking for – changes.

We can create three buckets for search volume when examining keywords:

High search volume: 

• High levels of search volume (thousands or millions);

• Informational or navigational phrases (ie., “washington post login” when people don’t want to put the URL in the address bar);

• “Fat-head” keywords (big, broad keywords like shoes or covid);

• Good for exposure to a wide range of readers;

• Harder to rank for because there is more competition;

• Keywords that don’t result in a lot of conversions.

Mid-to-low search volume: 

• Typically have search volume less than a 1,000, or significantly smaller than related/similar keywords;

• More granular, more specific;

• Not as much traffic;

• Easier to rank for if search intent is matched;

• Targeting mid-to-low keywords can result in higher conversions. 

Zero search volume: 

• Tools say these terms have no searches per month, meaning – normally – they are not searched. However, we know this to not be true;

• A hidden gem for traffic that is usually written off by SEOs that strategize by high volume;

• Can drive a surprisingly large amount of high-intent traffic (if there’s an intent behind the query).

Use this information for keyword research. Connect volume with search intent to determine the keyword phrases we want to target.

General interest: What is the search volume for a keyword? High, low or zero? You can understand the interest now by getting a gauge of how popular the phrase is.

• E.g.: Chia seeds have 33,100 monthly searches according to Keywords Everywhere, but drinking chia seeds only has 390 monthly searches.

  • If we Google Chia seeds, we see that a lot of the information is general knowledge. This is a very high-volume keyword that may work well if you had a page such as, “what are chia seeds and how to eat them”. 

  • If we Google drinking chia seeds, we have a more detailed search intent behind the query, which would be very effective if you were creating an article around the benefits of drinking chia seeds, or good chia seeds smoothie or drink recipes.

Direction of coverage: If there is a specific keyword that drives a ton of traffic already to your site, but you want to write another angle, search volume can help you understand the direction.

What is search intent?

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THE KNOW HOW

How do I find search volume? 

To get search volume data, you need a handy dandy keyword research tool.

These are the recommended keyword research-specific tools: 

• Keywords Everywhere

• KWFinder

• Ahrefs

• SpyFu

• SEMRush

Any of these tools will provide a ton of keyword research data you can use to inform your content.

SEO for news: The 11 best search tools for audience editors

From here, we use the tool to look up particular keywords and learn the search volume. We will note:

• Overall search volume: What is the monthly volume according to your tool?;

• Keyword difficulty: How hard would it be to rank for this keyword?;

• Historical trends: Does this keyword spike around back to school? Every four years? Is volume going down?;

• Future projections: Is this keyword volume likely to be popular again? Is a new keyword beginning to take off? 

From there, Google the keywords in question. Make note about what the intent is (what is showing up in the results) and if it’s worth optimizing for the keyword. 

How do you ‘target’ a keyword?

In your keyword research, you may learn about another keyword that works better, and can inform your editors to focus their attention there rather than whatever query you were originally looking up. 

Use a Google Spreadsheet to organize the data for your chosen keywords. 

Focus on trends and correlations in keywords. Search volume can indicate general traffic levels to expect if a story is optimized – something you can communicate with your editors – but does not explain intent or fluctuations. 

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THE KNOW HOW

Using search volume to to identify story opportunities

Now that we have an understanding of search volume for keywords, we can begin to make decisions for our content. 

Assigning stories. You can inform editors and reporters of search volume trends and indicate when a keyword is beginning to take off. From there, we can look at long-tail keywords or niche phrases that drive reporting.

• When a keyword spikes (like “paralympics” did a Sunday morning before the Games), look at the average search volume.

• The trend chart from Keywords Everywhere shows when volume began to climb. Show you editors this data and get stories ready, while compiling a list of long-tail keywords connected to the high-volume keyword.

Reworking evergreen content: Keywords that fluctuate in search volume can be used to update evergreen content. Zero-volume keywords can also become low volume over time, so get ahead of the curve if you see a trend and optimize accordingly.

Inform future search strategies: Did you come across a keyword that is starting to take off? It can be included in future planning, or kept in a list to use when the time is right. Be a little bit of a psychic and prepare for future events.

As with most things in SEO, it is a judgment call. But search volume gives us an understanding of what to expect when we target a specific keyword. 

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Best practices:

• Use a keyword research tool to understand search volume, trends and correlation for your keywords so you can predict traffic;

• Organize your keywords based on high, mid/low or zero search volume and understand intent;

• Use keyword research best practices to assign keywords to stories, evergreen or future strategy.

✔️ Action item: The next time you’re asked, “Does this keyword have good search volume?” go through these steps. Use the search volume to give your editors a sense of potential traffic and preparing content around keywords that fit your strategy.

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The bottom line: Search volume is a good metric to understand general popularity behind a keyword and can help inform intent.

🤔 What is topical authority and how do I get it? 

However, long-tail keywords and content clusters are more important than individual phrases. Adopt a strategy around topics, not keywords.  

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RECOMMENDED READING 

1. Barry Schwartz on Twitter: There are new best practices for the Google author markup for article structured data.

2. Ahrefs has invested $60-million in building search engine 'Yep'.

3. JSONVisio is a tool that lets you visually see your Schema markup.

4. Andy Chadwick: How we increased traffic 110% by reducing content cannibalization.

5. Moz has launched their Professional's Guide to SEO.

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NEXT WEEK: Shelby will explain what news SEOs need to know about homepages and search.

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Have something you’d like us to discuss? Send us a note on Twitter (Jessie or Shelby) or to our email: seoforjournalism@gmail.com.

(Don’t forget to bookmark our glossary.)

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Written by Jessie Willms and Shelby Blackley