8 replies to this topic

[Kay]

Hello everyone,

I'm fairly new to SEO so my question is: what is the least amount of traffic to consider when looking at Overture and Wordtracker results? Even if the KEI is high and the traffic is low, what would be the point of using that keyword.


Thanks for your help

[Mel]

IMO it depends on your profit margins to a large extent. Some folks with a small business and a good margin might be happy with 30 searches a month and 3 clickthus, and others with a lower magin might need 3000 searches a month to make it interesting for them.

[deborah2002]

Hi Kay! Welcome to the forum!

If I'm understanding your question correctly, you want to know the lowest acceptable number for a keyword? If that's the case, there isn't one number to shoot for.

When researching keywords, think of it this way:

Would you rather have high traffic/no conversions
OR
Would you rather have lower traffic with high conversions

Obvious guy says, "yeah, we want the combo", but I think it's better to get 500 visitors a day who want what I have and can convert than to get 2000 visitors a day who don't give a flyin' darn what I have.

Kay, you have experienced my first caffeine free day
Hope this rambling dissertation helped a bit.

deb

[Jill]

If the phrase is specific to what you do and only gets 1 - 10 searches a day, it still may be worth putting in your copy once or twice. It all depends on whether there are other, more searched upon phrases you can optimize for.

If there are no good highly searched upon phrases, then you gotta use whatever you gotta use. Doesn't matter if it's only 1 search.

Jill

[twhittle]

With my research, I pay close attention to what I like to call "phrase holes", where a phrase might get a lot of searches, but isn't so expensive. It always helps when a client knows that I'm keeping his budget in mind, and that I'm trying to get him the most amount of qualified traffic, for the least amount of money. It's less competitive!

Some, obviously, are dead set on an "exact phrase", but I try to have them keep an open mind and that we could "try" other variations of the phrase first. After all, that's why we call it a "test" on a PPC campaign.

This initial research works great for traditional optimization techniques as well.

T

[mcanerin]

I wouldn't consider anything less than 50 searches a month to be useful unless you were absolutely sure that none of them belonged to an automated ranking check, or the client looking for themselves, or one of the clients competitors looking for themselves.

I had one guy tell me I should use a keyword phrase because it came up around 4 times a month and the profit margin on the product was so high it justified it. I asked him how he knew this came up around 4 times a month and he said he checked Overture once a week. I asked him if he did a search on that phrase once a week too. He said yes and didn't understand why I looked at him strangely.

The only searches that count are searches done by potential buyers of your product. Not rank checking software, not the clients and their competitors, not people obviously looking for something else. It's difficult to weed those types of searches out with a very small number of samples to draw from.

Ian

[Haystack]

One area that generally has low search volumes but convert like crazy are regionally targeted search phrases. If someone is searching for what you do/sell along with your town/state and your site pops up, the chance of closing a sale is very high.

This is one of many reasons to include your physical address on every page of your web site.

[mcanerin]

Haystack,

Absolutely true - though I still question very low numbers, a localized search can be very relevant and useful even with much lower numbers than a "dictionary" term. I've been telling clients that this is the difference between a "Dictionary Search" and a "Local Search" (my terms).

I made a list of searches done mentioning the word "Calgary" (homebase for me) and that's all. The results were very interesting and are why I'm currently focusing my attentions on local businesses. There is literally millions of dollars worth of work in this city alone, and it has less than a million people in it. Look at your local yellow pages - every single section in it has the potential for at least one client for SEO services.

If you can tell a local liquor store that 430 people search for his products, in his city, every month, and that you may help him get many of these to "walk through his (virtual) front door", he will be a very happy guy. It stops being an internet number and starts being a real one - they can actually imagine the effects of 430 new customers

Ian

[Haystack]

Great idea on just searching on your city/community to see what market opportuniteis are out there, Ian. There really are plenty of opportunities like this which simply don't apply to national terms. One local example I'm familiar with is catering. How many catering services have anything other than a local reach? Yet people interested in their services often turn to the web to research vendors.

BTW, I was in Calgary in early July for a trip to Banff with my girlfriend. I stayed with a friend in Cougar Ridge and watched Vancouver win the bid for the Olympics live on TV, then drove through the Calgary Olympic Park on my way to Banff and got caught up in the celebrations of Canada getting the Olympic bid. By the time I left Banff my girlfriend was my fiance. Awesome trip.