16 replies to this topic

[nahanni]

Our website is about natural health and herbs. So, after performing keyword research with the Adwords external keyword tool, I settled for "herbs for health" as it has 12,100 global monthly searches, and I deemed it possible to rank in the top for the term.

So currently, we are on number 6 in Google.com, number 8 in Google.com.au, number 3 in Google.ca.

Consequently, I figure we should be getting some traffic from that search term, but it's disappointing. For the last 30 days, we have gotten only 27 visits from google (21) and bing (6) for this search phrase (0.22%).

The Google Webmaster Tools query stats doesn't even list "herbs for health".

What gives? Is the keyword tool inaccurate? Or is it natural to receive such few clicks when on position 3-6 in google.com and google.ca - meaning I need to be top 2?

Or should I give up on a phrase that has 12,100 searches per month and go for one that has 100,000+ (which means more work to rank high of course...)?

As a comparison, we have a phrase where we are number 5 in both google.com and google.ca, and it has 165,000 searches globally per month. It brings us 462 visits per month (0.28 %) which is (marginally) higher. Maybe I just answered my own question.... I need to go for a key phrase with more searches right?

[ganalon]

I just got a free $100 offer from Google ad words. So I figured, what the heck, I'll give it a try. So far, in about 8 days, I've had 266 impressions and 0 clicks. Interestingly I'm getting no impressions from 'network' and all from 'search'.

Color me baffled.

[Jill]

Our website is about natural health and herbs. So, after performing keyword research with the Adwords external keyword tool, I settled for "herbs for health" as it has 12,100 global monthly searches, and I deemed it possible to rank in the top for the term.

Your first mistake was not changing "broad" match to "exact." There's actually only a predicted 3,600 monthly searches for that phrase.

Also, you can't really go by the numbers, look more at the relative position in the list.

[Theo]

I have read on numerous occasions that the first three spots in the SERPS will get about 95% of traffic.

So when you have a keyword that gets 3600 visits/month, that leaves 180 units to share, as the rest went to the first three.

So when you have a page ranking on n°m6 and you get 27 visits, you've actually received 15% of the traffic that was still available, which in itself is not a bad result!

The only thing else left to do is to try and grab one of the first three spots.
Most people I queried on this subject said: SEO, back-links and original content.

[SelfMade]

So currently, we are on number 6 in Google.com, number 8 in Google.com.au, number 3 in Google.ca.

What do you mean by this? Position 6 on page 1 or Page 6 in google?

If your on page 6..know this... 80% of searchers will rarely go past page 2.

As for page 6..well your just not going to be found.

As far as position is concerned.. look this up...(there is a golden triangle) where is it??

[nahanni]

Well, we are on page 1, result number 6 for "herbs for health" in Google.com (3rd in Google.ca).

Today, I am checking the phrase "lose weight safely" in the Keyword Tool. For exact match, Local Search, it says 1,000 searches for December. If you try that search on Google.ca, our page is number 3 (or 5, if you count both pages shown for the first 2 domains).

So here is the kicker. Analytics reports the number of visits for "lose weight safely" during December 2009 to be only 3! That's crazy! With 1,000 searches per month and we are in the top 3, why would we only get 3 visits? Out of those 3, 2 were from Google and one from Yahoo.

I just think the Google Keyword Tool is having some serious problems, or am I missing something?

Feel free to expand on the Golden Triangle topic - I have no idea what you are talking about.

[Jill]

The numbers from any keyword research tools have to be taken with a grain of salt.

What does the global # show for your phrases?

[SelfMade]

Feel free to expand on the Golden Triangle topic - I have no idea what you are talking about.

I'll 'dangle a carrot' for you...It's an important part of SERP's.

And as Jill says...Keywords tools vary wildly comparatively to that of 'real time terms'... terms that real human beings actually use!

[nahanni]

Jill, that seems like a lot of salt I'll have to swallow. Global monthly search volume for December for this exact search term: 1,300
I don't understand how this can correlate so poorly. Perhaps the keyword tool is really screwed up? Or else I must be missing something big here.

Kaz007, are you talking about the eye tracking study by Enquiro and Did-it? Where the click action stats are like this:
* 62% Section C – Above the fold Organic
* 14.2% Section A – Top Sponsored
* 3.7% Section D – Side Sponsored
* 20.1% Section B – Alt & Feature Listing

Or are you talking about 3 way link exchanges?

In any case, what is your point? Our SERP is number 3 in google.ca, which has 1,000 searches per month for this term, according to Google's keyword tool.

I'll 'dangle a carrot' for you...It's an important part of SERP's.

And as Jill says...Keywords tools vary wildly comparatively to that of 'real time terms'... terms that real human beings actually use!

[SelfMade]

Kaz007, are you talking about the eye tracking study by Enquiro
In any case, what is your point? Our SERP is number 3 in google.ca, which has 1,000 searches per month for this term, according to Google's keyword tool.

Yeah enquiro has it!

My point is this:

If the G keyword tool is saying 1K searches per month and your getting 3 searches in your GoAn in an entire month..Do you not think if you really think outside of the box here...that if you do a bit of market research on real human beings you may get a different result??

It doesn't matter what position you are in serps...if you don't optimise for the right terms that people ARE searching on your not going to have much success.

If you think about that 'triangle' and combine it with 'real' keyword research, your onto a winner!

[nahanni]

Kaz, I still don't get your point. 1,000 people are searching for this term, we are number 3, and the SERP text snippet from our page is good too. The title of our page is the same as they key phrase searched for. Don't know how we can possibly make this better?

Getting 2 clicks per month out of about a 1,000 searches is perhaps normal? I hate to think that is true, but perhaps it is. There are of course sponsored listings above and beside the organic search, and perhaps that "drowns" our visibility enough that we get hardly any traffic as a result? Perhaps if we were number 2 we would get a hundred clicks, and as number one, maybe several hundred clicks, but as number 3, only two clicks is what we can expect?

[SelfMade]

Kaz, I still don't get your point. 1,000 people are searching for this term, we are number 3, and the SERP text snippet from our page is good too. The title of our page is the same as they key phrase searched for. Don't know how we can possibly make this better?

I'm going to use 'Rolf Speak' now.

By what 'measuring stick??' Googles somewhat automatically computer generated flimsy keyword tool??

Look at it like this...get 10 people in a room if '3' suggest identical search terms, then how many people WORLDWIDE would ALSO use this search term.

I have websites that generate anywhere between 2k - 10k+ searches p/m organically..ppc I look for a minimum of 30-40% 'click thru' rate ok and that is without even TOUCHING a keyword tool..(Excluding the software I use to find niches).

Bottom line GKT is NOT gospel...it is and (if you have to use it) should only be used as an approximate.

SEO is 90% all about search terms in my opinion!

You can be position 1..if nobody is searching the terms optimised for...what good is that??

Don't take GKT as 'written in stone'

[Jill]

I still don't get your point. 1,000 people are searching for this term, we are number 3

How do you know you're #3 everytime any of those alleged 1000 people use this phrase at Google?

My guess is that along with the number Google gave being inflated, that you probably aren't ranking #3 for everyone. Your personalized results might be causing you to see it as 3 where others don't.

[nahanni]

I know, because I am not signed in to Google when I do the search in my 7 different browsers (Camino, FF, Shiira, Flock, Opera, Sunrise, Safari), and, I have tried it through web proxies as well, and we are #3 in Google.ca - you can try it yourself it you don't believe me. We're in the "Golden Triangle".

So what I am getting from both of you, is that the keyword tool can't be trusted that much. That's what I've been saying throughout this thread!

I just checked this term with Wordtracker too, and it reports 14 searches. Keyworddiscovery reports 12 searches. Google says 1,300.

Might as well not bother using the Google keyword tool at all then, based on these findings. What's your thoughts?

How do you know you're #3 everytime any of those alleged 1000 people use this phrase at Google?

My guess is that along with the number Google gave being inflated, that you probably aren't ranking #3 for everyone. Your personalized results might be causing you to see it as 3 where others don't.

[Randy]

You should never rely on the actual numbers shown in the Google keyword tool, or any other keyword tool for that matter. They've never been accurate. Dunno how you came to the conclusion that they're accurate because that's never been the case.

Use those numbers for comparison against other similar keyword phrases only, as a way to sort of tell which might be more important to target. But that's it. Don't expect XXX amount of traffic just because a keyword research tool tells you it gets X,XXX searches per month.

You're missing the point completely on the whole #3 ranking thing.

The point is that it doesn't matter how much you try to make things different on your computer, what you see simply isn't going to be the same as other people see. And I'll remove a lot of stuff from this that could have an effect (spider rates, index rebuilds, connecting to different datacenters, etc.) Not only is there personalization in effect for your searches if you do nothing to stop it (the things you mentioned, plus you need to make sure you delete or simply don't allow cookies also) but more importantly everybody else who searches for your keyword phrases will have some sort of personalization in effect on their computer. And there is absolutely nothing you can do to affect this.

That's why I built the little GRE tool in the first place. Because it tells me what ranking position those users saw when they searched and then clicked through to my site(s). No matter what personalization, regional variations or anything else was affecting what they saw. This way I only have to guess about the ones that don't report this data, but at least have something factual to base my guesses upon.

To give you an example that should resonate with you, I just looked up one phrase where one of my sites has been pretty much nailed to a #1, #2 or #3 spot when I search for it. Been nailed there for 5 years now. But what does the GRE tool tell me when I give it that particular phrase? Real users found the site listed anywhere from position 1 to position 14. So from top spot to middle of the 2nd page. Even though every time I search I see my page in position 1, 2 or 3 at worst.