Do you ever lookup the volume of searches on search keywords?

[MichaelCorfman]

Recently an online casino approached me about why a site I'm involved with was not delivering more players to them. The casino representative pointed out that another site, that was ranked number three in the search results for a particular search term, was delivering a lot more players to them. They didn't think that should be the case since the site I'm involved with was ranked number one on the same term on google. We were both promoting the same casino on our page related to that search term.

After some research, I had to report back to the casino representative that google analytics reported that we received only a few clicks a month on the search term even though we were the number one search result. Then I went and used the google keyword tool to determine that the search term was used in searches less than 20 times per month. So the search term really wasn't important at all, and had almost nothing to do with the traffic that any site was sending to them.

The moral of the story is that how well you do in search results for a particular search term only really matters if folks actually search on the term enough to drive real traffic to your site if you rank well in the search results for the term.

So, my question for this week is do you ever check the volume of searches performed on specific search keywords?

Share with us how you use this sort of information and what sorts of decisions you make based on what you see. Also, be sure to share the tools for doing this that you find most useful.

Michael

[RayUK]

I am just starting to do this more. I am trying out the free version of Web CEO at the moment and am very impressed so far. Tempted to buy it at some point, but at the moment the free version is doing me fine!

[RayUK]

Oh yeah, and how I use it. I write the articles 'naturally' without worrying about keywords/keyword phrases/keyword density. I then analyze it to see what keywords and phrases occur naturally. Then I check the search volume on those, and also check to see 'associated keyword phrases' - that is other similar keywords and phrases that get searched with the ones on my site. If those have a decent search volume I can then start to think about writing articles incorporating those.

First and foremost though the articles have to read naturally.

[Aaron@Jackpot-Games]

Great point to bring up, Steven! Researching keywords is often overlooked, with everyone's focus firmly on link building and increasing copy onsite. I can't stress how important it is as both a new and existing site to make sure your keywords have volume and/or quality - you must have one or the other to have any impact.

As a new site it's imperative to do keyword research before committing to any SEO. Remember that your anchor text (that should have your keyword in) on inbound links will have a tremendous impact on your performance, and changing your terms after 3 months of link building for a useless term can be very frustrating.

I recommend staying away from the AdWords tool, or those like it. They're only guesses, don't take into account trends (e.g. 'grand national bet' has its peak in April but the tool won't pick up on it, just create a mean average per month...) and generally over exaggerate - they want you to get excited and bid up. Instead of them use Google Insights. It doesn't give you figures but shows you relative volume, and with the right benchmarks you can see trends, predict growth and geo target.

Hope that helps.

Cheers,

Aaron
Jackpot Games Affiliates