Keyword Terms: Search Volume and Competition
Keyword Terms: Search Volume and Competition
The search volume of keywords is typically reported as the average number of searches per month. Measuring competition can be a little more complicated.
You can get a good idea of both search volume and competition from the Google Keyword Planner tool. Input your keyword list, and it will spit out the average searches per month and a competition rating (high, medium, low) for each term. The search numbers are heavily rounded and should be taken with a grain of salt.
The competition rating is for paid ads, not for organic search engine rankings, but it’s still very useful. High advertiser competition for a keyword is a good indication of commercial value (advertisers wouldn’t keep paying to show up for that term if they weren’t getting a return). By the same token, high advertiser competition also tends to indicate higher SEO competition.
A quick way to assess organic ranking competition is just to do a Google search for the keyword you want to check. If the first page of results is filled with well known brands or authoritative sites (such as Amazon, Wikipedia) you might be in trouble. If you don’t recognize most of the sites on the page, it’s not a sure bet, but you might have a shot.
Give it a shot
If you are selling a product or service, keywords with transactional intent will probably be your highest priority. However, you will also want to include other, more informational variations.
Why? Because part of the purchase process includes a general interest phase, followed by a more focused research phase, followed by a purchase.
Providing informational content, with the appropriate keywords, gives you the opportunity to educate customers early in the process. This builds trust, establishes your credibility, and makes it more likely that you will get the sale.
So, if you were selling bicycles you definitely want your store to show up when someone searches for “buy bicycle”, but appearing for “best bicycles” would give you the chance to educate the customer before they’re ready to make the purchase.
High Volume + Low Competition + Right Shot
Now you have what you need to get your keyword priorities in order contact us so we can generate a SEO campaign for your products and services.
