How To Find Keyword Search Volume

 

In the SEO and Pay Per Click world we hear a lot about search volume and how important it is, but rarely do we hear how to find keyword search volume and specifically what to do with this metric once we have the information available to us.

In this post I would like to discuss, not only the importance of search volume, but exactly how to use the information in our marketing efforts to drive more traffic to our campaigns. That should be our primary focus. After all we are marketers as well as content writers and we need to keep in mind the importance of getting visitors to our website.

Whether you are using keywords for a PPC campaign or for optimizing an article, at the end of the day, it is crucial we understand our metrics and that they point us into the right direction. Otherwise, we are only grasping at the wind in our marketing efforts.

So, first of all we have to ask:

What Is Keyword Search Volume?

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Keyword search volume is simply the number of searches for a particular keyword in a specific time frame. The time frame of interest for most marketers is a period of one month. This information provides marketers with a general idea of how popular a search phrase is in addition to its competition. Usually the more searches per month, the more competitive the search term will be.

Some time ago, you could use the Google Keyword Tool to give you a quick glance at keyword monthly search volume, but since the tool changed to the Google Keyword Planner, this information requires more steps and is a bit more confusing than it used to be. The other thing about the Google Keyword Planner is that the metrics it presents area more for Google Ad Words campaigns, than it is for optimizing a web page or practicing organic content marketing or SEO.

So, now that we have a basic understanding of what keyword search volume is, we can more effectively describe specifically how to find keyword search volume.

One way to find total search volume is to simply type our keyword phrase into Google in quotes. To illustrate this, refer to the image below:

As you can see from the image above, if we were interested in total search volume of the keyword phrase “play guitar” we could obtain total search volume. There are about 5,120,000 search results about this specific term. We really do not get a lot of valuable information from this search.

We could find related keyword phrases by scrolling down our search as illustrated in the image below:

 

As you can see, we can obtain more useful information for we just found some related keyword phrases that Google is telling us that people do search for. But, as you can see, we still haven’t found the number of monthly search results that will help us build great content around so we can drive traffic to our website, which is what most marketers are interested in doing.

Now if we use a good Keyword search tool, we can obtain a bunch of different information and metrics to help us rank our websites, pages and look at peak at our competition.

To illustrate how to get monthly searches for the term “play guitar” as well as find more related keyword phrases, look at the image below and let’s discuss the results:

 

So as you can see I was able to find the average monthly search results for the term “play guitar” by simply entering the term into the “phrase” bar above and selecting the blue “find keywords” button. I then got the following results. The first column shows that there are 7594 average number of searches per month for the term “play guitar”.

That is a fairly high number of search results and I would get quite a bit of traffic if I was able to get on the first page of Google for that term.

The problem is that there are 206 other websites competing for that same term. This metric was obtained from the third column known as QSR (Quoted Search Results).

QSR represents the number of competing websites ranked in Google for this exact keyword. I can also see from the fifth column that the SEO score is 67 out of 100. 100 representing the easiest level to rank for on a scale of 1 to 100. But this term has a score of only 67 out of 100.

These results are telling me that it may be a bit of a challenge to rank my page or post for this particular keyword phrase, depending on the age of the site and one’s knowledge of how to optimize blog posts for SEO.

Upon further analysis of these results I see that the search term “play guitar Chords” would be a much better keyword phrase to try and rank for. There are 831 searches done a month on this term, only 130 competing websites and an SEO score of 90 out of 100.

If you are interested doing a keyword search like the one I am showing you in my examples for your own campaigns, you can check it for free HERE.

Traffic – A different Kind of Metric

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Another metric that would be of interest to most marketers is the number of potential visitors (traffic) to your particular page per month. This is different from total monthly search volume because it is an estimate of how many visitors YOU would get on YOUR page if your site was on the first page of Google and it is derived from total monthly searches.

This metric is called traffic, and as mentioned, It is measured from total keyword search volume. To get a better understanding of what this looks like, take another look at our example from the keyword phrase “play guitar”.

The search results obtained for total monthly searches on the term “play guitar” shows 7594. If you take a look at the “traffic” column directly to the right of this number you will see the number 1291. This represents the total number of visitors you could receive if you ranked for the term “play guitar” on the first page of Google.

This is what I love about keyword research. You can get a very good idea of how possible and likely it is to rank for a particular keyword phrase. Take this information along with how to optimize blog posts for SEO and you can easily plan your marketing strategies and learn how to start earning money online.

How to Use Search Volume to Choose a Niche

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Many marketers overlook the use of Keyword search volume for choosing a niche. We often times focus on keyword research to find a good topic to write an individual post or page on. Although this is a good use of a keyword tool, however, there are other applications as well. Yep, you guessed it, finding a good keyword rich niche to build a website on.

If you wanted to build a website upon a particular interest you have, you want to make sure that there is enough keyword rich phrases available to you that you can write pages and posts on. No sense and going through the work of building a website to find out later that you do not have enough high quality search phrases to write about. We all realize it takes a good amount of high quality content to generate a full time income with content marketing.

The process becomes a heck of a lot easier if we can build a large list of keyword rich terms associated with a good keyword rich niche.

Let us look at niche research further. Let’s say we had a general interest in the “losing weight” niche. Most of us would agree that this can be a very competitive niche. So, we figure that “how to Lose Belly fat” may be a bit easier to rank for. So, let us go to our friend Google and see what he (or she) has to say:

 

As you can see from Google, as we start to type in How to lose… Google finishes the phrase and this tells us that people are searching for the terms under the search bar. So, we decide to research “how to lose belly fat” to see if this is a viable niche to get into.

So, we then take this phrase and head on over to Jaaxy, the best keyword research tool, to take a look at our results. Check out the image below:

 

As you can see from these results, the term “how to lose belly fat” is fairly competitive with a SEO rating of 78 and a QSR of 175 (not too bad really), it may be more difficult to rank for that say, “how to lose belly fat for men”. Although, there are not as many searches per month. We definitely need to look at both. But if I was building out a new site, I want to try and rank for easier terms. So, let’s take is a step further.

I like the fact that belly fat for men may be easier to rank for as a site, but is there enough keyword rich content to write other pages or posts on? Well, if we take that search term and type it into Jaaxy, let us see what we get. Check out the image below.

 

OK, not too bad. But, before we start talking about the results I want to elaborate on the metrics and parameters that I prefer to use. I like to see the average number of monthly search to be above 50 with an ideal QSR rating of less than 150. This is especially ideal for a newer site. This is because new sites take a longer period to get indexed in the search engines.

I also like to see an SEO rating about 80. That being said, as you can see, how to lose belly fat for men would be a better niche to get into. It has quite a few searches above 50 that are above 80 for the SEO value. This would be a good niche to get into. You can play around with this tool more for free to get a bigger picture of what we can do here, but I think you get the picture.

Conclusion

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As you can see from these examples of how to find keyword search volume and the other metrics a good keyword tool can provide, there is a never ending supply of easy to rank for keywords. It is just a matter of uncovering them.

Making money online is actually not as hard as people make it. It is a matter of doing the proper research, and not falling for all the hype on the internet telling you that you can get rich by next Thursday.

It does require work and research, but as you can see the research can be done quickly and easily with a good keyword research tool and good SEO training. I highly recommend that you check out my full on review of the Jaaxy keyword tool and how it works. There is a great amount of training provided and you can get 30 free searches to try it out yourself.

I highly recommend that you read my full review of Jaaxy and all of its features. I have only talked about a small fraction of what this amazing tool can really do.

To Read My Full Jaaxy Research Tool Review Click HERE

As always if you have any questions relating to keyword research or how to earn an awesome income online, leave your comments below and I will get right back to you. I would love to hear about your experiences with Keyword research, SEO or how you earn an income online. We can share information, ideas and strategies. I am always open to your thoughts and ideas. Make it an awesome day!

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