3 reasons search volume only sorta matters

Two weeks ago, I posted something on Linkedin about search volume, and how people go crazy for it. I wanted to elaborate a little bit on this because it seems to be an issue in companies big and small, old and new. 

The post commented on the fact that there is a high likelihood that your current agency or even in-house marketing department is over-emphasizing search volume’s importance for your SEO strategy.  

Search volume is one consideration when optimizing a site, and we use it all the time. All else being equal, a higher search volume term is better than a low search volume term - but all else is never equal.  

Here are the few key reasons we think your team may be SV-cray: 

1- Google has never displayed a “results not found” SERP. There is no such thing as 0 search volume, just a big fat rounding error for data aggregators who have to draw a line somewhere so that their task isn’t technically infinite.‍

This is a really big one for me personally, as I was the head of marketing for a technology company that was very early to market with what we considered to be a category-defining product. Essentially, there wasn’t any search volume associated with “User-Behavior Driven E2E Test Automation as a Service” and “Test Automation” was a market full of cheap tools and add-ons… not to mention companies with marketing budgets in the millions per month. The breakthrough for us came when we told the SEO team to ignore search volume as a prerequisite for our target terms and write about the things our customers will need to read about when the world catches up. Essentially, be there before the search volume gets measured. 

2- People want specific answers, and very rarely search for the word that you think is cool.‍

This is another personal lesson gathered over the years. CEOs, Founders, or whoever you report to very likely wants to show up for “the thing” you do. If you are a marketing agency, s/he wants to rank for “San Diego Marketing Agency”, I am sure. But the truth is more people in aggregate search for all the other things. When we go shopping for something, we don’t type in “guitars”. We type in something like “Should I buy a Martin D-28 or a D-18” as an example. “Best acoustic guitars under $1000”. These are the ways people actually use the internet, and it’s much more valuable trying to rank for the derivative terms that stack up to meaningful traffic. 

3- Most internet traffic goes to keywords with a very small search volume.

This is the most objective comment on our short list of 3. There was an analysis done by Backlinko (which is awesome, and a resource you should check out) that analyzed a massive number of Search Console accounts… and the findings were that a huge majority of clicks went to queries with less than 10 monthly searches. Most internet traffic goes to long-tail, niche, specific things and if you write out answers to questions, things people want to know… and do that often… You will end up ranking for more than if you just shoot for “the thing” your CEO thinks they care about. 

With these three things in mind, we would recommend that you review your SEO strategy, and ultimately make sure your rankings tools aren’t skewing your convictions. Write what you need to write, and be there for the people who need it. Don’t let the big data rounding errors influence what you need to say.