Search volume and keywords are important to the success of any SEO campaign. If proper keyword research is not done and the beginning of the campaign correctly, the entire campaign success is at risk from the start.

keyword research insights and search volume

Listen to Dwight, he’s right here. Keywords and the ones that are chosen are extremely important. Below, we’ll get in to how to find the right ones.

Search volume is the amount of people that search for a specific search term each month. This could be for a certain phrase or a single keyword. When looking at search volume, there are a couple different ways to look at it. There is exact, phrase, and broad match search volume.

What are keyword match types?

Exact Match Search Volume

Exact match is the number of people that search for an exact keyword, such as small business SEO services. This includes the volume for that keyword only and nothing else.

Phrase Match Search Volume

Phrase match is the search volume for any search that contains a certain phrase. If the phrase is local SEO, a phrase match would count anything that contains the words local SEO anywhere in it. So keywords that would also count would be local SEO services, small business local SEO, affordable local SEO, Google local SEO, etc

Broad Match Search Volume

Brad match volume contains anything that mentions the words in the phrase anywhere. With phrase match, they have to be in the order of the phrase you originally had. With broad match, the words can be anywhere. So a broad match for local SEO would also contain local small business SEO, local Chicago SEO company, local small business SEO, etc

So where do I find search volume for my keywords?

A basic tool to check search volume on a keyword or phrase is the Google Keyword Planner (https://adwords.google.com/home/tools/keyword-planner/)

Using this tool, you can do a search to return the monthly volume for a large list of keywords. You will also get an idea of the average cost per click (CPC) that advertisers are paying for in Google Adwords. This gives a great idea of how valuable the keyword is.

What if I don’t know my keywords? Do I have the right ones?

keywords with no search volume

Nobody wants to waste time optimizing for keywords that nobody searches for. Don’t let this happen to you!

You can also use the Google Keyword Planner to find new keywords and learn about the way people search to understand where the volume is. When you open keyword planner, there is a section to search for new keywords using a phrase, website, or category. Below, a typical key phrase for Kaizen Inbound “inbound marketing company” and the Kaizne Inbound Website has been entered as well:

finding keywords with search volume

Using the above technique, you can generate a list of new keyword ideas, go through the list and find the best ones to add to your target keyword list.

Search Volume & Local SEO

When it comes to local SEO, there won’t be any search volume that shows for a lot of keywords. It doesn’t mean that nobody searches for the keyword. It just means that there’s not enough data to give an estimate for the amount of searches every month. This is normal for local SEO keywords because once a city and state is added to the local service or product, there are not a whole lot of people searching every month.

With local SEO, you often have a variety of small keywords that don’t have much search volume that you want to rank for. All these keywords with small amounts of search volume add up and give you a good amount of traffic to your site. It’s much easier to rank for multiple smaller keywords, than to rank for 1 big keyword. So the point is, don’t stress if there is not a lot of search volume for local SEO keyword targets. It all adds up and there is plenty of volume for most local businesses.

keyword opportunities everywhere

So, while a lot of keywords you check won’t have any search volume, there is always group of top local keywords that do. We follow a specific method at Kaizen Inbound when searching for local SEO keywords that allows us to always check all possible combinations.

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Need help with local SEO or search volume? Contact us today to find out how we can help.