How to Do Keyword Research: Go Beyond Search Volume - YouTube

Today, we're kicking off a brand new keyword research series.

And BOOM!

You’re invited.

Stay tuned.

[Music]

What’s up guys it's Sam Oh here with Ahrefs, the SEO tool that helps you grow your search

traffic, research your competitors and dominate your niche.

And today, we're kicking off a brand new keyword research tutorial series using our

Keywords Explorer tool.

And I'm super excited for this tutorial.

Now in this video, we’re going to cover quite a few things a lot of people don’t

know, they don't think of, or they don't fully understand when it comes to keyword research.

So, let’s dive right in.

So I’m inside Ahrefs’ Keywords Explorer tool and I’m going to search for the keyword

phrase, “how to grill steak.”

And here, you can change the country, but I’ll leave it to find data from US searches.

And right away, you’ll see some deep metrics on this search query.

The first part that stands out is the keyword difficulty metric.

Now, this score gives you an estimate of how competitive the top 10 results in Google are

for a given keyword based on the average number of referring domains they have.

Now, this is the only metric we use for keyword difficulty so you shouldn’t treat this number

as the answer to know which keywords to target.

It’s just a proxy to link popularity of the search results.

There are a lot of variables to gauging keyword difficulty, so I’ll be doing a full tutorial

on how to analyze whether you can actually rank for a keyword in the third video in this series.

Next, you can see that this phrase averages eleven thousand monthly searches.

And this big number here is based on the country that you selected in the last step.

Now, over here, you can see the global search volumes as well as the breakdown of searches

by country which is ordered from the most to least monthly searches.

So for this particular query, about 90% of searches come from the US.

But before we continue, what the heck is search volume anyway?

So, in short, search volume represents the average number of monthly searches on Google

for a given query.

So technically, if the same person searched for the same keyword a million times, then

the keyword volume would go up too.

So you can see how this metric can be easily manipulated and isn’t exactly the most reliable one.

So, the only source for Google search volumes has and likely always will be from Google

themselves.

But there’s also an additional source called clickstream data.

So here at Ahrefs, we use both of these sources to make sure search volume estimates are accurate

and most importantly, updated with fresh data, every single month.

And this is the exact reason why we add the extra source of data to our search metrics.

Now, if we jump back to the global search volumes, it’s pretty clear that this query

is way more popular in the US and then there’s a tiny bit of traffic everywhere else.

But other times, you’ll see the opposite effect where a keyword is significantly more

popular in other countries.

So for example, if I type in “rugby” you’ll see that this query is the most popular in

France, the UK, and then the US.

So this is a good way to decipher whether or not your keyword is worth targeting for

your business.

So, if you find that search volumes are low where your target audience is, then it may

not be the best keyword to target.

Alright, back to grilling steak.

If we look at the search volume for the original country we selected, then you’ll see this

cool graph where you can see different search volumes by month.

So you’ll see that people are grilling less in the winter months and more in the summer,

which tells us a little bit about keyword intent.

Now, I know it seems like common sense, but things like this, they often get overlooked

during people’s keyword selection process.

So, this graph is really helpful and often the first place where my eyes gravitate when

I’m doing my keyword research.

Here’s why:

If we look up the word “Christmas” and look at the search volume, you’ll see that

there are over 800,000 monthly searches.

Well...not really.

Search volumes are rounded averages.

So if you look at this graph here, you’ll see a trend where people start searching for

this keyword in November and December.

But the rest of the year?

Pretty much crickets.

Now, look at the results for the search query “presidential election.”

There’s a huge spike during the time the event was happening.

And then...crickets.

The number promises you 615,000 monthly searches next month, but the trend shows that you’ll

get a few million visitors only during the time of the election, which happens

every four years.

We have a great post on the Ahrefs blog on this topic, which I’ll leave a link to in

the description.

Alright, so next, we have this very important section, which is called “clicks”.

And this number reflects the total number of clicks that actually happen on the search

results page.

And this often tells us whether a searcher clicks on multiple results or maybe none at all.

And again, this tells us a lot about keyword intent, which just, it can’t be ignored.

Now, with this example, and actually most “how to” search queries, the clicks are

normally close to the actual search volume.

And I’m going to show you two drastically different search queries to better illustrate

my point.

So, I’ll open up a new instance of Keywords Explorer and for the first search query, I’ll

type in “time in new york” and for the second, I’ll type in “chicken soup recipes.”

Next, I’ll click on the metrics tab.

Now take a look at these results.

Even though the query, “time in New York” has 100,000 more monthly searches, than “chicken

soup recipes,” the latter gets more clicks.

Now, how is that even possible?

The best way to illustrate this is to put yourself in the driver’s seat.

If we Google “time in New York” and you see this result, has the reason for your search

query been solved?

Yeah it obviously has.

This is a fact based query and you don’t need more answers than what Google already

gives you.

Now let’s pretend that you want to make chicken soup.

So you type in “chicken soup recipes” in Google.

Now there’s a featured snippet here from Google, but can you tell me if the reason

for your search query has been solved?

No way!

Even if all of the directions were here, you’d probably want to compare other recipes.

Maybe you’ll click on one of these results and be like, "darn, I don’t have celery."

So you’ll look for other recipes.

Or maybe you’re some chicken soup connoisseur and you only eat 5 star broth.

So you’ll look at reviews.

Now, if we look at this comparison again, you’ll also notice this metric here, called

“RR,” which stands for “return rate.”

Now, return rate is a relative number that gives you an idea of how often people perform

the same search over the course of a month.

Now, this doesn’t mean that people search for "time in new york" X% or X times more

than chicken soup recipes.

I know it sounds confusing, but what you can take away from this is that people search

for time in new york more often.

Another example of a query that people search for in Google again and again and again, is “Facebook”,

which has the highest return rate.

So, you’ll see that it has a return rate of 3.7 in the United States and obviously

this doesn’t mean that people only search for this term 3 or 4 times in Google.

But it helps you understand how other searches compare to this “baseline.”

Also in the clicks section, you can judge the commercial value of the keyword phrase.

So here you can see that it has a cost per click of $1.20, but what’s more interesting

is the percentage of clicks that go to paid vs. organic.

And you can see that paid search only gets about 2% of the clicks, while organic takes

the rest.

And if you compare this with the keyword "car insurance", you’ll see something completely

different.

The CPC is $40 per click and 38% of the clicks go to advertisers.

And it makes sense.

If we Google the search query, then you’ll see that the entire fold of the Google search

results are plastered with ads.

One last example I want to show you is something like the keyword phrase “medical school.”

You can see that the entire fold is plastered with ads, but check out the data in Ahrefs.

Only 2% of clicks go to paid ads!

Now, the thing that this boils down to again, is keyword intent.

If you’re looking into medical schools, you might be looking for a list of schools,

school ratings, or you might want to know more information like how many years is medical

school.

Now, there is so many possibilities with a query like this that it shows that paying

for this keyword term, it might not produce the results you’d expect.

Here you can find the same cool graphs that will show you the separation between paid

and organic clicks.

So for certain queries, you might find that advertisers are more active during seasonal

months, like in the steak example.

Now, with the Adwords CPC figures, it’s worth mentioning that we don’t update it

that frequently.

So treat these as approximate values and if you need the freshest data, then go to the

source: Adwords.

Now, as far as I know, CPC can change pretty much every hour and they’ll still be estimations

since Adwords runs as an auction.

But the main takeaway from all of these examples is to focus on search queries that will generate

clicks for you.

Because even if there is a high search volume, but no one ever clicks it, then what's the

point of targeting that keyword, right?

Alright, this next part here is super cool.

So originally, when I was doing my research for this video, the keyword phrase that I

entered naturally was “how to bbq steak.”

And if you look at the search volume, it only has 350 searches per month in the United States,

which doesn't even compare to the 11,000 searches for "how to grill steak."

Looking at the global volume, you can see that the country with the most searches is

Canada!

So I guess barbecuing is a Canadian thing which I would have never known.

So if you look down here, you’ll see that the parent topic is different.

It’s actually the one that I’ve been showing you this whole time, “how to grill steak.”

And the parent topic, it tries to determine if you can rank for your target keyword while

targeting a more general topic on your page instead.

So the way we do this is by looking at the number one ranking page for your keyword and

then look for the most popular keyword that brings that page the most clicks.

So if I had a site on barbecuing, then I would know that I can target the phrase “how to

grill steak” to reach a much larger global audience.

Now I want you to pay close attention here.

You can see that this parent topic has 11,000 monthly searches, but the traffic potential

is 77,000?

Now, how is that even possible?

Let’s go back to the original keywords explorer results and we’re going to quickly look

at metrics on the top 10 Google rankings for this keyword phrase.

But first, I’m going to click the “update” button here to get some fresh search results

because the ones you’ll see by default are cached from this date that’s displayed next

to the update button.

Now, if I scroll down to the bottom of the page you’ll see the top 10 SERPs and a bunch

of cool metrics which we’ll go deep into in another video.

Now, the first two results are from a featured snippet and some related questions.

But look at this one here from foodnetwork.com.

This one page is generating over 76,000 monthly search visitors from all of the search queries

that it ranks for!

And if you look to the column next to it, you’ll see that it’s because they rank

for over 4,000 search queries.

This tells us that the topic has a lot of similar long tail queries for which Google

is showing this search result.

So if you wanted to get similar results, you could create a comprehensive resource, get

some quality backlinks and rank for all sorts of relevant queries.

Isn’t that awesome?

You can see the total search traffic of all of the top ranking pages so you can start

targeting topics and not just single keywords.

There’s also something crazy you can do with the top 10 SERP results feature.

So I’m going to open up another tab with Keywords Explorer and I'm going to type in

something absolutely ridiculous.

I’ll type in: “what is spiderman’s web thingy.”

Then I’ll run the search.

And as expected, the search volume is not available since it’s not exactly a natural

query that many people would search for.

But if we scroll down to the top 10 SERPs, you can see that there are a bunch of different

top keywords we can target and potentially rank for the target query, “what is spiderman’s

web thingy.”

Now, this one here, “spiderman's web” has 4,400 monthly searches with traffic potential

of 802.

And this one here from Wikipedia has potential of around 3,200.

Then there’s “spiderman's web shooter” which has a search volume of 5,200 with traffic

potential of around 1,000.

So in this case, I’d probably choose “spiderman's web.”

But since search volumes are a bit arbitrary, I’d have to do more research before settling

on this topic.

Now, the key takeaway here is to focus on traffic potential of a topic rather than targeting

a single keyword based on search volume alone, which I feel like I’ve really drilled down on here.

And as you and I, we continue to go through this series, you’re going to find that shifting

your focus to this traffic centered keyword research process, paired with some crafty

tactics, will pay dividends.

And in the next video in this series, I’m going to show you how to find thousands of

keywords with a bunch of cool hacks that will build onto everything that you just learned.

Make sure to subscribe and let me know in the comments what you think of this traffic

centered approach to keyword research.

So, I’ll see you in part 2.