Search Volume

Choosing which words to write about used to be guesswork. The words a team uses internally and the words customers type into a search box differ, and there was no way to see the gap.

Pagedeck's first content plan ran into it. Internally everyone said "collaborative documents," so that's what Ravi planned to write about. In a keyword tool the phrase came back at around 300 searches a month, while "meeting notes," pointing at the same thing, came back at 14,000. The words that describe the product and the words people look for turned out to be different, and now there was a number proving it. Without this figure, half a year goes into phrases nobody searches.

It isn't counted directly — a tool estimates it, usually as a monthly average over the last twelve months.

1. Tools disagree. One reports 12,000 for a phrase and another reports 18,000, because the sample and the estimation method differ. Use it to compare candidates within one tool rather than as an absolute figure.
2. Many tools report ranges rather than values, something like 100 to 1,000. Plan against the bottom of the range, since a phrase that turns out to be at the top of it is a pleasant surprise and the reverse is a wasted quarter.
3. Check seasonality and spikes. A phrase that only peaks in December looks small as a monthly average, and one that jumped last month looks larger than it is. The month-by-month chart separates them.
4. The figure promises no traffic. Searches that end on the results page without a single click are mixed into it, so a phrase at 10,000 a month can deliver fewer visits than one at 3,000. The only way to tell is to open the results page for each one.
5. Don't discard small numbers. Ten phrases at 200 a month add up to 2,000, and phrases that small tend to be longer, which makes their search intent clearer and the ranking easier.

"'Collaborative documents' is 300 a month. 'Meeting notes' is 14,000."

Reporting the size gap between our vocabulary and the customer's.

"High volume, but the results page answers it, so the traffic isn't there."

Search count is not the same thing as visits.

"Let's take ten phrases at 200. The difficulty is low enough to rank within a quarter."

Bundling small phrases gets there faster.

Ravi attached this figure to 400 candidates and keeping only those above 100 a month left 40. Adding a difficulty score cut that roughly in half, and the surviving twenty became two quarters of planning. The plan changed from chasing two large phrases to filling twenty small ones, and six months later search traffic had tripled.