All You Need To Know About Keyword Search Volume

November 14, 2023 | Keyword Research

Even a budding online business knows the importance of targeting the right keywords for optimizing the SEO of its website.

However, only some relevant keywords have the same effectiveness in driving traffic or making a campaign successful.

Keyword search volume determines the weightage of a particular keyword and plays a vital role in your SEO efforts and PPC campaigns.

By the time you finish this article, you will know how to find the search volume for a keyword and how you can utilize search volumes to boost your SEO.

Before diving into that,

What Is Keyword Search Volume?

Keyword search volume is a metric that measures the total number of times users search a particular keyword within a specific period.

Keyword search volume

Keyword volume describes the competitiveness and popularity of a keyword. That, in turn, helps you to decide whether to target that keyword or not.

Why Should You Check Keywords Search Volume?

Finding search volume for keywords is essential for the following tasks,

Importance of keyword search volume

  1. To make a new website.
  2. To drive more organic traffic.
  3. To design a PPC campaign.

If you already have a website, you must be interested in the last two.

Now that you know the importance, you will be eager to check keyword search volume.

But wait!

How will you know if that search volume is enough to consider that keyword for targeting?

Here you go,

What Is A Good Keyword Search Volume?

There is no one fit for all answers to this question.

A monthly search volume of only 1000 can be sufficient or, even a million searches per month may not be enough. It all depends on your business niche and marketing goals.

However, the following tips will help you understand a few basic things about keyword search volume to determine whether a particular keyword is worth targeting.

  1. Keyword search volume drastically varies depending on the business niche and subject matter of your content.
  2. Ideally, you must try to target keywords having high search volumes and moderate difficulty.
  3. If you target keywords with very low search volumes, chances are high that searchers may not find your content on the search results.
  4. If you target keywords with extremely high search volumes, you will face tough competition against the top websites in the business.
  5. Unless your website drives millions of traffic every month, it will be of no use targeting keywords having search volumes in the range of 100000- 1 million.

However, for most websites, maintaining the right balance between medium and low volume keywords will be ideal.

But before you dive in for a keyword search volume check, first, you need to find the list of relevant keywords for your content.

How To Find Relevant Keywords?

It will be of great help if you put yourself in searchers’ shoes while finding the right keywords.

Then, you will understand searchers’ intents and expectations while they type a search query. 

That will not only help you target the right keywords but also give you an idea of how to curate your content around those keywords that will satisfy searchers’ expectations.

If you are looking for the best free keyword research tool in the market, then undoubtedly RankWatch can fulfill your expectations.

RankWatch Keyword Research Tool

RankWatch keyword research tool

The best part of this tool is the ease of using it. You only need to follow the simple steps mentioned below,

  1. Log in to your RankWatch account and visit the dashboard.
  2. Go to keyword research and enter your primary keyword.
  3. Hit the ‘Search’ Button after selecting the location.
  4. The tool will show the entire list of keyword suggestions along with their search volume, competition, and CPC.

    Keyword suggestions

  5. RankWatch also suggests keyword-based questions that most users type during their searches. Using those suggestions can significantly increase your SERP rankings.

Question keywords graph

Once you have completed your keyword research, you can use those keywords in your web page content for better optimization. 

After you find the list of relevant keywords, you need to find keyword search volume for them.

How To Find Keyword Search Volume?

We will discuss a few efficient tools to check search volume for keywords in this section to make your life easier.

RankWatch Keyword Research Tool

As mentioned above, the tool not only provides you with a list of thousands of organic and long-tail keywords, but it also shows the search volume of each keyword enlisted.

Rankwatch keyword research tool showing search volumes

Google Keyword Planner

This free tool by Google allows you to check search volume for keywords. You need to follow the following steps for that,

  1. First, you need to open the tool and hit ‘Go to Keyword Planner’.
  2. Next, you need to set up the keyword planner.
  3. After completing the setup, go to the ‘Menu’ bar and click on ‘Tools’.
  4. Then you must opt for the ‘Switch to expert mode’.
  5. That will open the main menu page, offering you a link to the ‘Keyword Planner’.

    Google keyword planner

  6. Next, you need to select the option ‘Get search volume and forecasts’.


    Monthly search volume in Google keyword planner

  7. Now, if you enter the keywords you want to explore, the tool will show their monthly search volumes.

Google Trends

Google Trends is a free tool by Google that can measure the popularity of a keyword over a specific time.

You need to simply open the tool portal and put the keyword you want to explore.

The tool will show searchers’ interest in that particular keyword over recent times, represented by a line chart.

For example, we explored the keyword ‘Halloween’ using Google Trends and found the following trend of interest.

Line chart for the keyword ‘Halloween’ in Google Trends

The line chart illustrates that it would be best to target the keyword ‘Halloween’ between the 31st of October and the 1st of November this year.

Google Search Console

Google Search Console is another free tool by Google that allows you to measure your website’s organic traffic and check the performance of targeted keywords.

You need to follow the steps mentioned below to achieve the same,

  1. First, go to the Google search console page.
  2. Click on the ‘Start now’ button.

    Google search console

  3. Next, you need to enter the domain of your website.

    Entering domain in Google search console

  4. Then, you need to verify your ownership of the domain either by completing DNS verification or by uploading an HTML file. 
  5. You can find the following dashboard after entering the system.

    Performance graph in Google search console

  6. Next, click on the ‘Search results’ in the left-hand side menu.
  7. You will get a list of ‘Queries’, which are basically keywords, by scrolling down further.
  8. If you click once on the ‘Impressions’, the keywords will be sorted from highest to lowest impressions.

    Clicks and impressions in Google search console

  9. You must target keywords with high impressions with a low number of clicks.
  10. If you want to extract a more detailed list of keywords using the Google search console, you must overcome its data limitations.

Adding GSC account to RankWatch console

You can achieve that by adding your Google search console to the RankWatch console. That will allow you to use the full potential of the Google search console.

RW Console

The tool showcases millions of search queries for which the website ranks (impressions) instead of only thousands, as offered by the Google Search Console.

How To Find Search Volume For Keywords Locally?

If you are planning to target keywords specifically for your local audiences, you need to find search volume for those locally.

The only way to find that is to track the ranking of those keywords locally.

The RankWatch keyword rank checker is the ideal tool to make this task a cakewalk.

RankWatch keyword rank checker

You need to follow a few simple steps to find the local search volume for a specific keyword using this tool.

  1. First, log in to your RankWatch account.
  2. Then, you need to select ‘Rank Tracking’ from the left-hand side menu.
  3. Next, you need to click on the ‘Keyword Overview’ tab.

    Local keyword search volume in RankWatch keyword rank checker

  4. The page will provide you with the country-specific keyword search volume of the particular keyword.

How To Check Page Performance After Inserting Keywords With Good Search Volumes?

Once you find the local search volumes of your targeted keywords, you need to include them in your content to rank higher in local search results.

However, you must monitor how your web pages perform after inserting those keywords.

The RankWatch keyword rank checker tool can help you with that as well.

  1. If you click on the ‘Overview’ tab and scroll down, you will find your top-ranking keywords, landing pages, and tags.

    Performance chart in RankWatch keyword rank checker

  2. If you scroll down further, you can find the featured snippets you rank for.

    Ranking snippets

  3. If you click on the ‘Pages’ tab, you will find your total number of landing pages that are ranking.
  4. The tool also provides insight into how many of them entered or left the first page of the search results.

    Page performance

Conclusion

Targeting relevant keywords is not enough to achieve a higher ranking on SERPs.

No matter whether you are building a brand new website or trying to drive more traffic to your existing website, or planning to run a PPC campaign, the keywords you are targeting must have a healthy search volume.

However, that healthy value varies dramatically depending on the type of industry you are working in and your campaign goals.

However, targeting keywords with medium and low keyword search volume, moderate difficulty, and a low click-through rate can help you maintain the right balance.

Remember, finding relevant keywords and their search volumes should not be a guessing game.

We have mentioned the best free tools in this article that can completely eradicate guesswork.

However, if you think you don’t need to put effort into your keywords after using those tools once and forever, it won’t take much time to get your content out of the search results pages.

Search engines update their algorithms frequently, and that, in turn, changes the latest SEO trends.

Hence, ensure that you keep an eye on the performance of your keywords at regular intervals.

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