Number of searches
How to select high-demand keywords for your Internet marketing campaign
Before starting to optimize your landing page for a keyword, you will most likely want to make sure that your efforts will bear fruit. Therefore you need to know how often the keyword is searched for by Internet users. If the popularity of the keyword is close to zero, you can’t possibly expect many visitors through it – even if your site ranks #1 for it. And vice versa, popular keywords can make your website popular once it is optimized for them. That is why they are worth to be taken up in the first place.
Where is the number of searches taken from?
Default source
Using Rank Tracker, you can get average monthly search volume for any keyword over the recent year. The data is taken from the Google AdWords Keyword Tool – the most respectable and widely-used keyword research database.
Custom sources
If you would like to import search volume from another quality source, please open the Number of Searches menu under Preferences -> KEI Settings.
Accessing Number of Searches menu
Select an appropriate keyword research source from the dropdown list:
- Google AdWords Keyword Tool (default)
- Keyword Discovery
- Wordtracker
- Yandex Wordstat
The changes will be applied next time you update KEI.
Search volume settings
Measuring keyword popularity in selected area
The Google AdWords Keyword Tool lets you estimate how popular a search term is with a particular group. You only need to set up an appropriate region/language filter for it (Preferences -> KEI Settings -> Number of Searches).
- Local (popularity among searchers speaking a certain language from a country of your choice).
- Global (popularity across all countries and languages in Google’s network). It is used in Rank Tracker projects by default.
Examples
| Online hardware shop (operates within the United States) | Online software shop (delivers products electronically worldwide) | |
| Keyword database | Google AdWords | Google AdWords |
| Filter | Local | Global |
| Language | English | All Languages |
| Country | United States | All Countries and Territories |
Including/excluding related terms from calculations
The Google AdWords Keyword Tool can return search volume for the exact term that appears in your project or for a group of related terms. You can adjust these settings by choosing an appropriate keyword match type filter under Preferences -> KEI Settings -> Number of Searches.
- Exact match. Returns search volume for the words or word combinations as they appear in your project. Say, if you check search volume for “seo services”, searches for “cheap seo services” or “seo services brisbane” won’t be taken into account.
- Phrase match. Use this option to get search volume for all queries containing your keyword (or key phrase). So not only “seo services” but “affordable seo services”, “seo services review” will be considered. Searches for “search engine optimization services” or “seo company” will be ignored though.
- Broad match. Get data for all search queries containing the key phrase or any of its components (including singular/plural forms and synonyms). Examples: “search engine optimization services”, “seo company”, “professional seos” and the like.
Examples
| Keyword | Exact match | Phrase match | Broad match |
| seo services | seo services | seo services, affordable seo services, seo services review etc. | search engine optimization services, seo company, professional seos etc. |
| buy books online | buy books online | buy books online discounts, buy cheap books online, Atlanta buy books online etc. | online bookstore, buy dictionary online, order health magazines online etc. |
Enabling/disabling search volume updates
Search volume updates can be easily turned on and off whenever convenient (the settings are project-specific). This is done through the Number of Searches menu under Preferences -> KEI Settings. Your new settings will take effect next time you update KEI.
