Low Search Volume Keywords – Should You Target Them?
Does it make sense to target low search volume keywords? This post is going to examine the value of keywords with lower search volume.
There is a question that naive SEO people may ask themselves during keyword research,”Is there a need to target keywords with a low search volume?”
Perhaps, the first thought might be – “nope, it makes no sense to do it as nobody is looking for them online.”
Nevertheless, some SEO experts state that low search volume keywords should be a part of your keyword research strategy.
In this post, you will find out what benefits you will get by targeting keywords with a low search volume.
Let’s get the ball rolling!
Keywords with a low search volume get significant searches
Those who learn SEO know this for sure. And when people run keyword research, they might be confused with the search volume of the keywords they analyze.
For example, the keyword “doctor email database” has 60 searches per month:
As you can see, not so many people explore this keyword online. Despite this fact, if you analyze the same keyword with Google Search Console, the numbers may be higher.
Eventually, this keyword gets some searches and it is worth targeting.
The process looks simple. Does it?
Yes, keywords with a low search volume drive traffic to your site. Nobody denies this fact. Unlikely, don’t expect to get tons of traffic at the end of the day.
Then why do advocates of the keywords with a zero search volume not care about this fact?
The answer to the question is straightforward – they are not interested in driving a huge amount of traffic to their site by targeting these particular keywords.
Keywords with a low search volume are easy to rank for
Low search volume keywords are less competitive. You won’t have issues driving traffic to your site by targeting these keywords. Besides, it will help your overall SEO efforts to boost your website authority.
Keywords with a high search volume are quite competitive. For example, if you want to drive traffic to your free logo maker, then you should know how this keyword is competitive:
This keyword has 57K of search volume and 95 of keyword difficulty – it is super hard to rank for. However, if you change the keyword to something like “watercolor logo maker free”, you will see the following:
Keyword difficulty score is 3. It means ranking this keyword is super easy.
The process looks simple. Does it?
There is trouble with low search volume keywords. Many of them are unpopular. People don’t use them to search for whatever they need online.
For example, you want to explore keyword opportunities to create a blog post around content generators. The idea of this post is to promote your content generator tool as a part of the list with other players in the market.
One of the keywords with a low search volume related to this post is “free content generator”:
This keyword drives 100 searches per month but has keyword difficulty 57. It is going to be hard to rank for this keyword (even though it has a low search volume.)
Why does it happen?
It happens because search engines take this keyword as other variations that mean the same thing. Hence, it ranks in the same search results on the SERP.
How to avoid this confusion?
If you use Ahrefs, pay attention to a couple of SEO metrics:
- Keyword Difficulty – Keywords with high KD are a part of top-ranking pages with tons of backlinks. Keywords with a low search volume represent their own topics most of the time
- Traffic Potential – It shows the sum of organic traffic that the #1 ranking page for your target keyword receives from all the keywords it ranks for. If you see that this score is higher than a standard volume, then there are other search queries included.
Content creation is much easier with low-search volume keywords
When you’re trying to create content targeting keywords with a high search volume, you will face a problem – you won’t be able to satisfy all search requests.
Why?
It happens because you can’t predict search intent behind the keywords you’re targeting. Practice shows such keywords have a broad meaning.
Let’s see the example by taking a “content design” keyword. Pay attention to the SERP:
A brief review of the SERP result shows that the search intent behind this keyword varies. You can see guides that cover the topic “What is content design?” The other variations of search intent are related to online courses and online tools (e.g, tools for creating custom logos, infographics, etc.)
How to predict search intent behind broad keywords?
First and foremost, ask yourself a couple of questions:
- Do people search for specific services? (tool for creating infographics)
- Do they need a step-by-step process for anything? (how to create an infographic)
- Do they need a content design solution for something specific? (content design tool for creating educational flowcharts)
The answers to these questions will help you narrow down the target audience. It leads to identifying keywords that you will be able to use in content creation. Keywords with a low search volume but for your very own target audience.
The process looks simple. Does it?
Keywords with a low search volume are specific. These keywords may represent their own topics by themselves. But such topics won’t be popular among users.
What does it mean?
It means that the uniqueness of keywords with a low search volume isn’t as unique as you may think. There are tons of specific keywords people explore on the web.
To conclude – don’t count on the uniqueness of keywords with a low search volume just for the sake of creating content easier.
Keywords with a low search volume convert better
Specific searches help you create content easier. Plus, some of them may convert better compared to keywords with a high search volume.
For instance, let’s analyze the keyword “content repurposing.” The keyword has not-so-impressive search volume numbers – 500 searches per month. Its keyword difficulty speaks for itself – no need to bother yourself with targeting this keyword:
Take a look at the SERP results – the intent behind the search is informational. People want to know how to repurpose content, and what ways of doing this are out there. Users are not interested in buying services for content repurposing:
Compare this search request to the one with a low search volume:
The SERP results are all about suggesting pages with commercial intent. Thus, people don’t want to learn about content repurposing. They want to buy any service that would help them with this activity.
The process looks simple. Does it?
Don’t delude yourselves by thinking that all keywords with a low search volume are lucrative. Nope. This statement is false. The level of keyword conversion depends on the search volume anyway.
Hence, you shouldn’t count on these types of keywords when thinking about boosting the conversion rate.
To Sum Up
Obviously, there is not much sense to target low search volume keywords. Instead, focus on keywords that drive enough traffic.
Fortunately, there are two cases when the game is worth the candle:
- When you have stumbled upon a trending hot topic
- When you have stumbled upon a topic with potential conversions
Other than that, don’t bother yourself with targeting low-search volume keywords.
If you think this topic lacks more information, feel free to share your ideas in the comments section.
