Monthly or yearly search volume when evaluating keyword traffic strength?

[carlos123]

On most all threads that I have read on this forum the primary indicator of a keyword's traffic strength is Google's Local Search Volume (LSV) or the number of searches that occurred in the most recent month.

Locally to the country in which we live I assume.

But today I read of one well respected keyword teaching site that completely discounts the LSV in favor of the Global Monthly Search Volume (MSV).

Their premise is that the MSV is a better indicator of true traffic to a keyword phrase than the LSV is in that there may be times of the year when the LSV does not reflect the overall appeal of a keyword if the phrase has to do with infrequent events or similar things that would cause the traffic to change significantly between some given months.

So do you refer mostly to the LSV? MSV? A combination? Something else?

Carlos

[MarioSotojr]

When I Do my keyword research it all depends if I use MSV or LSV. When I am starting a new PPC campaign I tend to use the MSV more than LSV as an indicator. Than Start Trimming down as the campaign progress.

But if I'm going into a micro niche market I weigh in both into the factor. Which I tend to look for smaller specific keywords.

When I'm doing research for keywords to use for my articles I definetly use Monthly Search Volume.
So overall for me MSV is probably more viable overall. Some might disagree with this but it's working for me.

[michael_nguyen]

Originally Posted by carlos123

On most all threads that I have read on this forum the primary indicator of a keyword's traffic strength is Google's Local Search Volume (LSV) or the number of searches that occurred in the most recent month.

Locally to the country in which we live I assume.

But today I read of one well respected keyword teaching site that completely discounts the LSV in favor of the Global Monthly Search Volume (MSV).

Their premise is that the MSV is a better indicator of true traffic to a keyword phrase than the LSV is in that there may be times of the year when the LSV does not reflect the overall appeal of a keyword if the phrase has to do with infrequent events or similar things that would cause the traffic to change significantly between some given months.

So do you refer mostly to the LSV? MSV? A combination? Something else?

Carlos

Whoever told your that is mistaken. This really depends on what kinda of marketing you're doing. Eg I market physical products to the UK so obviously I want UK customers. This means I will use the LSV. Theres no need to look at MSV because it's very unlikely someone from the US will purchase a product that is located in the UK. Sometimes the LSV is greater than the MSV and vice versa.

What kinda of marketing are you doing ? Clickbank ? Then yes use the MSV.
If your doing local offline business, then use LSV.

Easy Peasy.

[carlos123]

Thanks for the input Mario.

I am starting to use MSV but it's a bit unerving since I have grown used to relying on the LSV not to mention that sometimes there is a huge descripency between the two numbers. I figure the MSV is more likely to be off than the last months numbers as represented by the LSV.

Anyone know of a good way to uncover why numbers can sometimes be so different between the LSV and MSV? Is there some kind of tool that would flesh out which months show the highest search volume for a given phrase?

As it is looking at Google's MSV at present I can't tell if this is a good month, one of the poor one's, or an average month for a given phrase. All I see is the average of all months for the last 12.

Which leads me back to thinking I should go back to relying on the LSV more.

So many if's and so much uncertainty makes me want to give up LOL (just kidding).

Carlos

[carlos123]

Originally Posted by michael_nguyen

Whoever told your that is mistaken. This really depends on what kinda of marketing you're doing. Eg I market physical products to the UK so obviously I want UK customers. This means I will use the LSV. Theres no need to look at MSV because it's very unlikely someone from the US will purchase a product that is located in the UK. Sometimes the LSV is greater than the MSV and vice versa.

Hmm...that makes sense. Goes to show you that you need to think for yourself and on your feet when evaluating what you hear about all this stuff on the Internet.

I can see where the place I heard that from wasn't taking into account what you say Michael or if they did, they didn't give it enough consideration to mention it. That the MSV represents GLOBAL search volumes but if one is not selling to a global audience then such a number is pretty worthless.

What kinda of marketing are you doing ? Clickbank ? Then yes use the MSV.
If your doing local offline business, then use LSV.

That's a key question I hadn't thought about. Thanks for pointing that out. Personally I am mainly Adsense marketing but regardless I think your question would apply to that as well with respect to whether the keyphrase is likely to interest a worldwide audience or just a local one.

Carlos

[carlos123]

Hmm...I just answered my own question as to how to determine what happened during the last twelve months...traffic wise.

In the Google Keyword Tool there are some extra columns that don't show up normally that can be made to show.

Search Volume Trends
Highest Volume Occurred In

Very interesting.

Carlos

[apocrypha]

For adsense and clickbank,i would definitely look at the monthly searches because i would welcome visitors from all round the globe.When i try to sell my product to specific market,then MSV is worthless.Like someone mentioned above,why should you look at USA Traffic if you want the UK people to buy your thing.
This doesn't make sense.Everybody wants targeted traffic and untargeted traffic has no value and it exhausts your bandwidth.