SERP #2, keyword tool says, 60500 searches. I get 450, Strange???

[loginname]

Hi

I have a site that's currently #2 in google for a specific keyword.
What I feel is a bit strange is the little traffic I get to my site. Webalizer reports about 450 visits in February, or 15 daily.

I was expecting it be much more than 450 visits in February. Afterall keyword tool reports that the keyword is being searched for 60500 times in google. My traffic is about 0,74% of the monthly traffic for that keyword.

Either is google keyword tool reporting wrong numbers or all the traffic is going to #1 in google

I'm #2 in the regions having the most traffic for this keyword, like in USA, Canada, India, England etc...

any thoughts?

[GazD]

Are you doing exact search in the keyword tool, or is this the broad number?

[RobertAxelsen]

Originally Posted by GazD

Are you doing exact search in the keyword tool, or is this the broad number?

In case you were wondering, loginname, broad search would be for instance:
dog training book

..while "dog training book" would be the exact keyword.

[loginname]

not sure what you mean with that, but I suppose I do the exact thing. I enter the keyword in google keyword tool without quotes.

Lets say my keyword is dog training, then I enter dog training in the google keyword tool, not "dog training"

[GazD]

In the keyword tool down there is an option to do an exact search. It defaults to broad.

[loginname]

Broad is selected in that dropdownlist

[GazD]

Switch it to exact and post the number.

[loginname]

Now I get 3600 with exact

[PLRwithAlex]

The number of searches vary by the tool you use also. When I use Micro niche finder it finds around 1000 less than google reports on almost every instance.

[GazD]

Originally Posted by loginname

Now I get 3600 with exact

I'd do some more keyword research then, and see if there are some high volume long tails that you are not ranking well for.

[loginname]

Yeah, but I have some trouble understanding this. I've used google keyword tool and discovered that that the keyword dog training is being searched for 60500 times. and when I test my SERP I enter dog training in google and I see my site is #2.

[loginname]

Originally Posted by GazD

I'd do some more keyword research then, and see if there are some high volume long tails that you are not ranking well for.

should I use exact, broad or phrase when looking for those long tail keywords...

BTW, in the beginning I used Market Samurai to find this keyword. There I entered the keyword without quotes

[tjcocker]

Always use exact, even then it could be less. Don't even pay attention to broad or phrase. This keyword tool is for AdWords advertisers and so the numbers are somewhat inflated.

[Therlos]

There's one mistake many people do: Thinking googles keywordtool is made for guys who like to rank in google. That's wrong, it's made for google's adwords customers. That means it doesn't give you the exact numbers of searches but it gives you the number of times your ad could possibly appear when someone is searching for the keyword.
Broad match means the ad is triggered if someone uses the keyword somewhere in his search query. So if your keyword is "dog food" and has for example 60000 searches, then this 60k includes all searches with the words dog and food somewhere in it like " buy dog food", "dog special food" etc.
Phrase macht means the ad appears if your phrase can be found in the search query exactly in this order, so "buy dog food" would still count while "dog special food" wouldn't count anymore.
Now exact match: If you select exact match, the ad is just triggered if exactly the keyword search phrase is used, in this order and with no additional words. These are the information we want, and these are the right search numbers. If you try to rank for an exact keyword always use the exact match numbers.
Also don't enter keywords in quotes when you do keyword research, that's also something I oftne see people do but it's makes no sense.

Daniel

[semeasy]

Which tool are you using...

[GSX Enterprises]

I've had similar problems with breaking down clickthroughs. But also understand, the results are not only inflated, but according to a 2006 study at stanford distribution of clicks within SERP'S, Position one gets 56% of clicks, while position 2 gets 13% of clicks. HUGE Difference.

So even if you're ranking #1 for a keyword, slice that number in half and thats about what you could expect from INFLATED Google results.

-Safe Travels

[HaplinJ]

Also keep in mind that those numbers are not always right or set in stone once you have them on exact. Use it as a rough guideline, it could be way off for a variety of reasons.

[loginname]

I like to hope that if I rank very high for lets say dog training, then I will also rank high for hot dog training or dog training instructors. Might not rank as well as dog training, but hope atleast the site will be visible on the first page of google.

[jasonmorgan]

Like was said before... use exact search not broad search. it's also good to get a second opinion, try this, you'll have to sign-up before you can use it.

second, you are probably not #2 but only see yourself ranked at #2 because of google personalized search results. run your site through this and see where you rank.

[tjcocker]

Originally Posted by loginname

I like to hope that if I rank very high for lets say dog training, then I will also rank high for hot dog training or dog training instructors. Might not rank as well as dog training, but hope atleast the site will be visible on the first page of google.

You can hope, but if you don't have pages optimized for that you might not see page 10 let alone 1 for those other keywords. Then again, sometimes you'll just get ranked well for things you never even thought about. It's a fun game...

[tjcocker]

Originally Posted by jasonmorgan

run your site through this and see where you rank.

Thanks, been looking for a good serp checker. I've been using proxies.

[loginname]

I became dissapointed when I learned this. Creating a site and having so much expectations for it. And discover that there are some issues I haven't taken account for

But that is then, Now I'm happy I learned this. I wonder how to create content for sites. Lets say a site about dog training. I discover long tail keywords like dog training book and dog training instructor. I suppose I should use the long tail keywords as ideas for articles to write about in the site, so one page for dog training book and another page for dog training instructor? And use dog training as the overall keyword - in url and title

[tjcocker]

Originally Posted by loginname

Lets say a site about dog training. I discover long tail keywords like dog training book and dog training instructor. I suppose I should use the long tail keywords as ideas for articles to write about in the site, so one page for dog training book and another page for dog training instructor? And use dog training as the overall keyword - in url and title

That's exactly how I would do it.