How many monthly searches per keyword is worth targeting?

12 replies
For PPC

I live in a slightly unpopulated area, although it doesn't really seem that unpopulated.. There's like 80k people living in my county, maybe 5k in my town.

I want to target keywords targeted to my area only because there's like no competition, I plan on doing SEO also, but would like to test the waters.

Question is, is targeting keywords that get 10-50 searches a month worth it? If I add up all the keywords maybe I'll get over a thousand or so searches, even more if I expand to nearby counties.

Like I said, though, there's no competition.

Also, when I actually search for these terms all the bigger companies ads show up in my area as well. If I target my area and I'm local is that a benefit? My CPC will be much cheaper because of the target location but will it show up above these other guys that are paying 8 bucks a click? Or will I have to pay that much too to be near the top? There's no competition locally so there's not many Suggested Bid Prices to go by, some say less than a dollar and since there's no competition I figured it would be cheap.

Okay, so maybe there is competition, but they're not local and they're not targeting my area, but rather the whole country.

I'm trying to do this for my web design business as well as a contractor that wants me to produce leads for him, it's pretty much the same situation for each our target keywords. SEO will be done over time, but I need to get the ball rolling asap.

Any tips or advice is much appreciated!!!
#keyword #monthly #searches #targeting #worth
  • Profile picture of the author GTC1187
    I would say ditch the ppc and just do seo. It won't take many links or much time to rank keywords with competition that low.
    Try making specific pages on your site related to your targeted towns/keywords. Do some good internal linking and on-page optimization for each page. You will get on page 1 with just on page then build a few links and you'll rank #1. You may even get away with on-page then build 1 exact match anchor text link and rank #1. I've been able to do this in the past with even multiple keywords based around a geotargeted page with good on page as well. Wordpress and the Yoast SEO plugin make this easy.
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    • Profile picture of the author iAmNameLess
      Originally Posted by GTC1187 View Post

      I would say ditch the ppc and just do seo.
      I would say that is awful advice. The reason being, PPC helps you determine the best keywords, if there is enough volume to even justify doing SEO. Also... great way to test what would be the best meta tag to increase CTR.
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      • Profile picture of the author GTC1187
        Originally Posted by iAmNameLess View Post

        I would say that is awful advice. The reason being, PPC helps you determine the best keywords, if there is enough volume to even justify doing SEO. Also... great way to test what would be the best meta tag to increase CTR.
        The reason I said what I said is because he stated that his keywords only get a few searches per month. You could use ppc to determine the best converting or highest traffic keywords but I don't think that it will be worth it in this situation. Especially since you could build pages targeting specific towns/keywords and do very little optimization to rank them #1 and keep them there with no adspend.
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  • Profile picture of the author sthysteria
    Thanks for the responses.

    iAmNameLess,
    Do you think I can generate leads with that kind traffic? Don't want to spend too much time on it if the keywords generating between 10 and 100 monthly search aren't worth it..With a list of keywords there's probably a couple thousand searches each month..or is 1 out 10 clicking on your site not a likely scenario?
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  • Profile picture of the author Creativegirl
    with little to no competition seo is always the way to go. However, iAmNameLess is right to augment with ppc for the reasons he states which you use to further improve the seo. PPC is always good for terms where you're not coming up but not worth it when you are organically ranking. Instead, turn your attention to seo to dominate the serps with your web properties.
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    • Profile picture of the author RKCastillo
      It really matters the lifetime value of the clients you are working for.

      You can actually get a page ranked that shows no traffic whatsoever in the keyword tool and rent that page to a business in your city for like $50/month.

      If it's for a business that a customer would pay say $10,000 for...it's actually a pretty easy sell to say, I'm ranked #1 for your niche in your neighborhood and i'm looking to partner with someone who does that and i'm also asking for $50/month.

      You'll still get traffic for long tail keywords and you won't have a lot of competition because it's not showing up for keywords in the keyword tool
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  • Profile picture of the author vndnbrgj
    Follow Nameless' advice.
    Use PPC, always and forever!
    Use PPC to determine keywords. You will pay more than the big name companies to rank above them though. If you stop doing regular PPC, you should still do re-marketing. Even with SEO, continue. The remarketing.
    You should be able to rank fairly quickly if its low competition. Regular, effective SEO should dominate a lot in a low comp area.
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    • Profile picture of the author savidge4
      I work a local market. I, as Iamnameless stated use PPC to test for sure. I then personally rely on SEO to take over. I personally go after each and every keyword I can get my hands on. I have found that many in a local market that get 10 to 20 a month, tend to convert at a higher rate.

      The reality is when you live/work in a less populated area your choices are less to begin with. factor in that 33% ( on average ) of web search traffic will hit the #1 link, ( 18% for second, and like 10% for 3rd ) and it becomes real clear why you want to try and get there.

      By going through the process of acquiring a google places, yahoo maps and bing places for business listing, you are helping your efforts. be sure to get citations. Doing this in theory gives you an edge in the list ranking. More importantly it gives you an edge when the person searching is within the same geographic zone.

      You might actually find this to be an interesting read. http://www.warriorforum.com/offline-...ve-market.html Look at the posts left by MRomeo09. He lays out a very effective plan of action in regards to your needs to get a client leeds.

      hope that helps!
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  • Profile picture of the author scottgallagher
    there's quite some horrible advice on here, and it's all over the map.

    One person mentioned customer value. This is pretty good advice. Like, if a $50 investment could net you $100, then it's worth it. In other words, you're asking the wrong question to base a positive ROI on search volume.

    Also, using PPC to 'test' keywords is bogus. People that say this have typically never achieved much local pay or organic success, it's just the same garbage regurgitated over and over. PPC is great for testing conversion when the sample sizes are large enough and you're measuring webpage effectiveness. But let's not forget in local we rank businesses, not websites. can't forget about the dozens of profiles out there to drive traffic above websites. Bogus.

    Heck, there mere discussion of keyword targeting for local is ass-backwards. There's a BIG reason why google has removed over 80% of the keywords with 'not provided'. Not to mention there are only 2-5 core keywords for every local business. Of course we make this list much longer with core-modifiers and geo-modifiers.

    PPC does not replace Organic SEO, nor the reverse. Paid traffic is faster, organic lasts longer. Great local businesses will strive to have both campaigns running, regardless of budget.
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    • Profile picture of the author iAmNameLess
      Originally Posted by scottgallagher View Post


      Also, using PPC to 'test' keywords is bogus. People that say this have typically never achieved much local pay or organic success, it's just the same garbage regurgitated over and over. PPC is great for testing conversion when the sample sizes are large enough and you're measuring webpage effectiveness. But let's not forget in local we rank businesses, not websites. can't forget about the dozens of profiles out there to drive traffic above websites. Bogus.

      Heck, there mere discussion of keyword targeting for local is ass-backwards. There's a BIG reason why google has removed over 80% of the keywords with 'not provided'. Not to mention there are only 2-5 core keywords for every local business. Of course we make this list much longer with core-modifiers and geo-modifiers.

      PPC does not replace Organic SEO, nor the reverse. Paid traffic is faster, organic lasts longer. Great local businesses will strive to have both campaigns running, regardless of budget.
      1.) Yes, it's bogus if you don't know what you're testing, why you're testing, and what you're doing. I'm utterly shocked that someone like you would say that. There are various keywords with different volume and different outcomes. Conversions are affected by quality of traffic, and when different keywords affect different conversion rates, it's important to test them.

      2.) He never said anything about Google + Local... and there is a difference not just between organic and PPC, but organic and local results... I know you know this. Sometimes when you're in a smaller city but wanting to rank in a bigger city, you can't with local. Organic is the only way unless the competition is unbelievably weak or you use PPC. Instead of investing the amount of time for certain keywords that won't perform as high, it would make sense to test with PPC.

      3.) The BIG reason Google has moved to "not provided" is because Google moved to a secure search. This has nothing to do with keywords, this has everything to do with data being shared.

      You make good points if the topic was Google + Local but it isn't.
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    • Profile picture of the author savidge4
      Originally Posted by scottgallagher View Post

      there's quite some horrible advice on here, and it's all over the map.

      One person mentioned customer value. This is pretty good advice. Like, if a $50 investment could net you $100, then it's worth it. In other words, you're asking the wrong question to base a positive ROI on search volume.

      Also, using PPC to 'test' keywords is bogus. People that say this have typically never achieved much local pay or organic success, it's just the same garbage regurgitated over and over. PPC is great for testing conversion when the sample sizes are large enough and you're measuring webpage effectiveness. But let's not forget in local we rank businesses, not websites. can't forget about the dozens of profiles out there to drive traffic above websites. Bogus.

      Heck, there mere discussion of keyword targeting for local is ass-backwards. There's a BIG reason why google has removed over 80% of the keywords with 'not provided'. Not to mention there are only 2-5 core keywords for every local business. Of course we make this list much longer with core-modifiers and geo-modifiers.

      PPC does not replace Organic SEO, nor the reverse. Paid traffic is faster, organic lasts longer. Great local businesses will strive to have both campaigns running, regardless of budget.
      Dude really? testing is testing is testing, if you have the traffic to do it in an hour great, if it takes you 3 weeks then that is what it takes. Some of us work very rural areas. mine for example is 250,000 population across about 3000 sq miles.

      Lets us city chiropractor as an example. for me it would be Bridgeport chiropractic, the problem is that there is a Bridgeport Connecticut, I live in West Virginia, so I put a WV on the end of the term. Looking this up in Adwords suggests its a goose egg of a term. It actually pulls a decent amount of traffic. ( in relative terms for my area ) The only way that you would know this, is if you TESTED. And how do you test if you do not have a ranked page? well by golly you use PPC.

      The 'Local' game changes when you are in a rural area. There are 3 different communities that are right on top of each other were I live, plus 15 to 20 within 10 miles. 5 of these even have a post office. and out of the 20 I think 10 have a "Store" of some kind, Meaning maybe a bait shop.

      Working these areas on the scale and understanding you have, you would fall short. your 'Business' traffic pull would be slim to none. There are tricks to be had when working these areas. I am not going to say loop holes but Google has left some room in locations such as mine. And once you understand what you are working with it opens up your potential search volume from 10 a week to maybe 50. Regardless of the number that is STILL 5x the traffic.

      The reality is you are talking about the markets you deal with. I have YET to run across a keyword that is "not-provided", I've heard about em, just never seen one. OH WAIT that may be related to some goofy GEO thing, nah couldn't be.

      And when you say "We" I am assuming you have a mouse in your pocket? I understand Listing and ranking a business.... but by golly where I come from we list and rank the site too. Should we charge double?
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  • Profile picture of the author 4D
    I would say always use PPC to get going on your venture while your SEO kicks in and catches up. As for number of search volume, it is all relevant. What I mean is that if you have a product that you sell for $1, then you need a ton of searches to justify using this form of marketing. Now if your price point is closer to $500 per sale, then you don't need much search volume. But again, if you don't have conversions, the search volume is worthless. You will have to test ad vs ad and landing page vs landing page as well as offer vs offer to figure out what works best.
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