Organic Keyword Traffic/Strength

[TP_Marketing]

Hello!

Does anyone have any suggestions to get an accurate search volume on organic traffic? I've been using Google Adwords however there is a big difference in Paid vs. Organic. Moz currently only pulls Bing.

Any suggestions much appreciated!!

Thank you!

[TomRayner]

Hey there

I'll run through what I do to get an idea of search volume.  Your mileage may vary, but all in all I've found this to be pretty accurate.

The first step I take is to use the Google Keyword Tool.  It does look at paid data which is a pain for sure, but it's a great starting point.  A feature that's been added to the new keyword planner is search volume for that keyword over the last 12 months.  This is particularly useful as you can see if the keyword is gaining or losing interest, which is a good way to look at whether it is worth targeting.

The second step is to use Bing’s organic search volume tool for the last month, which you can find here: http://www.bing.com/toolbox/keywords.  This appears to have many advantages over Google’s mechanism, as it is based on monthly data, it doesn’t provide rounded up results and is based on Bing’s organic search volume – all of which would make it more accurate than Google in theory.  However, the sample size of searchers in Bing is obviously significantly smaller and with anywhere between 85-95% of searchers still using Google, we cannot rely on Bing’s data too much.

I then aggregate the two scores to get an average search volume, then I look at relevancy once again.  I refer to Fresh Web Explorer (http://freshwebexplorer.seomoz.org/), which I use to measure the relevancy of the term in recent search activity.  The higher the score, the more that exact term was picked up by the tool over the last 30 days.  The tool does have some limitations, as it works on a limited base of RSS feeds that it has identified as following (there are notable exceptions), but it provides us with another indication of the keyword’s relevance over recent search.

Finally, I use another aggregator for the keyword’s recent mentions in the form of Topsy (http://topsy.com/).  This gives a more social media insight into the mentions of the keyword.  Again, the higher the number, the more mentions the keyword received.

Run these scores for about 20-30 of your prospective keywords and you should get an accurate idea of which ones will bring in traffic, plus an idea on which ones will bring in around the traffic number that Google and Bing advertise.

Hope this helps.

[TP_Marketing]

Thank you Very Much!!