Introduction to Best-of Episode

Speaker 1 0:00

Hi , ed Dawson here , and , as I'm a bit busy at the moment and need a break , welcome to another one of my best of SEO is not that hard podcasts . These are the episodes from the back catalog that I think have the greatest hits and ones that are still relevant and provide great value for you . So , without further ado , let's get into the episode . Hello and welcome to SEO is not that hard . I'm your host , ed Dawson , the founder of the seo intelligence platform , keywordfupilusecom , where we help you discover the questions people ask online and learn how to optimize your content for traffic and authority . I've been in seo and online marketing for over 20 years and I'm here to share the wealth of knowledge , hints and tips I've amassed over that time . Hello and welcome back to seo is not that hard . It's me hereson , as usual , and today I'm going to be talking about when is a zero volume keyword , not a zero volume keyword ? This is a real bugbear of mine . It's one that comes up quite a lot with keywords people use . When we're talking to people about our product and about my general philosophy when it comes to SEO and how you choose keywords and topics to write about , people always come back and say , yeah , but what's the ? What's the volume of that keyword ? How much traffic is that keyword generating ? What's the volume ? And there's a big issue , because lots of seo experts out there and gurus and advice says you must look at a tool that gives you keyword volume and then you should prioritize the keywords that you try to rank for based upon the volume of those keywords . Now this ,

Zero Volume Keyword Misconception

Speaker 1 1:33

while it sounds like it makes sense , it's this situation where people are measuring for the wrong metric . Now , I've had recent episodes where I've talked about why most SEO tools are wrong . If you go back a few weeks and look at that , you know there's an episode called why most SEO tools are wrong and that's where I tell you exactly how and why these tools get their data from , why it's wrong , why it is incorrect , why you mustn't pay too much attention to it . Now , my philosophy has always been you cover a topic in detail , because if you cover a topic in detail , you will pick up loads of keywords you're not even thinking about ranking for . But I want to give you some examples right here . So most of the queries that I look at and we look at in keywords people use are going to be a good few words long , sometimes as much as seven or even more . Okay , now , when you've got queries that are this long , they're naturally going to be so many ways to construct very similar keywords and phrases around that seed that you're working with . So here's some examples .

Speaker 1 2:41

So I think we're going to write some content about home office desks for small spaces . Okay , that's what we're thinking about . So here's 10 , and this could literally be hundreds around the same thing , but here's just 10 for you . So example best small desk home office . Which home office desks are best for small spaces ? Best compact desk for home office . What are the best desks for small workspaces

Examples of Similar Search Intent

Speaker 1 3:07

? I have a small home office . What desk should I get ? Best desks for tiny home offices . Which space-saving desk is best for home office use ? Best minimalist desk for a small home office . Home office desks that fit in small rooms . Best corner desk for a small office space .

Speaker 1 3:27

Okay , that's 10 different queries there , but they all have the same search intent . That is , someone who is researching into what are the best options for a desk for office use in a small space . Okay , and if you're selling like those kind of desks or you're trying to help people find those kind of desks , maybe you're an affiliate , or maybe you're an e-commerce store , or maybe you're just blogging about it . You know there are so many terms there . That's just 10 , and we could literally do hundreds like that , but they're all reconstructing the same keyword , okay , the same keyword intent .

Speaker 1 4:06

And Google is really really good at a few things . One is synonyms . Okay , you don't always have to have exactly the keyword , it will infer keywords and synonyms from your content . So this is one thing . This is why we always say gather all the questions people are asking about a topic , about a topic area , as many as you can . Gather those questions , cluster them so you get related questions together and then write a piece of content that covers all those questions . Okay , you don't have to explicitly have every question in there . Sometimes you will , just as the way you write it . Other times you won't . But what you're doing is you're not just ranking for those keywords that you've thought about and that you've discovered , those questions you've discovered .

Speaker 1 4:53

You're also going to pick up a huge number of other keyword phrases , especially long-tail keyword phrases like this you know you can have one piece of content which will rank for thousands of keywords , literally

Why Topic Coverage Beats Volume

Speaker 1 5:05

thousands of keywords and keyword phrases . Okay , and cumulatively that's going to add up to a lot of traffic . But if you went to a place and said what's the search volume for home office desks that fit in small rooms , those tools are going to say to you at zero , because they haven't got any data at that level . Okay , but cumulatively that page could be getting thousands of visitors a month on a really broad range of these keyword phrase , question phrase , keyword strings . So this is why when I say you know when is a zero volume keyword not a zero volume keyword , because clearly one at that level of data , those types of keywords , the volume estimators have no data so they'll say it's zero , but it's really a good number . If it's just 10 , you get 1,000 , you rank for 1,000 of these keywords on a piece of content . 10 a month on each one is great . That's 10 000 visitors from that one piece , one piece of content . All really all really low volume , okay . So this is why why it's just not worth worrying about volume on these things .

Speaker 1 6:15

Okay , you might be on be interested in volume data for how many people are interested in , you know , in death home office and the desks in home offices , but you know that's going to be a lot of people , because lots of people have home offices . Okay , so you have to use a bit of intuition , and sometimes at a very high level . Those volume tools can still be useful . If you're interested in , say , you want to compare how many people search for broadband , any keyword with broadband in it , versus any keyword with I don't know mobile phones in it , and you can compare the comparative size of two markets , okay , you might find that broadband's a bigger market than mobile phones , but I would ignore all of the volume data on that .

Speaker 1 6:52

Okay , just think about writing content that's going to cover a topic , not the keywords . The questions are important when you're trying to work out what you want to say in those topics and what different pieces of content you can answer . You're not worrying about the volume level , okay , you're just worrying about covering the topic in detail , and that's where you'll start to drive traffic from , because if you just concentrate on a small number of keywords just because they're high volume , you're not going to succeed , because A there'll be lots of competition because other people are just writing targeted pieces of content for those very short tail keywords , but you're going to miss out on so much opportunity all around because you're not properly covering it in detail . So that's the end of my rant today . I hope you found it useful . I hope it sort of helps reinforce why volume is nothing to worry about and why zero volume keywords are actually really so valuable . Anyway , until next time , keep optimizing , stay curious . Remember , seo is not that hard when you understand the basics . Thanks for listening . It means a lot to me .

Speaker 1 8:00

This is where I get to remind you where you can connect with me and my SEO tools and services . You can find links to all the links I mentioned here in the show notes . Just remember , with all these places where I use my name , that ed is spelled with two d's . You can find me on linkedin and blue sky . Just search for ed dawson on both .

Speaker 1 8:15

You can record a voice question to get answered on the podcast . The link is in the show notes . You can try our our SEO intelligence platform , keywords People Use at keywordspeoplesusecom , where we can help you discover the questions and keywords people are asking online . Post those questions and keywords into related groups so you know what content you need to build topical authority . And finally , connect your Google Search Console account for your sites so we can crawl and understand your actual content , find what keywords you rank for

Closing Thoughts and Contact Information

Speaker 1 8:40

, and then help you optimize and continually refine your content and targeted personalized advice to keep your traffic growing . If you're interested in learning more about me personally or looking for dedicated consulting advice , then visit wwweddawsoncom . Bye for now and see you in the next episode of SEO is Not that Hard .