I have a particular website that ranks #1 for a few different key phrases. I compared my December keyword referrals to Google’s approximate search volume for December and was very surprised to see that they don’t quite match up….at all.
Keyword #1
- Google claims approximately 33,100 searches in December
- My #1 ranking only received 2,428 visits from that keyword (a mere 7% of searches)
Keyword #2
- Google claims approximately 14,800 searches in December
- My site ranks in the 1st and 2nd position (with sitelinks on the first) and received 17,651 visits (about 120% of the supposed search volume).
I’ve read various studies about what percentage of clicks go to the 1st listings but these two examples are all over the board.
Because of sitelinks and having the top 2 rankings, I’d expect a higher CTR (click-thru-rate) for that keyword but 120% is a little unlikely. On the other hand, I would expect greater than 7% of the searches with Keyword #1 even though it is just a single listing.
So this obviously leads me to question any keyword research done with Google’s tool. Anyone else ever compared your analytics to Google’s approximate search volume?
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I have noticed inaccurate estimates as well..from a PPC perspective..when we create our PPC budgets, we use Google figures and they are inaccurate in many cases…I have tried to get local search figures and they are non existent….so I work with what I have..any better suggestions..Is yahoo or msn search tools any more accurate?
Google’s search results data seems very unreliable. Im on the second page for a term that gets 301k searches a month on average according to google, but jack all visits. Hopefully if I get to number 1 i will get a big chunk of the 301k. Kinda wish there was a way to see more accurate search volume…
That data most likely will never, and probably should never sync up. Keyword #1 - That number would account for all searches of the term. Some of those searching will not click through to anything, some will click through to other sites, and some to yours. Just because the term is ranked #1 for you does not necessarily mean you will have 100% click through rate based on total search volume.
Questions
Is the term number one ranking for you mean that is has an average position of one? or is it your best performing term based on another metric?
Your site is showing up in the 1st and 2nd positions when you search for a term? because of your search history, and relevance (i.e. you clicking on relevant content and through your own ads) this site would be more likely to show up higher ranked in the search query for you. This does not mean it shows up #1 for all searches.
are you counting total visits to your site in December compared to search volume from a specific term? traffic could have come from various paid and non-paid ads and search traffic, and direct traffic.
Looks like I’m about 8 months behind you.
This week I compiled some data on organic CTR based on search engine ranking. The data is sorted incorporating a bunch of categorical differentiations like does the SERP have PPC ads and are they on the top or side? Is there a Youtube video or shopping results on the SERP? And even does Amazon show up on the SERP?
The data was pretty surprising. What I found is that the CTR based on PPC and organic volumes for a good percentage of the search queries is not much above 0%. Something happens on the SERP that causes people to not find what they’re looking for and so they just retype their query (that’s my hypothesis). Other queries resulted in a 30% organic CTR in when the website was ranked 5%. So that was awfully confusing.
The jury is still out on this one, but I think that the current thinking on organic CTR is wrong more than Google’s keyword volume tool.
P.S. We should go to lunch with AJ sometime so I can show you this data. Some of it is REALLY surprising.
Has anyone noticed that recently (today) google insights is showing dramtic drop in search volume for most keywords generally? This is quite perplexing.