Many of you have probably heard that Google's Keyword Tool has now added search volume. For those that haven't this is a major upgrade and I am mentioning this due to the number of emails I get asking about what keyword tools to use. It seems that not everyone is aware of what Google has just done.
In the past you could use the Keyword Tool in order to find related keywords in order to target your adwords campaigns. Google would provide a list of terms as well as show you how competitive each term was in the form of a little green bar - much like the PR bar. The problem was that this only told you a term had more or less competition than other terms. In other words it basically told you whether there were a lot of other adword campaigns targeting a keyword. This was fine if you ran adword campaigns. The shortfall has been the lack of actual search traffc numbers. Most of us don't run adwords campaigns (PPC) but rather want to know how many searches a keyword gets each month in order to create Adsense blogs. We don't need to know how many adword advertisers there are aside from knowing that a few exist. We want to know how many people are looking for the keywords we build our blog around.
Now Google is finally releasing a monthly estimate of actual searches done. This means that you no longer have to buy a program like Keyword Elite to give you this info. This doesn't render keyword elite useless though as it still has many other functions that are useful in regards to keyword research that isn't available elsewhere for free. It does mean that beginners can finally access search data for free from a reliable source - the best source in fact. Google.
I have compared a few lists between Keyword Elite and Google's Keyword Tool and the numbers are significantly different - not a surprise though as only Google will have estimates that come close to reality.
I ran the term "How to Make Money" through both programs and have posted the results below. I was always aware that the numbers provided by Keyword Elite were severely low in the past based on my own stats.
Here are the results for last month provided by Keyword Elite.
(Click to enlarge all images)
I picked the term "How to Make Money" because it is a term that I rank number 1 or 2 for in most data centers. I know how many visitors I had last month searching for this term. My own stats added up to just over 9200 visitors for that term. Keyword Elite estimated the "Total" traffic for the term last month as 7450 searches. I don't get all the traffic for the term but clearly I received far more than what the estimate states. I have long noticed this in regards to the estimates released by Keyword Elite and hence have known that the numbers are usually only a fraction of real traffic. I didn't know how low the estimates were however but now I do.
The image below shows Google's estimate for "How to Make Money".
As you can see Keyword Elite provided only a third of the real traffic. Google estimates 22,000 searches and this makes more sense and jives with the traffic I see. Position 1 should capture at least half the total traffic and I do in a rough sense. It's not exact as I bounce back and forth between the top 2 spots.
I have compared several other keywords that I rank well for and the Google search results do appear pretty accurate which of course they should - who would know better than Google?
The end result is that I encourage you all to take advantage of this resource. You can now know far better than before just how much traffic any particular keyword might be expected to produce. This is one of if not the most important factors to know before you start building your blogs. And it's free.
You can find Google's Keyword Tool here.
On another issue - let's talk about Alexa. Have any of you managed to figure out what the hell they are doing. I am mystified by the results I get from them. I see huge swings from day to day and yet my traffic is pretty much stable from day to day; pretty much the same amount of uniques, return visitors and page views and yet one day I will rank 27,000 and the very next day 450,000. I have been assuming that the "new" sampling they use has a few bugs in it to account for these ridiculous numbers. Since I began the new MMO blog I am even more mystified. The new blog is averaging a few hundred daily uniques and this blog averages several thousand. So why is my new blog kicking this blogs ass in the Alexa rankings?
The stats for yesterday for this blog.
Same day stats for Make Money Online with Grizzly
Just curious what everyone thinks of the NEW Alexa rankings. Do any of you find them accurate in relation to your own stats? Are you getting wild swings as well even though your traffic is stable? I was hoping that the new system would prove to be reliable if only because a traffic benchmark would be a handy bit of info to have especially for advertising purposes or when purchasing existing domains. At the moment I have to think Alexa is no better or more accurate than before. Let me know what you think.
Cheers,
Griz
