Are keyword research tools a scam?
I never really cared about SEO, until recently. I wanted to do some keyword research, until I found an interesting pattern:
I looked for the keywords that generate the most traffic to my website. According to Google Search Console, those keywords get around 1000 impressions a month. However, SEO tools rank those keywords at around 300 impressions/month.
In my world, being off by a factor 3X is unacceptable. I started wondering how do these tools actually work, because I don't think Google will gladly share the data with them. So, what I believe they do is they spy on people when they install their browser extensions.
Has anyone any experience? Knows first hand how these tools can actually work?
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Hey!
Many get their data from clickstream sources. For example jumpshot was used a lot until it got knocked out of business due to privacy concerns the beginning of this year. Similarweb also provides it. It's hundreds to thousands of euros a month to get your hands on.
Many big tools right now use their own algorithms, still based on that data and then extrapolating trends from Google trends, adwords volumes and other sources.
Never has search volume been an exact science. Even the numbers shown in search console are range based instead of exact numbers.
The only way to get real data is to run adwords campaigns on the most important keywords and then, while making sure the ads have 100% visibility during a period, you know the exact search volume if you look at the total impressions.
Which is also another way these tools get data to feed their algorithms.
Don't break your brain over it, use search volumes as guidance and trends for your strategy and tactics. Estimates, and ways be clear about the fact that it's estimates. Then you'll be fine.
Yeah, 'clickstream data', I've heard already people talking about it as the reasoning behind SEO keyword research. It would be great to be enlighten, because I honestly don't see the logical step between collecting clicks and keywords used in search engines.. Unless of course you managed to install a click tracking script on Google itself.
So, bottom line, such as I imagined, keyword research should just be renamed to keyword gambling.
Clickstream data is nothing more then tools who manage to get a massive user base that allow them to use their browser data.
What jumpshot did, they had access to avast their browser plugin. This was installed on literally hundreds of millions of peoples computers. In the end it appeared that it was possible to track that data back to a person. So they had no choice but kill that business.
The logic behind collecting information on keywords is all about better understanding your audience. Once you better understand how they search it helps to create better content for that audience. And if you then don't use that search volume as hard numbers, but as guidance/trends you will see actual traffic growth. Not only from organic search, but also you have data to steer relevant content that can be distributed via social, email marketing and sales enablement.
If you are interested I spoke about this last week on a digital conference. You can find the video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPR9JsIu4a8
Together with Jochen (CRO at Textbroker) I speak exactly about how to use it as guidance in a strategy, instead of as hard facts. Use it to look at the market "globally" and map the keywords to users search intent. Then map that to your marketing strategy.
ps. i see you live in Amsterdam. Greetings from Haarlem ;)
I wonder what keywords you'd like to target and which tools you use to find their traffic. I use keywordtool.io so I could check for ya if it gives similar results.
Could you quickly check for
hdf5 python?Interesting. Keywordtool.io says the following:
Search volume: 3600/mo
CPC: €0.00
Competition: 0
Have you ever tried to compare the results with what Google Search Console gives you for your own keywords?
Actually not, but now I'm going to haha.
Great! Thanks for checking it out!