How Much Traffic From Organic SEO?

[incrediblehelp]

One question I have always struggled with is when prospects/clients ask:

"How much traffic can I expect from these keywords?"

or

"If I sign up with you how much traffic can I expect to see?"

Of course as most search marketers know their really isn't any definitive answer.

For me, first I go through and explain that it is not really about traffic. It is about leads and conversion their after. Just because you get rankings, traffic doesn't mean the work is done. SEO is growing into something much more than just getting rankings and developing traffic. It is also about Post-Click marketing as well.

Secondly unless you work fro the SE's your not privy to this information anyway so why bother worrying about it?

I am making this posting to see if some of you experts out there have some creative explanations or ways to satisfy this desire from even those most stubborn prospects/clients. What do you do when the prospects/clients must have some sort of quantifiable number from you? Simple say no and move on?

[achronister]

I sometimes try and give them a percentage increase based on their PPC traffic and where I think I can get them. I always throw in the disclaimer that it can't really be predicted, but some clients want predictions anyway.

[incrediblehelp]

Yeah I have used PPC projections as well, but they are so far off it is funny.

The worst is when I pick keywords for clients that get 0 traffic in keyword tools and PPC tools. The wonder why that is. Then months later these same keywords are getting 40-50 clicks a month and still showing 0 in the tools.

[dburdon]

Jaan,

I'd agree with you and Achronister that the ppc and word tracker predictions can be wrong.

There's definitely double and treble counting of the overlap in the Overture terms.

In the UK I estimate that the Overture figures represent about 1/6th of the total market.

I then use a search engine traffic curve to estimate the traffic from rankings.

[Steven1976a]

"Simple say no and move on"

I would go with this answer.

[incrediblehelp]

dburdon,

Confused on the chart.

What does the 0-70 number represent on the x-axis?

I assume the % on the y axis represents the total amount of organic clicks/traffic.

I thought it would be more simple to say if you have ranking 1, 2, 3, 4, etc you get a certain percentage of organic.

Maybe that is what it is saying but I don't understand yet.

Also what happens when you get 0 clicks from Uk Overture. 1/6 of nothing is nothing, lol.

[dburdon]

Jaan,

the curve is cumulative and shows the percentage of traffic accounted for by rankings 1-10, 1-20, 1-30 etc along the X axis.

For example rankings 1-20 account for 90% of all traffic. The data was assembled from the analytics of about 10 sites. The curve climbs at a slower gradient than that demonstrated by the notorious "lost" AOL data.

I account for the variance on the basis that 1. My data is more biased towards b2b. B2b searchers may be inclined to look further into the SERPs. 2. AOL has a larger "sponsored" section than Google, Yahoo and MSN.

[incrediblehelp]

Right that is why I would think the percentage axis should be flipped.

Right now it appears that the graph represents rankings 1-10 achieving 0-20% of all traffic.

[dburdon]

Jaan,

rankings 1-10 = 78% of traffic.

Rankings along X axis. Cumualtive traffic share along Y axis.

[incrediblehelp]

yes dburdon I understand it now, just must be some temporary dyslexia.

[rumblepup]

You know, I have a very renewed interest in keywords and organic SERPs now that I have done a little research. What I thought I knew, I really didn't.

Uhmm...
Yeah..

Well, after following up with some of the stuff at SES, there are certain keyword aspects as compared to traffic that are not only interesting, but after having researched the traffic at my site over the past year, are spot on.

rankings 1-10 = 78% of traffic.

Around there, DEPENDING ON THE SE.

One question I have always struggled with is when prospects/clients ask:

"How much traffic can I expect from these keywords?"

incrediblehelp, wouldn't you make be doing a better service (I'm sure your doing an awesome service!! Just for the sake of argument.) if you distinguished qualified traffic from "regular" traffic.

What I mean to say is that if a site targets, say a two word competitive term, like "apple ipod".

For craps and giggle let's say we can actually get first page on this term.

Now, we are going to get between 78 and 85 of our traffic from natural search.

However, how much of that traffic is actually looking to buy an apple ipod, or use our stuff to "pimp" and ipod. Nope, I think most of our traffic is from people doing research on apple ipods.

But if we targeted "blue 8gb apple ipod", I bet you 5 bucks that the traffic we get from that will lead to more sales.

The best resource for this stuff is Ken Jurina at epiar, you gottat read up on his keyword research.

[incrediblehelp]

Originally Posted by rumblepup

if you distinguished qualified traffic from "regular" traffic.

Sure. No traffic I try to target for clients is "unqualified". Why would anyone want that?

I agree long tail keywords are the best to target for conversions. You have to understand from a sales/prospect side it is tough to convince that ""blue 8gb apple ipod" is just as good as "apple ipod"

Another problem I find myself in from time to time is trying convince regional clients that they cant and shouldn't compete for generic keywords. For instance lets say your a car dealer only based in Los Angeles. Do you thinck you should target "Cadillac escalade" or "Cadillac Escalade LA". Well I know the answer, but the client takes some educating first.

[incrediblehelp]

Originally Posted by rumblepup

The best resource for this stuff is Ken Jurina at epiar, you gottat read up on his keyword research.

Where are they getting their data from? Meaning how do they "estimate total searches from all three major search engines"??

[rumblepup]

Where is anybody associated with SEMPO going to get there information.

I'm sure they have propietary technology that helps them search for keywords across the SE's.

IMHO, Overture sucks, if used by itself.

I use three to four tools for doing keyword research, both online and off. I find the similiarities, and try to distinguish the differences but reflecting on the tool.

Is it a Google tool, or a Overture Tool, or a (released by accident) AOL tool?

One of my favorites is SEOBook's tools.
Another is Oy-oy tools.

[rumblepup]

Sure. No traffic I try to target for clients is "unqualified". Why would anyone want that?

Really dumb "SEO's"

You know them, and we all hate them because they screw it up for the rest of us.

You know, the guys who think that if they put keywords into the meta keyword tag are "targeting" the keyword, and about 1500 other keywords.

LOL!! Oh man I crack myself up.

[incrediblehelp]

I use many different tools to come up with keyword lists for clients, not to provide studies online.

[dburdon]

Guys,

I've just done some work for an online TV retailer:

Think of these terms:

TV
Flatscreen TV
Sony Flatscreen TV
Sony 32 inch Flatscreen TV
SONY KDL32S2030
SONY KDL32S2030 deliver by Christmas

As a general rule, the more specific the search term, the greater the propensity towards conversion and transaction.

Sadly one of the problems of all keyword research is that it tends to be anything from 3 to 7 weeks out of date. In the case of the last search term its value would accelerate by the day.

[rumblepup]

I use many different tools to come up with keyword lists for clients, not to provide studies online.

Hey, his providing studies online is a way to be percieved as an authority.

Guess that's why he's a regular speaker at SES and PubCon.

[rumblepup]

Sadly one of the problems of all keyword research is that it tends to be anything from 3 to 7 weeks out of date. In the case of the last search term its value would accelerate by the day.

Got that right, and trends change all the time. You in particular got a hot one 'cause your dealing with TV's. You can't really judge trends from looking at last years reports because the product lines change, hell, almost every quarter. And let's not mention the NEWEST TV's. Ay! coñio!

Uhm. Jaan, I hope that you took my post in good fun. I wasn't jabbing at you, just dumb SEO's, and your not one of them. In fact, I've seen you beat up on dumb SEO's.

Just sounds like I frustrated you. Sorry if I did.