hey what's going on
it's the Doug show my name is Doug
Huntington and in this episode I'm gonna
talk to Evan Porter about zero volume
keywords this is one of our sort of
deeper technical topics here and if the
prospect of hearing people talk about
zero volume keywords sounds exciting to
you it's a little weird and I'll be
honest with you but I like the topic
Evan thought it was great actually this
ended up being like a very popular topic
as we were you know I guess telling
people about it so the cool thing is
Evan number one he's a very good writer
he's actually an extremely experienced
writer and haven't had this great idea
to write a post for an insight project
about like zero volume keywords and how
to find good ones good ones versus bad
ones and when you may want to actually
target a zero volume keyword so we've
number one talked about like why the
actual value of like zero for the search
volume is a little bit misleading and
take it from there
Evan goes a little bit deeper into like
finding good keywords versus bad
keywords that have a low search volume
and I will also mention that you should
link in the show notes and description
on niche site project so you can see
some of the you know images that we're
referring to in the discussion and it's
just nice to have the like context of
what's going on everything you know well
thought out by Evan and then writing the
blog post so do have a look over there
additionally I want to point you towards
some of the other interviews that I've
done with Evan so he hit like 4k a month
and then that was mainly with the use of
keyword golden ratio terms and then
further like he had 8km month
there's also another update either it
has been published recently or will be
published soon but keep an eye out for
that where Evan has actually taken a
little bit of a traffic hit about 25%
down but you know he's still doing this
full-time so all is good and we actually
talked about that a little bit so if you
haven't heard that one yet do check it
out without further ado let's get to the
discussion about zero volume keywords
with Evan Porter right now hey what's
going on
Doug Huntington here and I'm chatting
with Evan Porter again how are you hey
Doug I'm good I'm glad to be back again
time number four this is great and Evan
I actually remember the last time we
chatted a couple weeks ago you were
wearing the same shirt man what's up
yeah it's a weird sort of weird
coincidence I don't know what's going on
so today we're gonna talk about Xero
search volume keywords and you were kind
enough having to write a post for a
niche site project very popular and this
is a great topic for us to talk about
just because it's confusing because why
would we even like talk about a zero
search volume term so can you just kind
of like lay out the framework of what
we're going to get into today yeah
definitely so yeah if you've been
following my story of my updates like
you know that I'm a writer I've written
a lot of the content for my sites myself
I would say I've written over 200 posts
in the past year and a half or so
personally so I have a lot of data on
which kinds of keywords have worked for
me which ones haven't and you know
different trends that I see and you know
I've noticed something really
interesting that occasionally I'll go
after a keyword that has zero searches
per month according to you know whatever
volume tool that that you use I
typically use keywords everywhere
because it's it's easy and it's free but
I've noticed that sometimes those posts
go on to perform super super well in
terms of organic traffic I have a few
that have even become like my best
performing posts and other times the
zero volume keywords just totally flop
and they bring in barely any traffic
which you would
expect because they have zero volume so
I really kind of wanted to get to the
bottom and figure out what the driving
factors were of like what makes a good
zero volume keyword versus a bad one
cool and quick note the search litem
tools write all of the search volume
tools are using some algorithm and
estimating what they think the search
volume is for a given term and actually
even Google like if you have access to
like the Keyword planner and you see the
data like they're averaging out the
previous twelve months and I'm pretty
sure that numbers that they're using
even do the average are not exactly
right
so even the data from Google is just an
estimate so if they if whatever search
tool you use says it's a zero search
volume then it's not actually zero it's
probably like rounded in some fashion so
a extreme example would be like a
seasonal term say something about
Christmas lights or something like that
like it may be zero for most of the year
and then it spikes and it's huge
for you know one month or maybe two
months so if you average it out and may
show it's like a higher search volume
than it is but probably in you know
April very few people are searching for
like Christmas light terms so just
remember these search volumes are just
an estimate out there okay yeah
definitely definitely would agree with
that and yep and I've seen exactly what
you mentioned sometimes like some of
these terms like you don't expect them
to do anything and then they have like a
huge like set of a huge event traffic
going to them so you have discovered the
secret of like identifying the good ones
and the bad ones or at least some trends
so tell us about that yeah this is the
100% guaranteed no idiot proof solution
to getting organic traffic no I'm yeah
so I've written a number of these zero
volume keywords and like I'm the kind of
person who likes to test things out like
I'm not gonna ask
there i should or shouldn't I'm just
gonna do it and see like what happens
and get myself some data that I can work
with and yeah like I said I've seen them
totally flop and I've seen them do well
and so one of the trends that I've
noticed when I do my keyword research
which I often do like in Google itself
that's where I do a lot of my keyword
hunting I'll type in stem keywords into
the Google search bar see what comes up
in the all those autosuggest
play the kind of alphabet soup game
adding certain letters seeing what pops
up reading related searches people also
ask all those little like features
inside Google to get ideas and yeah when
I I mean you'll typically see keywords
suggested by Google that have zero
volume when you do that and the trend
that I noticed was often you see these
like clusters of keywords suggested by
Google that are almost exactly the same
thing and they all have zero or very low
volume in these cases so you know they
think the example in the post I used was
you know when is the best when's the
best time to go to the grocery store
just the kind of informational keyword
someone might ask if they're they want
to beat the crowds right at the bottom
of that search result there's like eight
other related searches that are asking
almost exactly the same thing and
they're all zero volume all very low
volume and to me what that indicates is
that that's a topic with a lot of
interest that's kind of disguised as a
bunch of zero volume keywords and so if
you write a post that covers that topic
thoroughly like there's a pretty good
chance you can cash in on a lot of that
traffic okay so until like break it down
a little bit here so there's a lot of
different ways for a searcher to ask for
that information so instead of having
like everyone's like asked what's the
best time to go to the grocery store you
may see like a bunch of different
variations maybe like say like I'm just
going to make up an example like 25
different variations and maybe each one
of those is like getting searched for
like
times or something so like when you in
aggregate like that's that's actually a
decent term but it doesn't show up
because it's like spread so thin because
people are just searching in like
different ways right yeah exactly I
think it it's just the nature of the
topic like people aren't always gonna
phrase it the exact same way it's not
quite like you know X product review
where that's gonna get pretty much
everybody's gonna write it the same way
more or less like this is either of
those terms that are just there's a
million different ways you could phrase
them and there's no accounting for that
and this is true a lot of keywords not
just zero volume but is a good indicator
that a zero volume term may have more
interest in that general topic it's just
that people aren't freezing it the same
way I like to use Google in the same way
that you're mentioning especially for
these kind of keywords whereas I kado
suggest in related searches because
obviously Google is telling you that
people are searching for those have you
found any other tools to provide that
information or are you primarily using
Google to tease out these zero volume
keywords
yeah I'm primarily using Google and
that's the interesting thing about doing
keyword research in Google is that they
typically aren't gonna suggest a keyword
to you unless it gets some searches like
if it's if it's never been searched
before they're not going to suggest it
to you and so that actually brings us to
kind of the opposite of the of these
keyword clusters which is zero volume
keywords that really don't have any
contextual similarities to the keywords
that Google's suggesting I think in the
post I called them Island keywords
because they're just kind of plopped
there in the middle of the related
searches and they aren't really actually
related at all to the other things that
Google is suggesting and so when my
experience when you write a post on a
keyword like that you typically aren't
gonna get a whole lot of traffic because
it's a very narrow in scope and you're
not capturing those clusters and those
additional longtail keywords gotcha but
you would still go for it potentially I
mean you won't get zero traffic I'll
tell you that much I mean you'll
probably I mean in the post on niche
site project I posted an example or two
and you know you'll get 50 100 150 page
a month on a keyword like that I mean
that's been my experience which is
pretty good for a keyword that
supposedly has zero searches per month
but you know on the other hand I think
you can do a lot better if you're
strategic about how you target those
zero volume terms with the you know the
clusters nice and you know we haven't
mentioned it explicitly but the fact
that they're zero search volume
generally that means the competition's
like probably gonna be pretty low
because the you know the common
knowledge the common wisdom would be if
it's zero search volume don't go for it
right this is it like no one's searching
for it is zero right so don't go for it
however we know because of all the
reasons we just said that some people
are indeed searching for it and you're
probably gonna get some traffic but the
cool part is like you can usually just
publish it you usually don't need any
backlinks and like you'll get a little
bit of traffic so very cool now when you
have identified a cluster of these
keywords you kind of get the idea of
like what the person searching for how
do you actually write the content for
that yeah it's a good question because
the reason that I kind of figured out
this technique in the first place B was
because I was having trouble deciding
which keyword it us because they're all
kind of the same and you have to just
you know in my experience you just have
to pick one the one that sounds the best
and make a judgment call and then you
can use those those similar keywords you
know sprinkled throughout the post but
you don't need to worry too much about
getting the keywords exactly right it's
more of a topical post and so you're
trying to capture all of these in one
pose that covers the topic thoroughly
it's not really about the exact keywords
you use but they are good to sprinkle in
here and there okay and then more
details right so for the URL slug do you
put like the full phrase in there or do
you try and mix it up and add some
variation in in the URL slug as well
yeah I actually I just keep my URL slugs
really simple too like two or three
words and I don't really I mean they are
related to the keyword and they're just
but I don't think very carefully about
how they relate to the exact search
phrase okay and your experience says
that may have made a difference
no yeah III do what you say I mean like
generally for everything if you're just
good enough if it's close enough that's
fine yeah you know you wrote you were at
the blog post and you see the questions
that some of the people asked which will
potentially get into in a moment but
like I mean people love the details but
like so many of the details don't matter
and they're just a way for time so when
people are like actually I just answered
a question on YouTube today someone was
like I found a keyword golden ratio term
it's seven words long and to put that in
the URL is gonna be quote bad for SEO
which that's a whole other point which
we can argue but we're not going to and
they were like should I put it in there
or not not do it or what should I do and
the answer is you do whatever you want
it probably doesn't matter there's like
a meowy and other factors that are way
more important but yeah in general a
short simple URL is probably a good idea
but it probably doesn't matter too much
so agreed agreed
yeah I think that uh you don't want to
overthink these things like if you find
a cluster of zero volume keywords or
very low volume keywords that you want
to combine into one post like you just
have to think like what information does
this person want that's looking for this
stuff and give them that and like the
keywords themselves aren't gonna be
make-or-break it may be better if you
use certain ones versus not but like the
general concept is to provide the
information right right and you have an
idea of like what they're looking for so
you should be able to probably do it now
I have like a specific example of
something that you can do so if you make
a decision like you find like a set of
the cluster of these keywords you pick a
term that you're generally focusing on
that's the title you use the other
keywords in there publish it see what
happens check back in a month or two you
and your search console
you SEMRush hrs whatever tool you want
to use see what else is ranking for and
then potentially you can optimize
reoptimize or change it up a little bit
and the example cuz it cuz really like
that's real data right everything else
is just us guessing yes so once you get
the real data you can do something with
it and my example is for niche site
project I had have a post which I don't
I didn't even look for search volume for
it because I knew people were asking for
it but it's like the disclaimer for an
Amazon affiliate site I published the
content it started you know ranking
pretty well and I think I use like
disclaimer in the title but then I saw
on some tool I don't remember which one
the disclosure was one of the more
popular terms so I just changed the
title left the URL slug whatever it was
and then it's fine it's also very short
content cuz that's like someone wants an
answer they don't want to hear me like
talk about a bunch of other stuff that's
not really related so yeah so if anybody
wants an example you can like check that
out on niche site project
so yeah that's a cool example and I had
someone reach out to me after I
published this post on your site and
they were like well you know clearly
what's happening here is you're writing
these zero volume articles but you're
accidentally hitting on bigger keywords
that are bringing in all that traffic so
like why don't you just look for the
bigger keywords in the first place and I
was like well sometimes you don't know
right like you find zero volume keywords
naturally during your research and this
is a way to vet them like you're never
gonna know every possible variation of
that topic that people could search for
so you work with what you can see and
yeah like that's a great method is using
the search console to figure out what
you might have missed and then free
optimizing later for it interesting and
you know what that person that you know
that example like I don't know how to
respond cuz like as as I've like learned
more and more I'm just like I I don't
know I don't know the answer to anything
I was like you just have to
try it publish it and your wine cuz I'm
like yeah why don't we to look for the
bigger keywords that I'm like maybe we
already found them I have no idea like
yeah I don't know yeah yeah well yeah
the disclaimer obviously is like you
always have to look at the search
results and see if you can actually
compete for it like like you said
probably it's gonna be low competition
but yeah I mean if huge Authority sites
are covering this topic really well in
the first page then you know maybe you
shouldn't go for it indeed now did you
by chance like publish a fairly large
number of these over a stretch of time
by chance it's really I published
probably a dozen of these it's based on
a smaller data set but it's kind of just
a trend that I've noticed and and
something I'm kind of curious to test
further yeah okay and the reason why I
ask is like these potentially could
bring in a you know a lot of like
longtail keywords that you weren't
intending on ranking for like the the
cluster idea that we're talking about a
lot here but I know I've seen on edge
rest cuz the graphs are nice if you do
publish a bunch of content like this you
may see like just a lot of keywords that
you're ranking for and be like 10 to 100
range so maybe not bringing it much
traffic but all of a sudden you're going
along and you see like oh there's a
whole lot more or there many more
keywords that you're ranking for that
you warrant so kind of a weird way to
frame that but did you observe that too
or you just had so much content on your
site that was kind of like that I mean
I'm typically in a boat or like I
published something and I don't think
about it for a couple months until I
come back and kind of see how it's doing
but it's rare that I'm gonna do a huge
deep dive on like like one post to see
how it's doing you know what I mean yep
and I relate a hundred percent it's only
like after you like publish a bunch and
then you realize that things are
disorganized and you don't have a handle
and you're like oh I need to go back and
have a look and then you realize that
you know you should do one or two one or
two things here or you make the
observation or whatever so yeah you have
a little checklist here about how to vet
these zero volume keywords so I didn't
tell you to memorize this so I'll read
it out for you and then you you can fill
out any gaps so first did I remember
yeah we could we could quiz you on it
right the first one is is the keyword
like suggested as an autosuggest or as a
related search so fairly straightforward
nothing much to add there okay the next
one is does the does it make sense as a
topic so does the keyword make sense as
a topic so we did anything to add there
no not really I mean you mentioned it
yourself that you recently wrote
something without doing keyword research
because you you knew people wanted to
hear about it and so I think you can use
a little bit of common sense like if
something just seems really really
obscure and it has zero volume and
Google suggested it but it doesn't make
any sense to you then you know maybe
pass but you kind of if you know the
niche a little bit like you can get a
good idea of what a solid topic is cool
and then you mentioned this one already
so you should check the actual results
and ask yourself can it compete with the
top results so do you have any
guidelines on how you would have make
that evaluation yeah when I look at the
first page of search results I'm always
looking at relevance and authority so
relevance to the actual search phrase so
are people actually answering the
question or is Google just throwing
other stuff up up there because nothing
good exists
and then the authority of the site's
ranking is that other blogs is it forums
is it reddit you know is it lo comp low
authority sources like that or are you
competing against like huge media brands
and authority sites that have already
covered something similar so you can
make your own bar for where you want to
go after things where you don't
depending on how strong your site is how
confident you are in your
ability to compete but those are the two
things that I look for okay cool and
I'll just mention on that you can have a
look and you know look for the relevancy
look at how strong the competition is
but like you still don't really know
right and at this point for me I'll
usually probably go for it just because
like the cost to do that is relatively
low in the grand scope versus me like
trying to figure it out like something
that you can't figure out so I know you
write a lot of your content you are you
sort of in that camp to where you're
like I'll just go for it and see how it
goes yeah I think the older and more
grizzly I get I'm just like yeah I'm
just gonna I'm gonna write it it's fine
if I write number four like I'll
probably get some traffic on it yeah I
mean I give it a look like I try to
really ask myself if I think that I can
be in the top you know a couple spots
and you know you can often went out just
with a better headline you know because
of the click-through rates and things
like that so yeah there's a million
factors you don't want to overthink it
too badly if it's a good topic and it's
not completely saturated like yeah give
it a shot see what happens
cool in the last on your checklist is
asking yourself is it a clustered
keyboard or an island keyword so I guess
you'll need to recap that really quick
like what those are so yeah the cluster
keywords are when you kind of go to the
bottom of the Google search results and
and Google gives you like ten related
searches when those are all kind of
around the same topic and they're all
very low volume or all zero volume and
they're all just variations of the same
question over and over and over again
that's a cluster the alternative to that
would be like the island keyword where
it there aren't really any other
relevant related searches that Google is
bringing up and it's kind of on its own
in the middle of some unrelated searches
I would call them okay cool
now this all sounds really good and I
want to caution people don't go for too
many right like I wouldn't ever
the site with like I'm gonna target all
zero search volume keywords this dump
right don't don't do that
I think if you have a handful like you
said you have about a dozen that you've
published over time and you have well
over a hundred post right just in that
yeah over over two hundred yeah okay so
we're talking like five percent or so
yeah okay
and that's actually that's good cuz I've
thrown out like hey if you went you know
five ten percent that's probably okay
like you'll get some data and
information and you know maybe you know
like you said if you observe one of
these keywords you find one you will
maybe just write something put it up it
just needs to be good enough and then if
you want to write if you start getting
traffic you can go back make it a little
better maybe you have a better idea of
like what the users are looking for and
again use real data from your actual
site versus just like all right I'm just
gonna publish a bunch of content that
maybe very few people are searching for
so do you have anything to add there or
any insights no that's that's exactly
what I would say I mean I think you want
to go for a diversity of search volumes
and you know see what your site can
actually compete for and like I
sometimes I like to publish similar
posts that go after similar keywords
with different volumes and kind of
observe which ones ranked fastest and
and how things go and yeah I just like
encourage people to test things out and
then get real data that you can make
decisions from cool now you didn't put
this in the article but as we were just
chatting I was like oh I have an idea
and I think I've done this in the past
but didn't frame it in this way so let's
say you find a handful of these like
related sort of keywords maybe you find
a few of these like zero search volume
keywords and you publish content right
and then your your ranking for these
right your your ranking pretty well
you're not getting a ton of traffic
maybe more than you expect but at that
point you can build a lot of links like
enter links through your site and
potentially help boost traffic and boost
the
Kings on your site so have you done any
of that or you have any thoughts about
like the this conceptual sort of idea
yeah yeah so I think that every post
like has some value like you said like I
don't have any data to support this
necessarily but I I believe that the
more you publish on a certain topic the
more Authority you gain in Google's eyes
on that topic so yeah if you have a post
about topic a but it's not really
getting traffic like it's still valuable
for linking to other posts on that topic
and I I'm always a follower of I think
it was your advice to always have two
links going out and two links coming in
to it to every post so that's that's
just the way that I do it and the way
that I've been doing it at least two so
yeah that's been working out pretty well
cool and I think I think I heard it was
like Kyle Roof who I interviewed I
depending on when we published this and
maybe out or maybe coming up soon but a
very smart SEO he does a lot of
experiments do you have you heard of
Kyle roof no I have not
okay so he does like SEO experiments and
like does it in the scientific way but
he mentioned the term of like a virtual
silo so a silo is like where you're very
intentionally architecting a site you
have like a parent and child
relationship and it's intentional
linking now I don't think that you know
that intentional like architecture is so
important but I think the linking is
Kyle sort of like you know he he gave me
some credit for that idea as far as like
I guess it's valid right so he called it
a virtual silo and the idea is like
intentionally linking these sort of
related topics so that there's relevancy
it makes sense to link to them it adds
value for like the visitor if they
wanted to research more and it sounded
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