hey what's going on welcome to the Doug
show in this episode I talked to Evan
Porter and we discuss Xero search volume
keywords which it's interesting because
you would think you shouldn't go after a
keyword that no one is searching for but
we explain why you maybe you should go
after them we talked about the good ones
versus the bad ones so that you know if
you should go for a specific keyword or
avoid it and maybe just don't worry
about it this time having also wrote a
blog post for me on this topic so I
encourage you to check out that blog
post to see like the long form you know
discussion of it this is Evans like
fourth appearance so if you haven't seen
his other videos do check them out and
let's go ahead and get to the discussion
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 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
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 in
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
late 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
amount 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 whether 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 keywords
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 ask 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 gonna make
up an example like 25 different
variations and maybe each one of those
is like getting searched for like eight
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 these are
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 it's 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 gotcha
so I I like to use Google in the same
way that you're mentioning especially
for these kind of keywords whereas i
canta 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 up
on a keyword like that you typically
aren't going to 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 views 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 there's 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 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 key word to use 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 judgement 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 post 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 - like two or three words
and I don't really I mean they are
related to the keyword and they're
descriptive but I don't think very
carefully about how they relate to the
exact search phrase and your experience
now that may it made a difference no 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 ask 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
I'm yeah and other factors that are way
more important but yeah in general a
short simple URL it's 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 is
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
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 in 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 because 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 Mitch site
project I had I 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 because 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 the 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 then
this is a way to vet them like you're
never gonna know every possible there
creation 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
reoptimize afore it interested 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 like try it
publish it and then go on cuz I'm like
yeah why don't we look for the bigger
keywords that I'm like maybe we already
found them I have no idea like yeah no
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 so 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 cluster idea that we're talking
about a lot here but I know I've seen on
a joust because 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 the
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 weren't 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 below yeah but 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
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 what
are 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 I'll read it
out for you and then you can fill out
any so first yeah we could we could quiz
you on it alright the first one is is
the keyword like suggested as an
autosuggest
or as a related search so fairly
straightforward nothing much dad there
the next one is does the does it make
sense as a topic so does the keyword
make sense as a topic so we need
anything to add there no not really I
mean you mentioned it yourself that
you've recently wrote something without
doing keyword research because you
either 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 I
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 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 low 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 and 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
Rand at this point for me I will 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 do 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 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 win 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 wanna 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 cluster keyword 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 10 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 build a
site with like I'm gonna target all zero
search volume keywords this dumb 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 posts right just yeah
over over 200 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 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 out 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 kind
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 rankings on your site so have you
done any of that or you have any
thoughts about like 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 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 it may be out or may be
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 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
wanted to research more and it sounded
like that's a great approach to like
have an intentional way to do it so you
could do it with these like very low
volume search terms and hey it's great
to be able to get a link from some term
this ranking like you know in the top
three or something like that versus a
you know some post that's not ranking
anywhere at all so what you can sort of
take advantage of this and put it
together with other ideas of
interlinking and sort of architecting
your site and like a more intentional
way so very long thoughts but yeah I
would agree with that yeah I mean like
you said that these zero volume keywords
are often very low competition and
pretty quick to rank for if you've if
you find the right one so yeah I mean I
can definitely see a lot of value in
building up a small bank of posts on a
certain topic that ranked highly and
then that can disperse Authority
throughout your site yep awesome
so having any other thoughts on this
sort of stuff before we tell people
where they could find you no I don't
think so I mean I think we covered it
pretty thoroughly I would just like I
feel like you have to put the
disclaimers in everywhere like you know
you're not guaranteed to get a certain
amount of traffic when you go after
these things it's just just my
experience and trends that I've seen and
it's worked out pretty well for me
overall but I'd be curious to hear
everyone's thoughts if they try it and
they find these clusters they find other
sorts of zero volume keywords like be
curious like let me know in the comments
on the post or you can head over to
words by Evan Porter calm and find me
there cool well thanks a lot Evan
appreciate your time and yeah we'll
bring you back on before too too long
and chat some more give some updates
from you so thank you all right thanks
Doug good to talk to you all right
thanks so much to Evan I really
appreciate you taking the time to talk
about zero search volume keywords and
again go check out the blog post and if
you haven't signed up for the niche site
project email list I'll send you all my
templates I'll send you a bunch of other
stuff so all you have to do is go to a
niche site project com click on the
green button
enter your name and email address and
then I'll send you a bunch of stuff
basically all the templates I use and
then I will send you different pieces of
like information really they're emails
right so I send you emails and then I
tell you hey go read this blog post
because I think you'll find it
interesting if you want to get into that
all you have to do is go to niche site
project comm we will catch you on the
next episode
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