While high-volume keywords may seem appetizing, it doesn’t always yield meaningful returns. The initial psychological response to seeing high-volume keywords in your niche may whet your appetite, but it’s important to be pragmatic and avoid exercises in marketing futility.
High-volume keywords likely fall into one of the following buckets:
- Informational queries: Stiff competition from Wikipedia, industry resources, and no-click SERP features like AI Overviews and featured snippets.
- Head category terms: Highly competitive SERPs dominated by authoritative websites in your niche make ranking difficult.
- Brand terms: Keywords centered around your competitors may be irrelevant or problematic to include in a strategy.
- Potentially profitable keywords: A small percentage of high-volume keywords might align with your business goals, but these are rare.
There’s more money in targeting long-tail keywords
Don’t fall victim to the allure of high-volume keywords with inflated search metrics. Though less glamorous, long-tail keywords can yield far greater rewards.
These phrases often signal higher intent and face less competition than head terms. They also tend to attract qualified traffic that is ready to convert.
For example, a fitness equipment business targeting “treadmills” faces immense competition from retail giants and review websites. A more thoughtful approach is to focus on narrower, less competitive terms like “best treadmills under 1000.” You can bypass competitors’ dominating head terms and capture relevant, high-intent traffic by honing in on specific use cases.
Pro tip: When doing keyword research in Moz Keyword Explorer, filter keywords based on low Keyword Difficulty & Search Volume metrics to identify the higher-intent long-tail keywords that will be relatively easier to rank than more competitive phrases.
