Zero Search Volume: How to get BONUS traffic!
There’s a hot buzzword coming in the industry, and that is the Zero volume keyword. Marketers from all around the world have different questions about this topic.
But my question is, is this the time when we think differently about keywords altogether?
I mean, aren’t we all trying to solve users’ queries, right? And Google’s doing it too. Google’s trying to make the web accessible to everyone and is trying to answer queries in the most efficient way.
Shouldn’t marketers focus on answering people’s queries rather than targeting search traffic or backlinks? That’s a thought for another post but today we look at an interesting topic: Zero Search Volume Keywords.
I asked Andrew Holland, who is an amazing marketer. He owns his agency Zoogly Media and is currently working at Embryo, about his opinion on zero volume keywords, and here’s what he has to say:
“Do I believe in zero volume searches.
Sort of and not really.
On one hand, what we’re saying is that just because it has zero volume, doesn’t mean it doesn’t have traffic potential.
What people are saying is, if these words make sense, create content that matches these words regardless of search volume.
When you have budget to allocate, it’s tough to justify going after zero traffic keywords. I mean, what client is going to thank you for that.
So, you need to look at zero volume keywords as exactly what they are…zero volume.
They are guides to what content to create. In keyword research you have known volume and unknown volume keywords. Not, zero volume.
All zero volume really means is that the tools don’t have data for that keyword. Which is either because of their system or because no one is searching for it.
So, its a good plan to split your content budget 80/20. 80 on content you know the volume of and 20 on unexpected content.
This is content you don’t create for search. This is where zero volume keywords come in. They can help to guide your unexpected content creation.
But I don’t think it’s a great idea to chase zero volume keywords. We don’t have data to say what percentage of zero volume drives traffic.
If it makes sense, create the content because the topic is useful for your audience. But just don’t bet the house on it.”
— Andrew Holland, Embryo
Keeping everything aside, the most important question right now is…
Table of Contents
Too Long; Didn’t read
Zero Search Volume keywords are the ones that have no search volume. The “zero” is mostly a placeholder value. These keywords are best when used strategically. They can help you win traffic, conversions, and audience when done right.
What is Search Volume?
In simple words, search volume is the number of times people search for that query in a given timeframe.
Let’s take an example to understand this:
Suppose you have a site that talks about health insurance, so one of your keywords can be “Health Insurance Plans”.
Now, in order to see how many people actually search this word, we see its search volume.
Let’s pop that keyword in a tool like SEMrush, and it says the volume is 18.1K in the US and the global volume is 64.3K.
In different tools, the search volume appears to be different. For example, if I look up Google using Keyword Surfer, the search volume in the U.S. appears to be different. It’s only 9,900 now instead of 18.1K.
So, why do people obsess over search volume?
Mark Williams-Cook in the BrightonSEO conference told that he asked his followers on Twitter about what they do about search volume. Here’s the thread:
Basically, people look at search volume to determine how many people search for this keyword, and in turn, how much organic traffic can they expect.
And no tool is perfect in giving you the exact amount of search volume.
Why? Because as Google themselves says, “In fact, 15 percent of searches we see every day are new”. How can any tool on earth gauge the search volumes of those “newer” queries? I guess only Google can, but why would they bother to tell you?
Now that we have the search volume understood, let’s move on to…
What are Zero Search Volume Keywords?
Zero search volume keywords are what they sound like. They are keywords that don’t have any search volume.
But that’s partially true.
See, Google and any other tools can’t physically determine search volume for any keyword. Because new keywords and phrases are typed in every second, they can’t keep up with the volume of each keyword.
Suppose someone got their nail broken, and they want to heal it naturally, so they might type something like this in search:
“how to fix broken nail naturally”
Now, if we check its search volume via SEMrush, it says n/a.
But ask yourself, with the world’s population approaching 8 billion people, nobody will search that? Is that really possible?
Hell no.
See, here these tools are incorrect.
So if somebody wrote a blog on how to fix your nails naturally, they would pump out thousands of page views per month. But that keyword had zero search volume.
On YouTube, you can find a ton of videos that says that they have performed experiments of targeting ZSV keywords and they are generating a decent amount of traffic from there.
Here, we can see that this guy has made good profits from zero searches pages:
Also, Marco Giordano also says that you shouldn’t be fooled by Zero search keywords:
Now the question is…
Are these keywords worth going after?
You SHOULD target the zero search keywords because here people are hyper close to converting and this is the last step in the sales journey.
This is something that Kristina Azarenko also says, who is one of my favorite SEOs btw:
See there’s a thing she said: “if they’re relevant”. What this means is, that you should only target these keywords if they are actually relevant to your brand/service/product.
I asked Tom, an SEO consultant and the owner of SitePie, “Do you think Zero search volume keywords are worth going after? And if you were to create a fresh site that targets the zero search volume keywords, how would you approach it?” Here’s what he said:
“I believe using zero search volume keywords is a great strategy to build topical authority for new sites. This is definitely my approach for my own websites. What I generally do is research the niche, map out topics and create the important pages around the niche – you can call these hub pages. These are generally high difficulty keywords, but these pages are needed, from a user point of view. From here I would drill down into the topics, finding long tail question keywords around them. I use alsoasked to find these. I then create content for these long tail keywords which normally have zero search volume/zero difficulty. Once I start ranking for them, you would be surprised how many searches and clicks you get!“
— Tom, Founder
For example, if you have CRM software (Meaning you’re in the SaaS niche), and a query like “is having a CRM necessary for a small business” might make sense for you. So you should make content on it even though it has zero volume.
On the other hand, if you are selling embroidery art pieces and you see that abstract art topics are zero volume, then should you write about them? Well, technically no, because you’re all about embroidery, not abstract art.
The main point here is, that if that topic is relevant to your industry/niche, then you should definitely target these keywords because they are the ones that will bring you a substantial amount of traffic, conversions, and sometimes, also backlinks.
Moving on…
What are the Pros and Cons of Targeting Zero Search Volume Keywords?
The biggest benefit/Pro of using a keyword that has zero volume is that you get to rank for a keyword that your competitor is not ranking, and get conversions from them! How cool is that?
Apart from all of that, let’s look at some actual pros and cons.
PROS
- ZERO Competition: Your competitors are not targeting those zero-volume searches as they think that nobody is searching for them (based on these tools). So you’ll have a better chance of ranking as well as converting those searchers. This gives you an extra advantage over your rivals.
- Tap into a “new” audience: It can happen that you were only targeting the short and medium-sized keywords, solving only the “general” and “vague” queries. But the meat and bone are in the longer search queries that typically have zero search volume. Targeting these will get you ahead of your competitor as well as get you a new set of audiences.
- More traffic: Targeting these queries will generate a decent amount of traffic, as well as conversions. And as we all know, more than 15% of queries are new on Google every day! Consider all the traffic you’re not targeting.
- More likely to convert: The people who ask hyper-specific queries are the ones who are looking for a solution and not searching around. So they are more likely to convert than those at TOFU (Top-of-the-funnel)
- Great for beginner sites: Targeting high-search keywords on a new site is not efficient as targeting zero-search keywords. They are laser-focused on a particular topic and are easy to rank, and don’t need as many backlinks.
- Awesome for building EAT/earning the trust of customers: Oftentimes, a newer site fails to establish EAT or authority among its audience. Writing on topics that are long tail and don’t get searched much is an awesome way of building trust among your customers while also building high EAT (Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness).
CONS
- Might not be suitable for “Big brands”: As we said above, it is not important that these keywords are relevant for every brand or industry. They might not look good for your brand, but they bring traffic.
Needless to say, targeting these “low-hanging fruits” have more pros than cons. But it is important to note that not everyone will target them, based on their brand’s voice and audience. But I would still recommend targeting them.
Now that we know this, it becomes an obvious question that…
What is the Difference Between Long-Tail Keywords and Zero-Search Volume Keywords?
To understand the difference between both, we need to look at their definition first.
According to Ahrefs, “Long-tail keywords are search queries that get a small number of searches per month. They tend to be longer and more specific than their “head” counterparts and, therefore, often have a higher conversion rate.”
And Zero search volume keywords are basically the ones that have no search volumes.
So the main difference is that long tail keywords are 4+ word queries that have “some” kind of search volume, but not zero. Whereas, the zero volume keywords have “zero” volume. Both of these types are highly converting.
Let’s take an example:
“Nail art for beginners” is a long-tail keyword that has 4 words. And according to a keyword tool like SEMrush, it has 480 volumes in the US while 2.1K worldwide
Whereas, a keyword like “nail kit tools for beginners at home” is a zero-volume keyword with absolutely zero searches.
If we look at the intent, “Nail art for beginners” has an informational intent. Also, the searcher is not at the converting stage, whereas “nail kit tools for beginners at home” is a transactional intent keyword and the searcher is more likely to convert.
Also, writing on a keyword like this puts you ahead of your competitors which is awesome.
Now you might wonder…
What is a good search volume for a keyword?
The one and only answer I have is “it depends”. Also, P.S. it’s not a number.
I asked Ashley Russel, Founder, at ArticleFiesta, “When we do keyword research, what’s the “good” search volume to go after? like is there a specific number we should target, or search volume is just a number?”, here’s what he has to say:
“The correct search volume is an interesting question as it requires understanding many other factors.
If your website is currently attracting 2 million page views on every single post and you’ve got a domain rank of 92 – does it make sense to go after a keyword with ten searches a month? Maybe not.
If, however, you are a brand new blog with no backlinks and just starting to build your audience, those low-hanging fruit can be tempting.
Ultimately everyone is different. Also, every keyword is different.
As a new website, I think the most important thing to go after is low-difficulty keywords while aiming for as much traffic as possible. You want to maximize the results of your effort. If you can find a keyword with 100 impressions per month and 0 competition, fantastic! Ultimately the higher the number of impressions, the better.
Also, you must remember that tools such as SEMRush, Ahrefs, and Moz give you traffic estimates. It is only that, an estimate. The smaller the quantity on the keyword, the less likely the tool is to know. Ultimately only google knows those actual numbers. That is why sometimes you must ignore the traffic numbers and use your instinct.
On top of this, there are other examples when you might want to go for these lower trafficked keywords – and that’s when they are heavily commercial and look like they will convert into a sale/lead. Consider the following example:
Where to buy a purple house in new york now – 10 impressions a month
Purple homes in new york – 100 impressions a monthIn the example, if I were to look solely at the traffic, I might pick option 2; however – as a business, I understand that option 1 is WAY more valuable. The people who are searching that keyword have money and want to buy. I would need a conversion rate of 10% on option 2 for it to have a similar monetary value to me, and that’s a very high conversion rate, which is quite unlikely.
With everything, it’s essential to build a wide breadth of knowledge around any keyword. Sometimes you need to pick up the lesser searched ones to let google understand that you are the expert on the whole topic. This is why I created Article Fiesta – to allow you to build out these less essential terms so you can invest your time working on the ones that do make you money.”
— Ashley Russel, Founder
As I said earlier, search volume is a mere number and it doesn’t describe how much traffic you’re gonna get at the end of the day.
As a good rule of thumb, you should have content for all types of search volumes.
What I mean by that is that you should target the short tail, medium tail, long tail, and zero search keywords. They all have their advantages.
For example, you can have different pages targeting all sorts of keywords.
So if you sell nail kits, you can target keywords like:
Nail kit- Short tail keyword
Nail kit price – medium tail keyword
Nail kit for beginner- long tail keyword
what is the best poly gel nail kit for beginners?- zero volume keyword
All of these pages will have different search intent and will bring customers to different stages of the sales funnel. Some keywords are top of the funnel, some are in the middle of the funnel, and some are bottom of the funnel.
Targeting a blend of search volumes and keyword length is the optimum way to ensure that you are getting visible at every stage of the customer journey.
Are these Keywords Beginner Friendly?
Yes of course they are!
Targeting these low-volume keywords is beneficial for websites that are starting out as they are low competition and you can rank pretty quickly. Also, you can build authority real quick. Especially in niche sites.
That’s because the sites which have higher authority in your niche aren’t targeting these “low-hanging” fruits. These are the ones you can take advantage of.
For somewhat “medium-sized” or bigger sites, these may not make much sense but if they do target these, they can get benefits from them as these keywords are the ones that’ll convert easily.
Now that we know the ins and outs of these keywords, let’s actually know how to find these…
How to Find the ZSV Keywords?
Sometimes, there are unusual places where you can get these “high-converting” keywords.
And from unusual I mean, apart from the usual tools.
Here are some of the ways by which you can find these gems of keywords:
- Google Search Console: A great way of looking at these “Long-tail” and ZSV keywords is using GSC. Right now we are looking at keywords that are 6 or more words long. So the Regex for six or more words.
First, head on to the “Performance report in GSC.
Then Click on New
Then click on “Query”
Then the pop-up box will open, and there select custom (regex) from the dropdown.
Then enter ([^” “]*\s){5,}? And hit apply.
What you have now are the queries that are 6+ words and you can use them to find some great ZSV keywords
- People Also Ask: PAA or People also ask is a GOLDMINE for finding these ZSV keywords.
Simple, type your keyword in the search and you’ll see questions related to it
These are awesome for writing these hyper-focused posts.
- Google Autocomplete: Similar to PAA, Google autocomplete can also help you in finding some great ideas.
Just write your main keyword (nail kit) and play around with different words, or use the alphabet soup method.
- Search Related to When you search for anything on search when you scroll all the way down, you see something like this:
Use this to find additional keywords.
- Using Forum sites: Sites like Reddit, Quora, and more are extremely helpful for finding these keywords. Here, people ask their questions and you can find some great questions/keywords that people are searching for answers to.
- Your customer care or sales team: If you are a big brand that has a separate sales or customer team then you can ask them to provide you with questions that the customers tend to ask most. Filter them and get your content going!
- Social media: The social media of your brand or accounts that talk about your industry or niche is an awesome place to find the ZSV keywords. The comments on the posts are amazing and helpful in finding less-asked questions.
Also, while we are here, here are some tools/extensions that can help you uncover ZSV keywords.
- Keyword surfer extension: You can find new keyword ideas here:
- Ahrefs extension: Similar to keyword surfer, this also shows you a list of keywords right in the SERPs.
(Note that there are many extensions like these, I just put up the names of the ones which I use)
And more.
Honorable mention: This Reddit thread has all the people telling different strategies they use to find these keywords. So check it out.
P.S. I mostly use the PAA and forums (Reddit and Quora), and sometimes Google Autosuggest. I want to rely less on tools and more on intuition.
Now that we have this clear, let’s know…
How to write content on ZSV keywords?
Writing content for no-volume keywords is not that hard. It’s like writing regular content.
But with a twist.
So as you know, these are the queries that are hyperfocused around a single topic, so you also have to frame your content in such a way.
You don’t necessarily need to write 2000-3000 words of content, you can write these in under 1000 words. A great word length is between 700-1000 words.
Just try to be precise in your answer and don’t make the answer too “generic” and you should be good to go!
Should you use Zero Search volume keywords?
If you ask me, every website, regardless of how big or small it is, should target every kind of keyword.
Your content strategy should include every kind of keyword. That way, you will target every set of audiences.
One thing to note is that you should target every kind of keyword based on relevance. If the keyword fits your brand, has demand for that question, and is worth writing for, then you should definitely use zero-volume keywords.
Final Words
If there’s one thing that I want you to take away from this article, it’s that you should use these no-volume keywords in your content strategy.
Whether you are just starting your website, building your business in a niche, or are a big company, everyone can benefit from these keywords when done correctly.
Will you use these keywords in your content strategy? Let me know your thoughts on Discord! Here I host the friendly SEO community!
Alternatively, you can ask for my services or connect with me on LinkedIn!
Until next time!
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