Any recommendations on how to find non-branded keyword phrases revealing searcher’s intent with high volume and CPC?

[Todd_Kendrick]

-Most of the organic keywords driving traffic to our website are branded.

-I’ve used UberSuggest, but those keyword phrases tend to have low CPC and low volume

-Thus, the UberSuggest keywords usually produce a low benefit & K.O.B score.

-Andrew

[DougRoberts]

Trying to find "non-branded keyword phrases revealing searcher’s intent with high volume and CPC?" is a bit like looking for the holy grail.

Some things to remember.

1. CPC is just one measure of the competitiveness of a keyword. It's related to the value others place on this keyword and how much they are prepared to spend to try and capture traffic by advertising. It doesn't necessarily reflect the value of this traffic to your business. And if they keyword is competitive, how confident are you that you can rank for this keyword?

2. As a general rule, the more generic the keyword, the higher the search volume, but the lower the commercial intent. (If I search for "dogs" you can't tell what I'm after, if I search for "puppy training bristol" then you know exactly what I'm looking for and where.

So, if I run a puppy training service, which traffic is worth more to me? Millions of hits for "dogs" or <10 visits a month of high intent traffic around a keyword that actually relates to my business? (I don't train puppies by the way!)

3. Remember the long-tail. If you have a content rich website you will find that while your branded/head terms have higher volume, you should be getting lots of visits from low volume search terms.

For one of my highest traffic sites, my strongest keyword provides less than 15% of total search traffic. Most of my search traffic comes from keywords with almost no volume. Keywords that I have never considered!

http://moz.com/blog/how-big-is-your-long-tail-whiteboard-friday

Don't get overly obsessed by high traffic volumes. You run the risk of crowding out the people that really matter. You need to look at the value of the traffic to you vs the competition/effort you'll need to spend creating great targeted content.

4. Remember your goals! Unless you're making an income from on-page ads then your goal is unlikely to be "get more traffic". For a business, your trying to get more sales leads, more higher margin leads. You don't always need high volumes of traffic to achieve these business goals. How much revenue does the site need to deliver?

5. Be realistic. If you're running a very small niche business, you're unlikely to attract high volumes of visitors. What you need to focus on is making sure that you get in front of the right people. The people that will help your meet those goals!

Some thoughts that might help:

Define your (true) goals at the start and keep them in mind as you work through the process.

Before you start your keyword research, try to identify who your customers really are. The better you can understand your target audience the easier it will be to write content for them. Don't assume that you know who they are or what they really think.

Can you talk / interview your past customers? If you can, try to capture their thoughts/words using a voice recorder. It's important to understand the words that they use when talking about your products/services and their needs/motivations.

Look at any testimonials, customer feedback or comments. You don't need to limit this to your own site, take a look at your competitors or any forums/social places that your customers congregate. Don't be afraid to engage your target audience - just do so in a friendly authentic manner.

Write content that speaks to this audience. What matters to them. What are they most concerned about and what are their concerns etc. Write broadly around specific topic topics that matter to you and your audience.

Look at the keywords that people are using to find your site (even the low volume ones). Look for common themes/topics. Can you create better content around these topics (you can look at your bounce rates to see if the landing pages around these topics are doing their job), again, you need to consider intent. People may have got the answer they're looking for and left.

Instead of optimising for keywords, think about optimising around topics.

Do you have site search on your website? I find that this can provide a great insight into what your visitors expect to find on your site. You should definitely review this regularly and use it to inform you content strategy.

Use segmentation in your analytics to understand what different types of search traffic actually means to you.

Focus on what matters.

[Upesh]

Hi Andrew,

We've got a few clients that sit in the same situation as yours. I would recommend looking into Google AdWords Keywords Tool and cherry picking keywords that fit your criteria. One thing to note, the data in Google AdWords is a rough estimate based on the previous month's data. For more ideas, you may want to have a read of http://moz.com/blog/be-careful-using-adwords-for-keyword-research

Good Luck!