SEO research via Google Adwords

[DenverKelly]

I've read several times of this technique for determining if a particular keyword phrase is worth the effort of optimizing for in organic search.

In Adwords create an Ad Group with a single exact match keyword phrase and let it run in Adwords until you have enough clicks to measure valid results (I've often heard 200-300 clicks). If you are unable to convert the search term via paid search, the theory goes, it's probably not worth the effort to rank top 3 for that phrase and you should put your efforts elsewhere.

Do any of you use this strategy? If so, have you found the results to be pretty consistently accurate?

Thanks,

Mark

[EGOL]

I think that this is a good way to sample the traffic.

[DRSearchEngOpt]

I would not consider this to be a good measure of what you want to rank for.  I have lots of terms that I benefit from ranking for that if I were to place in adwords would not result in a conversion for me.  A lot of this is informational or non-revenue based benefit.  Email Signups, Newsletters, Contact Info, etc...  You must consider that those who click on ads and those who click on organic come from 2 different groups and even though in many ways there is a similar desired result from a click by both groups it is not the case 100% of the time.  I could probably elaborate for hours on this but do not consider one to be a good barometer of the other because in essence they are different.  I hope this helps.

[SeattleOrganicSEO]

Good to hear it helped.  I'm not always sure if people understand what I explain because I have so many thoughts going on in terms of all the different issues at play when it comes to SEO.

Best of luck with your targeting.  It can definitely be a learning experience.  Cheers.

[DenverKelly]

Thanks for your response. You make several valid points that I hadn't considered, since I was looking at it purely from the point of view of conversions. Was unaware that keyword tool estimates and actuals could vary so widely.

[SeattleOrganicSEO]

Can't say that the 200-300 clicks threshold is the minimum, but I do like the idea of using Adwords to validate their estimates in the keyword tool.  However, I use the impressions level identifying that there are at least that many searches on the phrase.  Sometimes in the keyword tool, it says <10 in searches and then you'll see via an Adwords campaign 1000 impressions for that phrase [exactly].

The reason why I don't think the clicks is as important is that you might get a .04% click through rate on the 1000 impressions which would make you think it's not worth targeting that phrase, but 60-80% supposedly hit the organic results and only 20-40% hit the adwords.  So, I'm more interested in the fact there are at least those number of searches in existence.

However, more importantly, it's not just whether there's inventory, but it's important to analyze the results in that search and to determine if it's difficult to rank for that term.  There's a lot more than just seeing if there's enough inventory, but I do like to start here if a client has the budget to spend on adwords.