Rank #1 for a 110,000/month query search, but barely any traffic?

[ExperienceOz]

Hi guys,

As it says in the title, we've recently reached the absolute #1 position for a certain key phrase in the travel industry which the Google Keyword Tool tells me averages 110,000 local (165,000 global) searches a month... however we have received barely any traffic at all over the past TWO months for it and I'm trying my best to determine why.

We've checked on multiple different devices with all forms of personalisation off, different browsers, 3G connections as opposed to office Wi-FI etc. and it still returns us as the #1 rank. Meta descriptions and title tags are pretty much pristine if I don't say so myself, however what should be a very lucrative key phrase is currently returning little to no traffic results.

Has anyone had experience in a similar situation to this? Any possible causes that I might be missing?

Would greatly appreciate any help.

Thanks.

[ExperienceOz]

Hi Peter,

Yes you are correct, with the exact match query it drops down to around 6,000. Still, being the top position for a 6k/month search would seem to be more likely to produce more than the 2-3 visits we are getting so far, right?

Thanks for the help.

[PeterMac]

Hi Ben,

Change it to exact matches in the adwords keyword tool and see how many searches there are a month. Exact and broad are completely different, my guess is you'll see a dramatic difference in the number of searches.

E.g if the search term for 'cookware' is returning 100,000 broad match searches, it might only be 20,000 for exact searches for that term.

Cheers

[ExperienceOz]

Hi Brad,

The query is for broad matches, not exact matches.

Thanks.

[SteveBrumpton]

Hello Ben,

I'd have a look in your Google analytics under Traffic sources / SEO / Queries.  This will show you where on average you rank for that key phrase and how often your site is chosen in the SERPs (CTR).

If your key phrase really does get that many searches you should see a high number of impressions.  If you are number one it should also tell you that under 'average position' and if you really are number one for a term with loads of impressions then your CTR must be really low if you're getting low traffic.

I suspect you'll find one of these shows where you have a problem but if your impressions and position are correct then the CTR will be terrible and you need to look at your page title and meta description to see what is putting people off.

Steve

[bradkrussell]

Hi Ben,

Is that 110,000 EXACT matches or are you using BROAD matches when searching for this data?