Zero Search Volume Keywords Aren't as "Zero" As You Think!

Sometimes search volume is just plain weird, am I right?

Like surely people search for "husky boy jeans"?

Look at most keyword search volume tools though and they'll tell you "husky boy jeans" has no search volume.

Really? How can that be?

Most SEO tools rely on data from Google Ads' Keyword Planner. But Keyword Planner has become notorious for obfuscating or being misleading about actual search demand.

This happens for two reasons:

1. Google censors the search volume for an increasing number of keywords for more sensitive or controversial topics
2. Google often aggregates all the search volume for longer tail keywords into a head term, then displays that volume for all the related terms

So should you ever use zero volume keywords for SEO?

Smart SEOs know there are cases where so-called zero volume keywords are worth pursuing.

In "Should You Focus on Zero Search Volume Keywords" on Search Engine Journal , my friend Adam Riemer lays out how these terms can actually be useful. To sum up, he says you should make use of them when:

• To suggest what your site structure should be
• You know your customers are asking for those things
• You want to do remarketing targeting to a site visitor for things higher up in the sales funnel
• You discover the longer tail keyword does show up for the head term in places like People Also Ask and video results

These are excellent tactics, and you really should go read Adam's excellent article to learn more about them. However...

Sometimes zero isn't really zero

It turns out that we don't have to just live with zero or aggregated volume keywords. We don't have to accept that we'll never know for sure so we should just guess at which ones might be valuable.

At seoClarity we refused to accept zero for an answer.

So we spent several years vetting and gaining access to the best available clickstream data while building and testing a prediction model that we knew could more accurately estimate actual search volume for keywords Google obscures or aggregates.

We call it True Demand??.

True Demand?? solves two pain point when it comes to truly useful keyword research and evaluation:

1. It often shows there is search volume when Google Keyword Planner says "nope"
2. It teases out the actual search volume of long tail keywords as well as the non-aggregated volume of their related head terms.

Let's look at an example that shows the difference this can make.

Keyword Planner shows the same search volume for "iPhone 1" and "iPhone 12."

But seoClarity True Demand?? reveals there is quite a difference between the two, as common sense would suggest.

Having more accurate search volume means you can do more accurate keyword research, evaluating with more confidence the keywords you should go after first.

Learn more about True Demand??