I’ve noticed more and more SEO “gurus” and software companies boldly claiming the inaccuracy of Google AdWords’ keyword search volume data. SEMrush just gave an update that they’ve made major upgrades to their data to implement more Clickstream data and reach more accuruate search volume metrics. Rand Fishkin just did a Whiteboard Friday about the inaccuracy of Google search volume numbers.
During my time at Vacasa, we began using Moz’s Keyword Explorer tool as our source of search volume data because we felt it gave a more accurate range of search volume for our keywords. It also provides really great metrics like keyword Difficulty, and keyword Priority, which aggregates all the other metrics – Difficulty, Opportunity, Volume. We used to compile large lists of keyword research and sort by Priority in order to find the biggest opportunities for new blog posts. In Travel, there is so much to talk about and we were also quite new to the blogging game that we wanted to make sure we targeted topics and keywords which were the best opportunity to rank and resonate with our target audience.
For a long time, Rand and Moz have been proud to be on the cutting edge of leveraging Clickstream data, partnering with Jumpshot and SimilarWeb. (This Moz Blog post is a great summary on the Clickstream Data Revolution.)
It’s exciting to see the direction of data collection these days with less reliance on Google for the most important metrics.
Ahrefs just came out with a new post on this exact subject: Why you can‘t ALWAYS trust keyword search volume for traffic estimations