With over two trillion searches per year, Google is the most popular search engine by far ー, so it's no surprise that advertisers want to put their products and services in front of searchers.
That's where Google Ads comes in. Google Ads is an advertising platform that allows businesses to create ads that appear on Google Search and other Google properties.
But what is the low search volume, and what can you do to fix the issue? Let's debate!
What is a ‘low search volume keyword?
A "low search volume" keyword is a keyword that receives relatively few searches per month. Google AdWords gives "low search volume" status to a keyword due to a variety of factors, including the niche of the business, the competitiveness of the keyword, or simply the popularity of the overall topic. Google doesn’t show ads for low-volume keywords until the volume improves.
Are low search volume keywords bad?
AdWords Quality score is determined by several factors, including the relevance and quality of your ads and keywords and the click-through rate (CTR) of your ads. However, it isn’t affected by targeting low search volume keywords in your campaign.
How can marketers fix Low Search Volume Keywords in Google Ads?
If you're a marketer using Google Ads, you may have experienced the frustration of trying to optimize a campaign only to find that some of your keywords have too little search volume to be useful.
Google not triggering ads for your keyword can be especially frustrating when those keywords are core to your business. But don't despair- there are ways to fix low search volume keywords so that they can be useful for your campaigns.
Leave the keyword as it is
This might seem like counterintuitive advice, but hear us out.
The above option makes sense if your keywords are for a new product or service and will pick up the traffic. Similarly, if you're launching a new site, your brand terms won't have traffic immediately but will start picking up once people become aware of it.
Also, the low search volume keywords may be less relevant to users during certain periods of the year or related to an event that has yet to take place.
Leaving the low searched volume keyword as is can sometimes do the trick once the searches start to increase. This is because the low searched volume keyword is likely to be associated with a niche market and is not likely to be searched for by many people. However, once the searches for the keyword start to increase, it is likely that the niche market will be discovered, and the keyword will become more popular.
Change Keyword match type
One of the reasons why your low search volume keywords might not be performing as well as you'd like is because of the keyword match type. If you're using a longtail keyword, then you might be inadvertently targeting a different audience than you intended.
For example, by using the keyword "red shoes size 8" you are targeting people who are specifically looking for red shoes in size 8. However, by using a broader keyword like "shoes size 8" you will be targeting a wider audience that includes people who are interested in all types of shoes in size 8, not just red shoes.
In this case, you might want to consider changing your keyword match type to something more specific, like "exact match" or "phrase match".
Find new keywords
Just because a keyword has low search volume doesn't mean that there aren't other keywords that you could be targeting that have similar search volume. Use a keyword research tool to find other keywords that have similar search volumes and add them to your campaigns.
Pause keywords with a low-quality score
If you're noticing that a particular keyword has a low-quality score, it's likely that it's not converting well. Try pausing that keyword and see if your overall performance improves. If it does, then you know that keyword wasn't worth targeting.
Key Takeaway
If you have low search volume keywords in your Google Ads account, there are a few options for what you can do with them. You can either delete them, add them as negative keywords, or keep them in your account and monitor their performance. The decision of what to do with low search volume keywords ultimately comes down to what is best for your account and your business goals.