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How to Calculate Keyword Value

Keywords are the backbone of search engine optimization, enabling your site to be found by searchers and ranked by search engines. That being said, it is not a simple process, there are  many different elements to consider, including keywordKeywords are the words and phrases that potential customers might search for to find your business. search…
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Keywords are the backbone of search engine optimization, enabling your site to be found by searchers and ranked by search engines. That being said, it is not a simple process, there are  many different elements to consider, including keyword search volume, keyword competition, and what we are looking into today, keyword value.

Although often overlooked, keyword value is crucial to the overall effectiveness of your keyword research as it focuses on finding keywords that are relevant to your target audience.

If you have not yet calculated the value of a keyword and are not sure where to even begin, the below guide is exactly what you need!

Keep reading to find out:

  • What keyword value is
  • Why keyword value is important
  • How to calculate keyword value
  • How to find high-value keywords

Ready to get started?

Just think, in only 5 minutes, you will be a keyword value pro!

What is keyword value?

Some keywords have a higher value than others. For example, if a keyword has a higher buyer intent, then it is more likely to drive a purchase, making it more valuable. On the flip side, a low-value keyword may get thousands of searches every month, but advertisers are not willing to pay much to advertise on this search as searchers are not likely to make a purchase. This means that the keyword has low buyer intent.

Why is keyword value important?

As briefly mentioned above, if you want to actively drive sales with your chosen keywords, you need to be focusing on attracting searchers with commercial intent, as these are the ones that are actively ready to make a purchase.

Of course, keyword value is not the only aspect of keyword research that you need to consider, but it is important if you want to increase your conversion rate. Words with a high keyword value tend to be suited to transactional pages on your site, such as your product pages, your sign-up page, and the payment page.

How to calculate keyword value?

Now that you know what keyword value is and why it is important, the next step is to find out how to calculate the value of a particular keyword.

Step 1: Choose a popular product to promote

You first need to choose a product or service that you would like to promote. Ideally, this should be one of your most high-performing products that already has a high margin. If you are thinking, “I want to promote all my products,” be patient. Of course, you want to sell as wide a range of your products and services as you can, but as you are new to the process of determining keyword value, you should focus your efforts on a high-value product or service first.

If you are not sure how to work out which product or service has the highest value, you need to determine the AOV – average order value. This can be calculated by taking the revenue generated from the product or service over a set period of time and dividing it by the number of sales.

Step 2: Calculate the product’s conversion rate percentage

Now that you have chosen the product or service that you would like to promote, your next step is to calculate your current conversion rate percentage for it.

You can easily work out a specific products conversion rate percentage using the below formula:

(Product transactions/product page visits)*100

For example, say you had ten transactions and 80 visits, the conversion rate percentage for that product would be 12.5%.

Step 3: Calculate the product’s conversion rate percentage from lead-to-sale

If you are a B2B company or you sell products with a high value, you are likely to generate leads through your website that they require you or your team to close into a sale. This is an additional step in the sales journey and must be taken into consideration when calculating keyword value.

You can determine your lead-to-sale conversion rate using the following formula:

(Total number of sales/total number of leads)*100

For example, if you had 15 sales and 50 leads, your lead-to-sale conversion rate for that product would be 30%.

Step 4: Choose your keywords

You now need to pick the right keywords for your chosen product or service. This can be a lengthy process and involves a lot of brainstorming and research, but it will be worth it when you start to see your organic traffic levels soar.

If you have not carried out keyword research before, then you may want to read our Keyword Research Guide, which will tell you everything you need to know about how to pick the right keywords for your next content marketing campaign.

In the meantime, there are several free online tools that can help you to carry out effective keyword research, including Google Keyword Planner and Google Trends.

One of the elements of keywords that you will need to look into is keyword volume, as this data shows how many times a keyword is searched for in a month. It is worth noting that although very high volume keywords will bring traffic to your site, as these are typically broad terms, you are unlikely to see many converting into sales.

Don’t forget that the time of year will affect a keyword’s search volume, so you should always use Google Trends to check the seasonality of a keyword before selecting or discarding it.

You also need to identify the click-through rates of each keyword and see which ones have generated the most clicks to your site over the past month. You can find out this data by logging into Google Webmaster Tools.

Step 5: Find the landing page for the keyword

To find out the specific landing page being served for a particular keyword, all you need to do is carry out a manual Google search and make a note of the landing page that Google serves on the search results page for your site.

Alternatively, there are several automated tools that will do this for you, including Google Analytics.

Step 6: Consider search engine click-through averages

Although this is not needed to calculate keyword value, it can be beneficial to seek out some average click-through rate data so that you can get a better idea of what you could hope to achieve if you ranked in a certain position for each of your chosen keywords.

There are several sources online that can provide you with this information, including Advanced Web Rankings, which offers open-source data in their CTR study.

From this, it is clear that the lower you rank, the less traffic you will attract to your landing pages. Those high-ranking positions drive the most clicks.

Step 7: Calculate keyword value

The easiest way to calculate the value of a keyword is to use an SEO Keyword Value Calculator tool, as this will enable you to see what your keywords are worth in monetary value within a matter of seconds. All you need is the data you have collated above, and you can find out the keyword value of as many keywords as you want.

Alternatively, you can carry out this task manually by:

  • Multiplying the total number of clicks to your website for the keyword in question by the conversion rate for the landing page for that keyword. This will give you the estimated number of users that converted from that keyword in Google Search.
  • If you are an e-commerce website, multiple your number of conversions by the average order value for the landing page of that keyword. This will give you your estimated revenue for that keyword.
  • For goal-based sites, the formula is pretty much the same, except you need to account for leads. Start by multiplying the conversion rate for your keyword’s landing page by the percentage of leads from your website that are quality leads. Then multiply that by your sale’s closing rate. This new multiplier will act as your new conversion rate formula.
  • Multiply the total number of clicks to your website by this newly calculated conversion rate to find out the estimated number of new clients acquired in a month the keyword. Then, multiply this number by the average value of a client, and you will have an estimated value of that keyword for your site.

Alternatively, if you are looking for keywords for a PPC campaign, simply use the below formula to work out the keyword value of a particular word that you want to bid on:

Average monthly searches * Suggested PPC Bid * CTR/100

Conclusion

Although keyword value is not the be-all and end-all of keyword research, it is a factor that deserves some consideration as it details how likely a searcher is to actually make a purchase.

As with most aspects of keyword research, choosing keywords based on their value and buyer intent is a balancing act that requires a lot of skill, time, and effort to get right. Highly lucrative keywords can help to drive sales, but they can decimate your marketing budget, so they need to be chosen carefully.

If you need help with keyword research or any other aspect of SEO, get in touch with our dedicated team of SEO experts here today. We offer bespoke SEO services that are tailored to your business objective and goals and guarantee results in even the most competitive industries.

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