Should You Chase High-Volume Keywords? A Better Way to Prioritise SEO Demand

Search volume shows potential demand, but it does not tell you which SEO opportunity deserves investment. Learn how to weigh relevance, SERP fit, attainability and business value.

“Why aren’t we targeting the keyword with the biggest search volume?” It is a reasonable question. When a keyword tool shows one term with thousands of estimated monthly searches and another with only a few hundred, the larger number looks like the obvious choice.

Search volume, though, is only an estimate of query demand. It is not a guaranteed number of visitors, leads or sales. A high-volume keyword may be too broad, poorly matched to your offer or surrounded by search results that give people little reason to click through to your website.

The more useful question is: which search opportunity combines enough demand with strong relevance, realistic visibility and meaningful business value?

This article sets out a practical way to make that decision. One illustrative B2B software example shows why the biggest number is not always the best target, while also explaining why broad, high-volume terms can still deserve serious investment.

Search volume tells you about demand, not opportunity

Keyword tools are useful because they give marketers a common way to compare search activity. Google Keyword Planner describes its average monthly searches metric as an average number of searches for a keyword and close variants over a selected period, location and Search Network setting. The figures are rounded and depend on those settings.

You can see the detail in Google’s documentation for Keyword Planner forecasts and historical metrics. The practical point is simple: a displayed volume figure is not an exact count of people who will visit your site after you rank for the phrase.

It may include close variants. It may represent searches across a wider market than the one you serve. Even if every search were for the exact phrase, ranking for it would not turn every search into a website visit.

Search Console makes some of that distinction visible after your site appears in search. It reports impressions, clicks, click-through rate and average position as separate measures, rather than treating visibility and traffic as the same thing. Google’s Search Console performance documentation explains how these metrics differ.

So the first useful distinction is:

• Demand: how much search activity a tool estimates around a query or group of close variants.
• Opportunity: how worthwhile it may be for your business to earn visibility and clicks for that search.

Demand creates potential. Fit and attainability affect whether that potential is accessible. Business value determines whether it deserves priority.

A worked example: the biggest keyword is not automatically the best one

Imagine a B2B software company that sells project management software to growing professional-services firms. A stakeholder is reviewing these illustrative opportunities:

• Project management software — broad, high estimated demand.
• Resource planning software — more specific, with a smaller estimated audience.
• Project management software for agencies — narrower again, but closely aligned with the company’s target market.

The first phrase looks attractive. It is central to the category and could expose the brand to a large audience. But it also leaves a lot unsaid. Is the searcher looking for a definition, a free personal tool, a comparison, an enterprise platform or software for a particular type of business?

The company might still want to pursue it. Category visibility can support brand awareness, future demand and credibility. It may also require substantial investment in product-led content, links, brand strength and a page experience capable of competing with well-established platforms.

Now consider the narrower phrase “project management software for agencies”. The estimated demand may be lower, but the audience and use case are clearer. A page explaining how the product handles retainers, client work, utilisation and team capacity may be a much better answer than a generic category page.

That does not prove the narrower query will convert better. It gives the business a question worth validating: does this audience match our product, sales motion and customer value?

The difference is not “high volume bad, long tail good”. It is the difference between treating a number as a decision and treating it as one input to a decision.

What should you assess alongside volume?

1. Relevance to the offer

A keyword can be topically related to your business and still be a poor target. The company in our example may be able to write about “project management” in general, but that does not mean it should build its SEO strategy around every related search.

Ask whether the business can provide what the searcher appears to want. If the answer is a definition, tutorial or free template and your business only sells a specialist platform, the connection may be too weak. If the answer is a software shortlist for agencies and your product genuinely serves that market, the fit is stronger.

This is a commercial judgement, not a Google ranking rule. Topical relevance alone does not make a visitor a suitable prospect.

2. Audience fit

Who is likely to make this search? The broad phrase may attract students, freelancers, small teams, procurement managers and people looking for free tools. Some may eventually become customers. Many will not.

A narrower query can make the audience easier to understand, but wording length is not a shortcut to buyer quality. A detailed search might come from someone researching for a colleague, looking for a free resource or trying to solve a problem your product does not address.

Use the query as a prompt for investigation:

• Does the audience resemble the people the business can serve?
• Is the problem important enough for them to act?
• Can the sales, product and customer-success teams support this use case?
• Would the expected visitor recognise the business as a credible answer?

3. Buying intent, treated carefully

Some searches suggest a closer connection to a commercial decision. “Project management software for agencies” sounds more commercially useful than “what is project management?”, for example. But that wording does not guarantee a demo request or a sale.

Teams often use categories such as informational, navigational and transactional to describe the likely task behind a query. These categories simplify a messy journey. One person may search for a definition, compare products and return weeks later through a branded query. Another may search a product term and never be in a position to buy.

Buying intent should therefore be treated as a question to validate, not a conversion forecast. Look at analytics, assisted conversions, CRM information and the quality of enquiries where the data is available. If the opportunity is new, use the SERP and customer knowledge to form a hypothesis rather than presenting it as fact.

4. The shape of the search results

The search results show what kind of experience Google is currently presenting for the query. They may contain conventional web pages, product results, images, videos, local listings, rich results, sitelinks or other exploration features. The mix can vary by query, device, language, location and other context. Google’s search gallery provides an overview of several result features and formats.

Inspect the live SERP and ask:

• What types of pages rank: category pages, product pages, guides, comparisons, directories or homepages?
• What task do those pages appear to support?
• Does the business have a credible way to provide that experience?
• Are there prominent result features that may reduce the practical opportunity for a website click?
• Would the intended page add something useful, or would it simply repeat what already ranks?

This is an evidence-based practical check, not a permanent verdict. Search results change, and one manual view cannot represent every searcher. Even so, the SERP can reveal useful information about the current opportunity that a volume number cannot.

For example, if “project management software” is dominated by established software brands and broad comparison pages, a new entrant should not assume that publishing a generic category page will be enough. It may need a genuinely differentiated product experience, stronger authority or a more focused entry point.

Our article on detecting search-intent drift and SERP page misalignment explores what happens when the page a business wants to rank does not match the experience searchers appear to expect.

5. Click potential

A query can have substantial demand but limited organic click potential. This may happen when the results answer much of the question directly, when other result formats dominate or when searchers are satisfied by a particular platform or destination.

The evidence here needs careful handling. Google documents the difference between impressions and clicks, as well as the variety of result formats, but there is no universal click-through rate that can be applied to every keyword. A prominent result feature does not automatically eliminate clicks, and a traditional results page does not guarantee them.

The sensible conclusion is an inference: volume does not tell you how many people will choose your result. SERP inspection, existing Search Console data and the type of page you could offer are more useful when considered together.

6. Attainability and required effort

There is no single, objective organic competition score. Google Ads Keyword Planner’s competition metric describes advertiser competition relative to other keywords. It is not a measure of organic ranking difficulty. Google’s explanation of Keyword Planner competition makes that distinction.

Third-party SEO platforms may offer their own difficulty scores. Those can help organise research, but they are proprietary estimates built from different inputs. They should not create false precision.

Instead, inspect the pages currently ranking and the work required to compete. Consider their relevance, depth, authority, internal links, technical quality and the usefulness of the experience they provide. These observations are practical inputs to a judgement, not a universal ranking formula.

On a small site, a focused opportunity may be achievable with one strong page and sensible supporting links. On a large site, the same decision may involve product changes, template work, international considerations and several teams. The keyword’s value has to justify the effort and implementation risk.

7. Business value

Traffic is not the final outcome. A useful opportunity should connect to something the business cares about, such as qualified enquiries, product adoption, sales conversations, subscriptions, bookings or a strategically important category.

That does not mean every target needs a precise revenue forecast before work can begin. Early-stage prioritisation often has to use informed judgement. Ask:

• Audience: Is this audience commercially important?
• Offer: Does the business have something that addresses the search?
• Customer value: Is the likely customer value meaningful?
• Strategy: Does the opportunity support an important category or product?
• Measurement: Can success be measured beyond visits?

A modest-click opportunity may be valuable if it brings the right type of enquiry. A high-volume term may be strategically important even when its immediate conversion path is weak. The answer depends on the business model and time horizon.

When the high-volume keyword is still the right choice

It would be a mistake to turn this argument into “always choose the more specific keyword”. Broad terms can be the right investment when they are:

• central to the category the business wants to own;
• strongly relevant to the product or service;
• connected to a valuable audience;
• supported by a page or experience that genuinely answers the query; and
• realistically achievable for the business’s current position and resources.

In our software example, “project management software” may be worth pursuing even if it is difficult and broad. It could support the company’s category positioning, attract future customers and strengthen the commercial ecosystem around more specific product and use-case pages.

The decision is then a strategic category investment, not a promise that the term will deliver the quickest leads. It may deserve a longer time horizon, stronger content and product support than a narrower opportunity.

Conversely, a smaller term may not justify a standalone page. Its demand may be too limited, its wording may be unstable or its SERP may already be satisfied by a broader page. Several closely related searches may be better served by one useful resource rather than a collection of thin pages.

A practical decision checklist

Before assigning content, technical or link-building effort to a keyword, assess it with a short set of questions:

• Demand: What does the available volume estimate suggest, and what settings or close variants does it include?
• Relevance: Does the search genuinely relate to the product, service or expertise we offer?
• Audience: Are the people searching likely to be within the market we can serve?
• Task: What does the searcher appear to be trying to accomplish?
• SERP: What page types and result features currently appear?
• Click potential: Is there a credible reason for someone to visit our page?
• Attainability: Can we create a better or more appropriate experience than the pages already ranking?
• Business value: If the right people arrive, what outcome could this support?
• Effort: What will it take to compete, implement and measure the work?

You do not need to turn these questions into a pseudo-precise score. In many cases, the value lies in making the trade-offs visible. A team may decide that a broad keyword deserves investment because it is strategically important, while a more specific term should be addressed first because it is a better fit for the current product and has a clearer route to action.

Use tools as evidence, not as an oracle

Keyword tools are helpful for finding patterns, comparing ideas and spotting possible demand. They are less useful when their outputs are treated as forecasts with more certainty than the data supports.

Google Trends, for example, presents relative interest rather than an absolute search count. It can help identify direction and seasonality, but it is not an exact organic demand forecast. Google’s explanation of Trends data sets out that relative basis.

Likewise, a volume figure cannot tell you whether a searcher will click your result, whether the visitor is in your target market or whether the business can satisfy the underlying need. Those questions require SERP evidence, customer understanding and, where possible, performance and commercial data.

In practice, the difficult part is rarely finding another keyword. It is deciding which opportunity deserves scarce content, development and marketing time, then validating whether the chosen page creates the expected visibility and business response.

The better target is the best opportunity, not the biggest number

Search volume matters. It helps indicate how much potential demand may exist, and a broad category term can be an important long-term investment. It does not settle the decision.

The strongest SEO target is usually the search opportunity with the best combination of demand, relevance, audience fit, SERP alignment, achievable visibility, click potential and commercial value for the effort required.

That is also why organic traffic should be assessed alongside the quality of leads and outcomes it creates. Our guide to what to investigate when traffic grows but leads do not looks at that wider measurement problem.

Search estimates can help you see where demand might be. They cannot decide what your business should build. That decision belongs at the intersection of search evidence, customer need, competitive reality and commercial judgement.